Satya Nadella gets $84-mn compensation in 2014

Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella earned $84.3 million this year, according to the salary details coming days after the India-born chief executive was criticised for suggesting that women should not ask for pay raises but trust their ‘good karma’ to get their dues.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Microsoft said Nadella will get a total compensation of $84.30 million for the fiscal year ended June 2014, significantly up from the $7.66 million he received in 2013.

The 2014 compensation includes salary of $918,917, a bonus of $3.6 million and $79.77 million in stock awards, which were designed to keep Nadella at Microsoft while the company hunted for a new CEO and to give him long-term incentives as CEO.

Microsoft said Nadella is slated to receive stock worth an estimated $59.2 million under the long-term performance-based stock award in connection with his promotion to CEO.

However Nadella will not be eligible to receive any part of stock award compensation until 2019.

The amount also includes a one-time special retention stock award of $13.49 million granted to Nadella as Executive Vice President, Cloud and Enterprise in August 2013 to help ensure the continuity of Microsoft's leadership team during the CEO search period and the company’s business transformation.

Microsoft said that its CEO role is demanding, requiring mastery of complex, rapidly evolving business models and the ability to lead a highly technical organisation.

"With the appointment of Satya Nadella, we believe we fulfilled our goal, selecting the best candidate to bring the Company renewed and continued success," it said.

The salary details come less than two weeks after Nadella remarked at a women-in-computing conference women don't need to ask for raises and should just trust their ‘karma’ that the system will pay them in future.

Nadella, at a receiving end of severe public outrage for his comments, later apologised in a letter to the employees saying that he ‘answered that question completely wrong’ on what advice he would offer women who are not comfortable asking for pay raises.

"Without a doubt I wholeheartedly support programs at Microsoft and in the industry that bring more women into technology and close the pay gap. I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work," he later said.

"It was a humbling and learning experience," Nadella said of the reaction to his remarks.

In an interview to CNBC, Nadella said anyone held back in their career by gender bias should push back against their managers, and that he had wrongly drawn on the advice from his own experiences.