New Delhi: Indian-American Shankh Mitra has emerged as the world’s second-highest paid CEO worldwide, said a recent report by The Wall Street Journal. His pay package at Welltower, at $821 million, is only second to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose compensation package is $158 billion. However, Mitra’s pay package remains one of the biggest for a public company CEO over the past decade.
Welltower, an S&P 500 company, is a real estate investment trust that invests in healthcare infrastructure. Mitra joined the company in 2016 and became the company’s chief investment officer in 2018. He took over as CEO and vice chair in 2020.
“Over the past five years, Shankh’s investing and operational acumen… have put the Company in a position of strength,” said lead independent director Jeffrey H Donahue in October 2020, when the Welltower board appointed Mitra as CEO.
Welltower CFO Tim McHugh also received a record $167 million payout in 2025.
A degree from Jadavpur University
Much of Mitra’s massive compensation package is tied to stock awards.
“At Welltower, 99% of Mitra’s pay came from stock grants, including $789 million awarded in October. By year-end, the company said shares underlying the award were valued at just over $1 billion,” The Wall Street Journal report said.
He will receive about half the shares in 2031 as long as he stays. The other half depends on Welltower’s market value rising 45 per cent and the company’s shares beating multiple stock indexes by a wide enough margin over five years.
Before he joined Welltower, Mitra worked as a portfolio manager investing in real estate securities at Millennium Management. He managed a team of investment professionals responsible for bottom-up underwriting of commercial real estate companies and portfolios, security selection, quantitative portfolio, and risk management.
He began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and has held senior analyst positions at Citadel Investment Group and Fidelity Investments.
Mitra was born and raised in India, and completed his bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation and Electronics Engineering from Jadavpur University. He moved to the US thereafter. He holds an MBA in Applied Value Investing from Columbia Business School.
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