Not all employees are created equally, just ask IBM boss Arvind Krishna, who received a financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers.
As the triple crown holder - Chairman, CEO and President - Krishna hit annual and longer term incentive targets, according to IBM's proxy statement. As such, his award leaped compared to the $25.14 million he received in the prior year.
The $1.5 million salary was unchanged, stock awards went up to almost $24 million, options awards were $6.6 million, and non-equity incentive compensation was $5.25 million. The value of his pension went up $42,970 and all other compensation was $601,817.
2025 was seen as a successful year for IBM: revenue grew 8 percent to $67.5 billion, as it "shifted to higher growth areas, with over 75 percent of our business mix in Software and Consulting."
Software was up 11 percent; hybrid cloud, data and automation grew double digits; and the "cumulative GenAI book of [product] business" reached upwards of $2 billion. The Consulting arm grew only 2 percent but here the GenAI contract pipeline was $10.5 billion, showing customers are on track to spend five times more on IBM advisors to tell them what to do with "AI" than they are on the actual "AI."
Gross margin for the 12 months was 58 percent - reflecting the higher mix of software sales - up 150 basis points or 1.5 percent year-on-year. And in other metrics that govern Krishna's pay, IBM reported $13.2 billion cash from operations and $14.7 billion of free cash flow.
It also returned $6 billion to shareholders, and spent $8 billion on ten acquisitions.
Krishna's C-suite generals did pretty well too. CFO James Kavanaugh received $18.84 million versus $13 million in the prior year, and chief commercial officer (sales bigwig) R.D Thomas was awarded $17.5 million, up from $12.28 million.
As for the average IBMer? Well, let's say they didn't reap the same sort of rewards. Compensation for the median employee was $49,630 versus $48,582 in 2024. The relatively low pay - for a tech company - indicates that much of IBM's workers are based in lower cost countries.
The Reg reported years ago that IBM said about a third of its workforce were located in India and Bangladesh, leading to the name-tag Indian Business Machines. Nothing suggests that direction of travel has changed.
Shareholders for IBM are convening at the annual meeting on April 28th with eight proposals tabled. One proposal that IBM is asking stock owners to vote against, is that there should be a report on AI bias. With such a big GenAI book of business, this is perhaps not surprising. ®
Source: The register