Indian Origin Ceo Bags Rs 7744 Cr Trails Only Elon Musk

Shankh Mitra, the CEO of US-based healthcare real estate giant Welltower, has emerged as the second-highest-paid chief executive in the world, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The only executive ahead of him is Elon Musk, whose compensation was valued at a staggering $158 billion.

Mitra’s massive pay package comes at a time when CEO compensation has made a strong comeback.

The report said 2025 saw the highest number of executives earning at least $100 million since 2021. Nearly a dozen CEOs crossed the $200 million mark.

For Mitra, the journey is nothing short of remarkable.

He began his career path in Kolkata, where he studied engineering at Jadavpur University and completed his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Instrumentation and Electronics Engineering.

He later moved to the United States and earned an MBA in Applied Value Investing from Columbia Business School, a move that shaped his rise in finance and investment management.

Before joining Welltower, Mitra worked in senior investment roles at Citadel LLC and Millennium Management, focusing on real estate securities and investment portfolios.

He joined Welltower in 2016. The company is a major real estate investment trust focused on healthcare and senior housing properties.

In 2018, he became the company’s chief investment officer, and in 2020, he took over as CEO.

At the time of his appointment, Welltower’s lead independent director Jeffrey H. Donahue praised Mitra’s investing and operational skills, saying his leadership had placed the company in a stronger position.

Mitra had then said he was humbled and honoured to take on the responsibility.

But what has now put him in the global spotlight is his extraordinary 2025 compensation.

Unlike a traditional salary-heavy package, almost all of Mitra’s pay came through company shares. Around $789 million of his package was linked to a stock award issued in October.

By the end of the year, the value of those shares had reportedly crossed $1 billion due to Welltower’s strong stock performance.

However, the huge payout is not immediate. It is tied to long-term goals. Mitra is expected to receive about half of the shares in 2031, but only if he continues with Welltower.

The remaining shares depend on the company meeting tough performance targets, including increasing its market value by 45 percent and outperforming major stock market indices over five years.

The report also said three other Welltower executives received compensation packages of more than $100 million, making it one of the rare companies to have four executives with such massive payouts in a single year.

Apart from Musk and Mitra, other top-paid executives included George Kurtz with $248 million, Hock Tan with $205 million, David Zaslav with $165 million and Stephen Schwarzman with $126 million.

Another Indian-origin business leader, Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks, also featured among the top 10 highest-paid executives. He ranked eighth with a pay package worth $100 million.

For corporate India and the Indian diaspora, Shankh Mitra’s rise from Kolkata to one of the world’s biggest CEO paydays is now a major global success story.

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The problem with the corporate world is that you work so hard to make some unknown faces filthy rich, and they c0mmit all sorts of cr!mes. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, as your work or riches earn you bad karma. That is the sad reality. An honest government employee is better off on his journey to spiritual growth.

There is no honest govt employee but most of the corporate employees are honest and hard working cuz of fear of firing.