New Delhi: The annual salary of Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar jumped to Rs 70 crore ($8.2 million) for the fiscal year 2024. This information was mentioned in the companys recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However according to Cognizant’s proxy statement despite the raise Kumars realised compensation was lower than the target compensation of Rs 137 crore ($16.1 million) for 2024. The shortfall was due to Kumars Performance Share Unit (PSU) grants which are yet to be vested. Consequently Kumars earnings in 2024 primarily comprised of base salary Annual Cash Incentive (ACI) and quarterly vestings of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) said Cognizant as reported by NDTV. The Compensation Committee determined that Kumars target direct compensation for 2024 should be increased to $16100000 (11% increase vs. 2023) to reflect his performance in his first year as CEO and to better align his target compensation with CEOs in the 2024 peer group taking into account compensation trends for CEOs read the statement by company. While Kumars compensation stood at $22.6 million in 2023 it was boosted by a significant one-time equity award granted at the time of his appointment. Kumars realised compensation was significantly lower than his target direct compensation primarily because his 2024 PSU grants are scheduled to vest subject to the satisfaction of performance criteria in future periods said Cognizant. Cognizants CEO-to-median employee pay ratio stood at 378:1 in 2024 according to the companys filing. This means Kumar earned 378 times more than the median Cognizant employee reports NDTV. It further says that as of December last year Cognizant employs about 336800 people worldwide including 241500 in India and 42800 in North America. Despite the dip in realised earnings Kumars compensation package reflects a steady rise in his salary making him one of the highest-paid executives in the country. Kumar who pursued engineering at Shivaji University Kolhapur followed by an MBA from Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar has previously worked at Infosys where he served as president from 2016 to 2022.