Updated April 2026 · SEC DEF 14A data
Arvind Krishna
Chief Executive Officer at IBM · IT Services
Arvind Krishna serves as Chief Executive Officer of IBM. Total compensation: $13.7M. CEO compensation at U.S. public companies is disclosed via the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement, including base salary, stock and option awards, performance-tied incentives, and "other compensation" that captures perquisites and post-employment benefits.
Substantial compensation packages at this level are typical of senior executives at large public companies. The mix usually skews equity-heavy, with multi-year vesting schedules tying actual realized comp to forward performance. The CEOPay executive page surfaces the per-year compensation history (where multi-year disclosure exists), the breakdown by award type, and the per-company context for the role. Cross-executive comparisons within a single company are most useful for understanding internal pay structure.
Arvind Krishna, Chief Executive Officer at IBM, earned $13.7M in reported total compensation in fiscal year 2025 and $49.7M in cumulative SEC-disclosed compensation across the 4 fiscal years on file. Pay was disclosed in the company's SEC DEF 14A proxy statement and is broken into salary, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive, pension change, and other compensation under the Summary Compensation Table required by Regulation S-K Item 402.
Total Compensation
Fiscal year 2025
Compensation Breakdown
Arvind Krishna Net Worth: $49.7M in SEC-Disclosed Pay
Arvind Krishna has earned $49.7M in cumulative total compensation across the 4 fiscal years of disclosure on file (2022–2025) as Chief Executive Officer at IBM. That figure — the sum of every Summary Compensation Table entry the company has filed under SEC Regulation S-K Item 402 — is a defensible floor for an estimated net worth conversation: it is firmly in the eight-figure range; actual net worth is typically higher once vested-and-held stock appreciation and outside investments are included, and is sometimes lower if a meaningful share of pay was sold near grant to cover taxes. Arvind Krishna's actual net worth is not directly disclosed in SEC filings; it would require reconciling this cumulative pay with current beneficial ownership, prior open-market stock sales (reported on Form 4), exercised options, taxes paid, and personal investments outside the company.
Beneficial ownership — the actual share count Arvind Krishna controls — is disclosed separately in the same DEF 14A in the “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management” table, with insider transactions reported on SEC Form 4 within two business days of any open-market trade. To estimate Arvind Krishna’s current net worth from public filings alone, combine cumulative disclosed compensation above with current IBM share count × share price, subtract option exercises and stock sales already reported on Form 4, then adjust for taxes (typically 35–50% of vested equity value at grant) and any disclosed personal investments.
What Arvind Krishna's Pay Tells Us
Arvind Krishna earns $13.7M as Chief Executive Officer at IBM — eight-figure compensation that places them comfortably above the median S&P 500 named executive officer. Stock awards and long-term incentives typically account for most of the package, with annual cash incentives reflecting near-term operational performance.
Balanced equity-and-cash package: stock and option awards account for roughly 62% of total compensation, with base salary at 10% and the remainder in annual cash incentive, pension change, and other compensation. This mix is common in mid-cap public companies and in industries with more stable revenue trajectories.
IBM's CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is 144:1 — broadly typical of large U.S. enterprise companies under the SEC Item 402(u) disclosure framework. Shareholders approved the most recent say-on-pay vote with 95.7% support — strong alignment with the compensation committee.
Compensation History
| Year | Salary | Bonus | Stock Awards | Options | Non-Equity | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $1.4M | - | $6.9M | $1.6M | $2.1M | $1.5M | $13.7M |
| 2024 | $1.2M | - | $6.0M | $1.4M | $1.8M | $1.3M | $12.0M |
| 2023 | $1.2M | - | $6.0M | $1.4M | $1.8M | $1.3M | $12.0M |
| 2022 | $1.2M | - | $6.0M | $1.4M | $1.8M | $1.3M | $12.0M |
Across the 4 fiscal years on file (2022–2025), total compensation has ranged from $12.0M to $13.7M — a $1.7M swing typically driven by equity-grant timing, performance-share-unit vesting, or pension-actuarial revisions rather than changes in base salary or annual cash bonus.
