Indian-born Nikesh Arora, the CEO of Palo Alto Networks, has landed the second spot on The Wall Street Journal’s 2023 list of highest-paid CEOs in the US. With a compensation of $151.43 million, the 56-year-old’s earnings have surpassed those of many tech giants, like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai.
Here are some facts about Nikesh Arora
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Nikesh Arora was born on February 9, 1968, in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. His father served in the Indian Air Force. He studied at The Air Force School (Subroto Park) before graduating in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi in 1989. After a brief stint at Wipro, he went to the US for an MBA at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
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His work journey started in 1992 when he joined Fidelity Investments, where he took on roles in finance and technology management. Eventually, he became the Vice President of Fidelity Technologies. In 2000, he established T-Motion, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, which later became part of T-Mobile’s core services. He also served as the Chief Marketing Officer of the T-Mobile International Division of Deutsche Telekom AG.
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In 2004, Nikesh Arora joined Google. He held major positions such as Vice President of Europe operations, President of Europe, Middle East and Africa, and ultimately, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer. He worked at Google for almost 10 years.
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Mr Arora then worked for Japan’s SoftBank Corp in 2014. He became Vice Chairman of the group and CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media Inc. He was expected to succeed SoftBank’s CEO, Masayoshi Son, and received $208 million in compensation over two years. However, in June 2016, he surprised everyone by resigning from his roles at SoftBank. He went on to join Palo Alto Networks in 2018 and is now their CEO and Chairman.
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In 2015, Nikesh Arora was honoured with the Global Indian award at the ET Corporate Excellence Awards.
