Executive Compensation

An effective approach to executive compensation ensures your organization's leadership team is effectively aligned with the strategy and direction of the business. We use systematic and proven methodologies to support clients in developing a well-informed executive compensation strategy.

Winning the talent battle with comprehensive compensation solutions

Executive compensation today is inherently complex. Successful organizations must respond quickly and decisively to challenges quite often created by forces out of their control. Executive compensation packages must meet your company's strategic goals while ensuring they're aligned with investors, regulators and the public at large.

Gallagher's Executive Compensation team has extensive experience in the public sector, as well as with privately held, publicly traded and not-for-profit organizations. Whether your company is in growth mode and has decided it's time to implement a formal structure behind your pay programs, or the war for talent makes revisiting your organization's pay program a necessity, our services can help you take care of top talent and build value in your business.

From creating a total rewards philosophy to reviewing contracts and more, our consultants partner with your organization on all aspects of your executive pay programs to create a solution that works for you.

Total rewards philosophy. We help organizations craft a total rewards philosophy (cash compensation, long-term incentives, benefits, retirement) that speaks to an executive's financial, career and personal wellbeing.
Customized compensation benchmarking reviews. We conduct regular salary reviews to recommend appropriate guidelines, ensuring your organization remains competitive.
Incentive plan design and performance-focused alignment. We collaborate with clients to develop a variety of incentive plans that align the incentive to the organization's strategy.
- Short-term incentive design
- Long-term incentive design, including cash or equity-based programs
- Special situations, such as retention, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and initial public offerings (IPOs)
- Performance metric goal setting
Executive contract review. We review executive contracts and make appropriate recommendations.
Custom compensation surveys. We respond to a client's unique data needs by objectively comparing your organization's executive compensation program to others.
Director education. We work with boards of directors to ensure they understand and can make informed decisions about executive compensation programs.
Compensation outsourcing. We help companies who may not have the resources or experience with unique compensation requirements.

Our executive compensation experts work with boards of directors to align shareholder interests, director contributions and executive compensation with a common goal: ensuring a sustainable future for the organization.

Director pay philosophy and structure. We partner with you to determine compensation principles and design them to be in accordance with the objectives of the organization.
Director pay benchmarking. We help ensure your compensation practices are in line with the market.
Committee compensation. We help you assess and determine committee compensation levels and distribution.
Environmental, social and governance. We work with you on shareholder engagement and compliance with compensation governance standards.

Our deep expertise in executive compensation means you can rely on us to make sure your organization meets all of the obligations of shareholder disclosure, including preparing a compensation discussion and analysis (CD&A) and developing a comparator (peer) group.

CD&A draft or review. We will draft a CD&A for your organization's proxy statement or review your current CD&A to make sure it meets the standards of good governance.
Comparator group development. We develop an appropriate and defensible comparator group — also known as a peer group — to compare the fairness and market competitiveness of your executive compensation decisions and uphold the board's fiduciary duty.

Our compensation expertise means we bring a reliable and objective expert opinion to the table during negotiations, mediation and disputes. We support your negotiators in preparing evidence for arbitration or mediation-arbitration, draft an expert report and act as an expert witness.

Collaborative partnership equals creative, effective solutions

We leverage our consultants' experience to help organizations rethink their approach to compensation to optimize their return on reward investments.

We collaborate with our clients to understand their unique situations and focus on developing thoughtful and practical solutions that meet their needs and fit with the organization's culture and structure.

And once the consulting role is complete, clients continue to benefit from our commitment to knowledge transfer. We provide the tools and training necessary to manage compensation programs independently.

A sensible, results-oriented approach guides our work

With decades of consulting experience, Gallagher's Executive Compensation team provides pragmatic, evidence-based advice built on a systematic approach.

We outline a process to achieve goals, and use coherent, direct methodologies that cut through the complexities of executive compensation and allow clients to understand their market position and the effectiveness of their compensation plans.