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Meet Shemara Wikramanayake – Australia’s Highest Paid CEO

It was 2008 before a woman broke through the male-dominated class of CEOs of companies that trade publicly on the ASX when Gail Kelly assumed the title at Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX: WBC).

By 2025 Australia has made little progress in the broader market but the Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported on 9 June of 2023 that five women were in the top leadership role at five of the companies included on the ASX 20 Index, with eight in charge among ASX 50 companies.

Overall, the number of women CEOs is also increasing according to the AFR, with 10.5% women leading ASX 200 companies as of mid-year 2023.

By the end of calendar year 2024, the CEO of Macquarie Group (ASX: MAQ) Shemara Wikramanayake was ranked as the highest paid CEO in the country with salary and incentives totaling $30.4 million dollars, besting Aaron Erter second ranked CEO of James Hardie (ASX JHX) –– who was paid $27.4 million dollars. This was the third year in a row showing Wikramanayake as Australia’s highest paid CEO, with a 28% year over year pay increase.

 

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Who is Shemara Wikramanayake?

Although born in London in 1962, Shemara Wikramanayake traces her ancestry to Sri Lanka, with the family migrating to England for her father to advance hs medical career.

Following some challenging conditions in England, the family moved to Australia in the 1970’s with a reported $200 in their pockets. At age fourteen, Shemara enrolled in the prestigious Ascham School for girls in the Sydney Suburbs, moving on to the University of New South Wales where she received bachelor’s degrees in both Commerce and Law, graduating in 1985. In 1996 she completed the Advanced Management Program from Harvard University in the United States.

Wikramanayake is married to an investment banker, and has a son and a daughter. In addition to her physician father, her accomplished family includes an older sister who is a lawyer and a brother who is a surgeon.

 

What is Shemara Wikramanayake’s Net Worth?

According to marketscreener.com, Shemara Wikramanayake’s net worth as of 30 December of 20224 was $449 million dollars. Her entire net worth listed on marketscreener.com stems from her holdings in Macquarie Group stock, with holdings of 0.86%, or 3,268,581shares, with Shemara proudly proclaiming she has never sold a single share of Macquarie stock.

 

Which Companies Does Shemara Wikramanayake Run?

Shemara Wikramanayake began her career in 1985 as a corporate lawyer, working for Ashurst LLP, an international commercial law firm with its Australian headquarters in Sydney.

After two short years, in 1987 she abandoned a promising law career to move into finance, landing at Australia’s largest multinational investment bank, Macquarie Capital. During her twenty year stay at Macquarie Capital Wikramanayake ran the company’s corporate advisory office in New Zealand and established corporate advisory offices in Hong Kong and Malaysia.

After twenty-one years at Macquarie Capital, Shemara was moved to head the company’s asset management division in 2008 establishing an infrastructure funds management business in the US and Canada while driving the fledgling asset management business towards unprecedented growth in six countries.

In the ten years she led Macquarie asset management, she was responsible for a team of 1,600 employees working in 24 unique markets, building the asset management business into a global infrastructure investment pioneer. Operating profits and share price appreciation reached record levels under her leadership.

The Macquarie Asset Management business vaulted to a top 50 global securities management firm under her leadership turning that business into Macquarie’s most profitable operation, an achievement that contributed to her elevation to Chier Executive Officer of Macquarie Group in December of 2018.

Macquarie Group consists of four diversified operating businesses – asset management, retail banking, capital raising, and renewables development. In her first four years at the helm, Shemara Wikramanayake led the group to record breaking profits in FY 2021 followed by a 56% profit increase in FY 2022, setting another record. Growth spanned all four of Macquarie’s operating businesses.

Macquarie now serves 34 markets around the world, with $AUD916.8 billion dollars in assets under management, employing more than 20,000 people around the world.

Shemara Wikramanayake placed fifth in the  Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business list shortly before assuming the CEO position at Macquarie Group and has made the list every year since. She is also a regular on multiple other power lists around the world.

Shemara is guiding Macquarie towards a smooth transition to green energy. She is actively channeling investments in renewables development and climate-resilient solutions. Macquarie is chipping away at the UK and European markets to expand their dominating presence here in Australia and in the United States.

Her efforts towards growing renewables worldwide go beyond Macquarie’s business operations. In 2018 as she stepped up to lead Macquarie, the World Bank selected Shemara to take the role of Commissioner of the Global Adaptation and Private Sector Investment Commission, an organization committed to implement and accelerate climate action plans globally.

In 2019, US politician and investment business entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg was instrumental in getting appointed Shemara as the founding CEO of the United Nations (UN) Climate Finance Leadership Initiative (CFLI), a role she also has been selected for in India.

Shemara has been a featured speaker at climate change conferences around the world, and advices the Australian government on investments in green technologies.

Shemara Wikramanayake’s efforts to promote investments in renewables have seemed to some as contradictory, as the company remains in the fossil fuel sector. Yet on 17 January of 2025 Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) was reported on some financial websites to have “invested over $7 billion in energy transition strategies with  a portfolio of 35+ private companies that are at the forefront of the green revolution.”

Shemara Wikramanayake 35+ year career with Macquarie group has seen her rise from a key role in Macquarie Capital to a record-setting performance as head of the company’s asset management operating division, reaching the pinnacle of CEO in 2019. She has been the highest paid CEO on the ASX for the past three years, with a net worth of $449 million dollars as of the close of calendar year 2024.