Investors and the business media may be vexed about rich executive pay plans, but "golden parachute" severance packages stir particular outrage. Too often, it seems, this departure pay rewards failure, is based on inflated numbers, and loses "say on parachute" investor votes. How can your board...

Legislative and regulatory activity is slowing down, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act rulemaking by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission continues to be much slower than expected. For example, companies have resisted CEO pay to average worked ratio...

With expanding focus on qualitative review factors, performance goal rigor will likely become a key area of attention for institutional investors and proxy advisory firms. Public companies should prepare for heightened scrutiny on the appropriateness of selected metrics and difficulty of...

There are several ways to compare severance packages between private companies including emerging pre-IPO companies, and public companies. While public companies routinely provide severance protection for their senior executives, private companies are lagging in arranging this protection. It is...

In a recent study of top 200 companies by our firm we analyzed the relationship at large U.S. companies between performance measures in long-term incentive plans and company performance as measured by total shareholder return (“TSR”). We were surprised to find that there was no clear-cut...

Mid-market companies ($500 Million to $5 Billion in size) continue to go through incentive plan design changes. These changes are mainly in the long-term incentive plan (LTI) plan design, but our review included short-term incentive (STI) plan design, as well. This article is based on a review...

This article focuses on cash compensation, which includes base salaries and annual bonuses (also referred to as “short-term incentives”). As of the outset of this current economic crisis (early April 2020), the state of change is as follows: Many companies have already begun reducing base...

Private companies seeking to grow their business should also consider equity-based compensation for their employees while at the same time retain control of the company and minimize potential problems associated with creating minority shareholders. Successful private companies are competing with...