How A Ghaziabad-Born Engineer Becomes A 'Rising Star', Earning 35 Lakh Daily, Net Worth 8500 Crores

Success Story: Currently, Nikesh Arora receives one of the highest salaries of any CEO in the world. The Uttar Pradesh native, a highly recognized corporate executive, has held important positions at some of the largest worldwide corporations. Once among the top four at Google, he later rose to become Softbank's number two employee. Also among his employers are Wipro, Bharti Airtel, T-Mobile, and Deutsche Telekom. He was appointed CEO of cybersecurity industry leader Palo Alto Networks in 2018 with a record-breaking $128 million (1055.35 crore) remuneration package.

Nikesh Arora: An IIT Alumni, Varanasi

An Indian-American business leader, Nikesh Arora, was born on February 9th, 1968. Arora formerly held a senior executive position at Google. From October 2014 to June 2016, he presided over the SoftBank Group. Arora became the CEO and chairman of Palo Alto Networks on June 1st, 2018.  Arora, an electrical engineering graduate (1989) of the Indian Institute of Technology, BHU in Varanasi, India, was born to an Indian Air Force officer and attended the Air Force School (Subroto Park) until the end of his education there in 1989. He graduated from Boston College and received his MBA from Northeastern University. His CFA designation dates back to 1999.

Nikesh Arora: The 'Rising Star'

Nikesh Arora started his career at Fidelity Investments in 1992 and eventually rose to the level of vice president, finance, of Fidelity Technologies after holding a number of finance and technology management positions. Ghaziabad-born Arora, joined Google in 2004. Over the course of a ten-year career, Arora rose through the ranks at Google before leaving the business in 2014. He later joined Softbank, where Masayoshi Son, a business magnate, described him as a "rising star". Arora invested in significant deals at Softbank, such as those with Ola, Snapdeal, and Oyo Rooms. Under his leadership, the company made approximately $2 billion (164 thousand crore) in investments. He rose to become one of the highest-paid business leaders in the world at the time, earning $73 million (around 601 crores) a year. His initial soft-back salary package actually set a record in Japan.

Nikesh Arora: The Success Story

Under Nikesh, who aspires to make Palo Alto the first $100 billion (8245 thousand crores) cybersecurity company, the company has reached unprecedented heights. Under his direction, the business saw a market capitalization increase of $27.8 billion (2292 thousand crore) over the course of three years, returned $3.6 billion (296 thousand crore) to shareholders, and achieved record sales of $5.5 billion (453 thousand crore) in FY2022. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Arora oversaw Palo Alto and made the decision to forgo $1 million (8 Crores) of his income. There was not a single employee let go by the company.

According to Palo Alto Networks' financial report, Arora received pay totaling more than $33.5 million over the previous two years. According to the average USD-INR conversion rate for July 2021, Nikesh earned a total of $23.28 million in 2021, which is equivalent to roughly Rs 174 crores for the fiscal year that ended in July of that year. Nikesh made $10.40 million in 2022, which translates to Rs 82.7 crore using the same translation average for July 2022. Over the past two years, Nikesh has received compensation totaling more than Rs 256.1 crore, increasing his wealth by more than Rs 35 lakh every day. According to the most recent IIFL Wealth Hurun India report, with a net worth of Rs. 8,500 crore, he is one of the richest CEOs in the world.