The Advisors' Blog

Pay Governance recently provided a rundown of the top issues compensation committees are discussing — and will continue to discuss — this year. The following topics are top-of-mind for compensation committees today — based on the 250+ meetings that Pay Governance partners or consultants have been involved with so far this year.

1. Enhanced Executive Security
2. Potential Impact of Tariffs on Incentive Plans
3. One Big Beautiful Bill Act – Proposed Impact on Executive Pay
4. Navigating Shifting Pressures on ESG and DEI Goals
5. Balancing Pay Decisions in Challenging Sectors
6. Incentive Plan Alternatives Amid Uncertainty
7. Heightened Scrutiny on Goal-Setting Practices
8. Alignment of Incentive Plan Payouts and TSR
9. Long-Term Incentive Vehicle Mix
10. Diverging Say-on-Pay Perspectives: Institutional Investors vs. Proxy Advisors
11. Shareholder Outreach Challenges
12. Talent Retention and Succession Planning

The report briefly discusses each topic — explaining why each of these is getting a lot of attention from boards and providing some statistics. For example, with respect to diverging say-on-pay perspectives, here’s what the alert provides:

SOP support from large institutional investors has remained consistently strong in recent years. However, recent data reveal a decline in alignment between institutional investors and proxy advisors on SOP voting outcomes. This suggests that institutional investors may be placing less reliance on proxy advisor guidance and increasingly forming independent judgments on executive compensation matters. It may also highlight an emerging shift in how executive pay practices are evaluated and signal a broader rebalancing of influence in shaping SOP results.

– Meredith Ervine