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Satya Narayana Nadella is an Indian-American business executive who has an estimated net worth of $387 million. He is the CEO of Microsoft since 2014 when, by then CEO Steve Ballmer, left the company. Nadella became the third chief executive in Microsoft's four decades history after the company founder Bill Gates and Ballmer.
Nadella was born on August 19, 1967 in Telangana, India. His father, Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar, was an Indian Administrative Service officer. His mother, Prabhavati, worked as a Sanskrit lecturer. He studied electrical engineering at Mangalore University and graduated in 1988. Nadella then moved to the United States and obtained a Master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin in 1990. After that, he worked at Sun Microsystems until 1992, when he joined Microsoft, where he initially was involved in the development of Windows NT, an operating system aimed at business users. While working at Microsoft, Nadella earned an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1996. Two years later, he was designated Vice President of the Microsoft small-business service, and in 2001 he became Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions. In 2007, Nadella was promoted to Senior Vice President of Research and Development for the company’s online services, and he later served as President of Microsoft’s server and tools business from 2011 to 2013.
Subsequently, he was Executive Vice President in charge of the company’s cloud computing platform until February 4, 2014, when he became CEO. One of Nadella’s first major tasks was overseeing the acquisition of Nokia for $7.2 billion in 2014. In 2016, Nadella led the purchasing of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. In 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion.
In 2017, Nadella published his autobiography, called Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone (written with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols), where he reviews his life and career in Microsoft and shares his ideas on how technology will shape the future. All the earnings from the book were given to Microsoft Philanthropies.
In 2020, he earned for his role a total compensation of $44,321,788, which includes a $2.5 million salary, $30,718,608 in stock awards, $10,992,000 as non-equity compensation, and $111,180 for other compensations. Nadella owns 1,214,259 common shares of Microsoft, valued at $287,147,968 million (due to Microsoft's stock price is $236,48 as of March 26, 2021), and 781,976 underlying stocks of the company, which could mean if become effective $184,921,684 million (subject to performance and continued employment at the time of each shares vest). He was included in the Powerful People 2018 and Innovative Leaders 2019 rankings made by Forbes.
In 2020, Microsoft increased its revenue by 14% year over year to $143 billion, its operating income by 23% to $53 billion, and its net income by 13% to $44.3 billion. The commercial cloud business revenue increased 36% to $51.7 billion, GitHub registered developers exceeding 50 million, and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions surpassing 10 million. The company had a 52% total shareholder return and outperformed the S&P 500 index by 5% and the NASDAQ index by 24%. When Nadella was appointed CEO, Microsoft had a market capitalization of $300 billion, and over the next seven years the company’s value grew up to more than $1.7 trillion.
Nadella is married to a high school classmate called Anupama since 1992 and they have three children, two daughters, and a son. The family lives in a 4,050-square-foot house valued at $3.5 million in 2016 in Bellevue, Washington. He and his wife are part owners of the Seattle Sounders FC, a Major League Soccer club.
He serves on the board at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center since July 2016 and at Starbucks since March 2017. Besides, he is a trustee at the University of Chicago since June 2020 and chairman at The Business Council since October 2020.
Sources: Financial Slot, Wall Street Journal, SEC, Forbes, Forbes (2), NASDAQ, SEC (2), SEC (3), SEC (4), SEC (5), SEC (6), SEC (7), Business Standard, Microsoft, Microsoft (2), Microsoft (3), Político, Realtor, Bloomberg, Nasdaq
Earnings & Financial Data
Date | Category | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
2020 | Others | Microsoft other compensations | $111,000 |
2020 | Others | Microsoft non-equity compensation | $11,000,000 |
2020 | Asset | Microsoft stock awards | $30,700,000 |
2020 | Salary | Microsoft | $2,500,000 |
2019 | Others | Microsoft other compensations | $111,000 |
2019 | Others | Microsoft non-equity compensation | $10,800,000 |
2019 | Asset | Microsoft stock awards | $29,600,000 |
2019 | Salary | Microsoft | $2,300,000 |
2018 | Others | Microsoft other compensations | $111,000 |
2018 | Others | Microsoft non-equity compensation | $7,400,000 |
2018 | Asset | Microsoft stock awards | $16,800,000 |
2018 | Salary | Microsoft | $1,500,000 |
2017 | Salary | Microsoft | $1,450,000 |
2017 | Asset | Microsoft stock awards | $11,400,000 |
2017 | Others | Microsoft other compensations | $97,100 |
2017 | Others | Microsoft non-equity compensation | $7,000,000 |
2016 | Salary | Microsoft | $1,200,000 |
2016 | Bonus | Microsoft | $4,400,000 |
2016 | Asset | Microsoft stock awards | $12,000,000 |
2016 | Others | Microsoft other compensations | $14,100 |
2016 | Asset | 4,050-square-foot house in Bellevue, Washington valued at 3.5 million in 2016 | $3,500,000 |
2015 | Others | Microsoft other compensations | $13,000 |
2015 | Bonus | Microsoft | $4,300,000 |
2015 | Salary | Microsoft | $1,200,000 |
2015 | Asset | Microsoft stock awards | $12,700,000 |
2014 | Others | Microsoft other compensations | $12,700 |
2014 | Asset | Microsoft stock awards | $79,700,000 |
2014 | Bonus | Microsoft | $3,600,000 |
2014 | Salary | Microsoft | $918,000 |