14 DAY TRIAL // Satya Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer and took over the CEO seat at Microsoft in early 2014, and since then, the new administration team has been trying to give the company a completely new face, which not only is fully focused on a mobile first, cloud first world, but also tries to put users at the core of everything.
And as far as Microsoft’s board is concerned, the leadership has pretty much managed to do that, so it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Satya Nadella’s bonus for 2015 reaches $18.3 million (€16 million).
While it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to have so much money, there’s no doubt that holding the top spot in the world’s number one software company is not an easy thing, so Nadella most likely deserves the financial reward.
And in case you’re wondering, his base salary is $1.2 million (€1.05 million) and in addition, he received $12.8 million (€11.2 million) in stock and $4.3 million (€3.7 million) in bonuses for the performance the company has shown in the last 24 months.
Mobile first, cloud first world
Microsoft’s board says Nadella fully deserves all the money because he is the one who guided the company towards a completely new approach that involves customers, partners, investors, and employees, pushing it towards the proposed mobile first, cloud first world.
“Mr. Nadella provided strong, consistent vision and execution on our mobile-first and cloud-first strategy, continued to effectively guide the transformation of the Company's culture and he effectively represented the Company with customers, partners, investors and employees,” the board says.
“Mr. Nadella established and articulated the Company's three broad ambitions to focus the Company's offerings, and consolidated the operating systems and devices groups into the Windows and Devices Group. Under his leadership, Windows 10 was successfully launched and the executive compensation program became significantly more performance-based.”
Under his guidance, Microsoft launched Windows 10 and completely overhauled its mobile efforts, switching to a different strategy that includes fewer devices and specifically focused on certain customer categories. Time will tell if Nadella’s playing the winning card, but if the company’s board is happy with it, he certainly brings home the bacon.