Here Are Arista Networks’ Highest Paid Executives

Arista Networks’ CEO Jayshree Ullal was the highest-paid of the tech company’s named executives in 2020. Here’s what the rest of Arista’s top executives earned last year.

Arista’s Most-Compensated

Data center and large campus networking specialist Arista Networks, a competitor with the likes of Cisco Systems, has a skilled pool of tech talent at the top. Not to mention, three of Arista’s eight directors on the board are women and two out of the eight directors have served for less than six years.

For the company’s 2020 fiscal year, Arista’s compensation committee decided against making any changes to the base salaries of its five named executive officers, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

CRN reviewed Arista’s proxy filed April 21 with the SEC to find out who the top five most-compensated executives were in fiscal year 2020. Unlike many tech rivals, Arista’s top five executives received the same exact base salary in 2020 of $300,000. The range of stock awards was between $2 million to more than $6 million, and bonus payouts volleyed between $125,000 and $160,000 for the year. The company’s CEO, Jayshree Ullal, declined to take her bonus after the company fell short of its 2020 revenue goal by 8.2 percent, according to the filing.

Here were Arista Networks’ five highest-paid executives of 2020.

Jayshree Ullal

Chief Executive Officer, President and Director

Total Compensation: $6,342,972

Ullal has sat in the president and CEO seat at Arista Networks for 13 years. She also has been a member of the company’s board of directors since she started with the company in October 2008.

A tech veteran, Ullal worked at Cisco Systems from 1993 until she started at Arista in 2008, with her most recent position at Cisco being senior vice president of data center, switching and services group. Prior to 1993, she served as vice president of marketing for Crescendo Communications, Inc. until Cisco acquired the firm.

Since 2020, Ullal has served as a member of the board of directors of Snowflake, Inc. Ullal declined her proposed bonus payout for 2020 given that the company did not hit its financial targets for the year. She earned $300,000 as a base salary last year, $6.03 million in stock awards, and $9,282 in other compensation. She did not pull in any option awards in 2020.

Anshul Sadana

Chief Operating Officer

Total Compensation: $5,751,664

COO for the last two years, Sadana has been with Arista since 2007 and has served in a variety of positions for the company. Sadana earned $300,000 in base salary and the highest bonus of Arista’s executives: $160,000 in 2020. As a stock award, Sadana received $5.28 million and $9,282 in all other compensation. Before his time as COO, Sadana previously served as Arista’s chief customer officer from 2016-2019. Prior to that from 2012-2016, he was senior vice president of customer engineering. Between 2007 and the end of 2011, Sadana worked across several roles, including starting at the company as director of systems engineering. Sadana came to Arista after working in engineering for Cisco’s Gigabit Switching Business Unit.

Ita Brennan

Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Total Compensation: $3,619,147

Brennan came on in 2015 as senior vice president and CFO of Arista. She earned $300,000 in base salary in 2020 and incentive compensation of $140,000. Her stock awards totaled $3.17 million and $9,282 in other compensation.

Prior to her time with Arista, Brennan served as CFO for QuantumScape, a stealth startup firm in the energy sector, between 2014-2015. Brennan also held various roles at Infinera Corporation, an intelligent transport networking company, for more than seven years, most recently serving as CFO from 2010-2014 and vice president of finance and corporate controller from 2006- 2010.

Brennan has been a member of the board of directors of Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a multinational computational software company, since March 2020. She previously served as a member of the board of directors of LogMeIn, Inc. She is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a public accounting alumna of Deloitte and Touche, having worked at the firm in both Ireland and the U.S., according to Arista.

Kenneth Duda

Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Software Engineering

Total Compensation: $2,764,069

A founding member of Arista Networks, Duda has served in a variety of roles for the last 17 years. He earned a base salary of $300,000, a bonus of $125,000, and $2.32 million in 2020. All other compensation earned for the year was $9,282.

Duda has served as CTO and senior vice president of software engineering for the last ten years. Prior to his time with Arista, Duda served as CTO of There, Inc., a virtual worlds company, from 1999-2004. Duda also spent time leading software development of the switch kernel for the Gigabit System Business Unit with Cisco in the 1990’s.

Marc Taxay

Senior Vice President, General Counsel

Total Compensation: $2,662,151

Taxay, who has been with Arista for the last eight years, earned $300,000 in base salary in 2020 and incentive compensation of $140,000. In stock awards, he gained $2.22 million and $2,809 in all other compensation.

A legal veteran, Taxay has served as Arista’s senior vice president, general counsel for the last five years and as the company’s General Counsel since 2013. From 2007-2013, Taxay served as the senior vice president and general counsel of MedeAnalytics, Inc., a healthcare analytics company. Prior to that, Taxay served as the assistant general counsel of Coremetrics, Inc. a digital marketing company, between 2006-2007. From 2002 to 2006, he worked as a partner at Cohen & Grigsby. Taxay holds a B.A. degree in Political Science and a J.D. from The University of Michigan.