How These Numbers Are Reported
Every figure on this page comes from the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement that IBM filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its most recent annual shareholder meeting. The proxy is freely available on the SEC's EDGAR system. Inside it, the Summary Compensation Table reports salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive plan compensation, change in pension and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings, all other compensation, and total — for the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and the three other most highly compensated executive officers (the "named executive officers" or NEOs).
Stock awards and option awards are reported at grant-date fair value under FASB ASC 718, which is an accounting estimate at the time of grant rather than realized pay. Realized pay — what the executive actually banked — appears in the separate "Option Exercises and Stock Vested" table inside the same DEF 14A. Both views matter: the grant-date number is what the board approved, the realized number is what actually flowed to the executive in a given year. Read the full methodology for inputs, weights, and how each line item is sourced.
Authoritative governance context: Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis publish the proxy-advisor frameworks most institutional shareholders use to evaluate pay alignment, and our Pay-for-Performance Grade follows the same four-factor approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Arvind Krishna earn?
Arvind Krishna earned $13.7M in total compensation as Chief Executive Officer at IBM in fiscal year 2025, as disclosed in the company's most recent SEC DEF 14A proxy statement. Arvind Krishna earns $13.7M as Chief Executive Officer at IBM — eight-figure compensation that places them comfortably above the median S&P 500 named executive officer. Stock awards and long-term incentives typically account for most of the package, with annual cash incentives reflecting near-term operational performance.
What is Arvind Krishna's pay package made of?
Arvind Krishna's reported total of $13.7M breaks into base salary of $1.4M, stock awards of $6.9M, option awards of $1.6M, plus non-equity incentive, pension change, and other compensation. Balanced equity-and-cash package: stock and option awards account for roughly 62% of total compensation, with base salary at 10% and the remainder in annual cash incentive, pension change, and other compensation. This mix is common in mid-cap public companies and in industries with more stable revenue trajectories.
What is Arvind Krishna's net worth?
Arvind Krishna has earned $49.7M in cumulative total compensation across the 4 fiscal years of disclosure on file (2022–2025) as Chief Executive Officer at IBM. That figure — the sum of every Summary Compensation Table entry the company has filed under SEC Regulation S-K Item 402 — is a defensible floor for an estimated net worth conversation: it is firmly in the eight-figure range; actual net worth is typically higher once vested-and-held stock appreciation and outside investments are included, and is sometimes lower if a meaningful share of pay was sold near grant to cover taxes. Arvind Krishna's actual net worth is not directly disclosed in SEC filings; it would require reconciling this cumulative pay with current beneficial ownership, prior open-market stock sales (reported on Form 4), exercised options, taxes paid, and personal investments outside the company.
Where does this compensation data come from?
Every figure on this page is sourced from the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement that IBM filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its most recent annual shareholder meeting. The Summary Compensation Table inside the filing is the authoritative document, available on the SEC EDGAR system at https://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. Equity values follow FASB ASC 718 grant-date fair-value accounting; pension changes reflect the year-over-year actuarial revision required by Regulation S-K Item 402.
How has Arvind Krishna's pay changed over time?
Across the 4 fiscal years on file (2022–2025), total compensation has ranged from $12.0M to $13.7M — a $1.7M swing typically driven by equity-grant timing, performance-share-unit vesting, or pension-actuarial revisions rather than changes in base salary or annual cash bonus.
What is IBM's pay-for-performance picture?
IBM's CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is 144:1 — broadly typical of large U.S. enterprise companies under the SEC Item 402(u) disclosure framework. Shareholders approved the most recent say-on-pay vote with 95.7% support — strong alignment with the compensation committee. IBM earns a Pay-for-Performance Grade of C (62/100) on the four-factor framework documented on the methodology page.
Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, DEF 14A proxy filings via EDGAR. Public domain.
Last updated 2026-04-06 · 4 fiscal years of compensation history on file.