Long-term incentive (LTI) plans remain a cornerstone of executive compensation.
Historically, proxy advisor firms ISS and Glass Lewis have set a clear expectation that at least 50% of executive LTI awards be tied to performance-based metrics. However, signals from the 2025 proxy advisor policy surveys suggest a softening of this standard in the years ahead. For total rewards professionals shaping compensation strategy, this shift offers a challenge and an opportunity: navigating an increasingly complex set of best practices and creating opportunities for companies to refine their LTI strategy in support of their own strategic business objectives.
In this webinar, we’ll explore:
- What’s Changing and Why It Matters: Gain clarity on how Glass Lewis and ISS’s evolving standards on performance-based LTI usage interacts with broader expectations on pay quantum, LTI mix, vesting terms, and other elements of executive pay strategy and governance.
- ISS’s Enhanced Qualitative Lens: Explore how ISS’s evolving approach—while not codified as formal policy—reflects a growing emphasis on the strategic rationale, performance alignment, and overall effectiveness of LTI design choices and understand what this means for how performance-based awards will be assessed going forward.
- Balancing Design, Disclosure, and Shareholder Expectations: Review the interaction between LTI design decisions and other governance features. Review LTI design practices at S&P 500 companies and discuss LTI designs at specific companies that may be acceptable under the evolving standards.
As the 2025 proxy season nears, total rewards professionals must navigate increasing complexity in LTI design. This webinar equips total rewards professionals with timely insights, strategic guidance, and practical tools to align LTI plans with 2025 proxy expectations.
Brett A. Herand is a managing director at Pearl Meyer. Specializing in executive compensation, he works with boards and management issues related to performance measurement and value creation, incentive plan design, and technical advisory work with respect to tax, accounting, and SEC regulatory issues. Brett works with public and private companies across many industries, including financial and diversified services, technology, and manufacturing. He has been quoted in various publications, including Workspan and Directorship magazines, Agenda, and Bloomberg.
Prior to joining Pearl Meyer in 2008, Brett spent five years in Mercer's human capital practice, working in executive remuneration. He holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
Brooke Fernandez is the General Manager of Main Data Group (MDG), a provider of executive compensation benchmarking and corporate governance analytics. Brooke joined the company in 2022 and has deep experience in services, technology, and B2B SaaS subscription services.
MDG’s mission is to empower executive compensation professionals with meaningful, comprehensive Total Rewards and corporate governance information through the industry’s most cost-effective and easy-to-use data platform. The MDG team continues to innovate upon a comprehensive proxy database and offers custom research services to top-tier companies and Executive Compensation firms worldwide.
Over the last decade, her career has focused on sales and marketing roles, building and executing go-to-market strategies for startups and more mature companies. She holds a bachelor's degree from UCLA and a master's degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
