The Advisors' Blog

Last week, Glass Lewis released its 2026 Benchmark Proxy Voting Policies for the United States and on Shareholder Proposals & ESG-Related Issues. Dave shared updates on TheCorporateCounsel.net yesterday.

The key compensation-related change is that, as previewed, Glass Lewis has updated its pay-versus-performance model. Here’s more from Dave:

Enhanced Pay-for-Performance Evaluation: Glass Lewis has updated its pay-for-performance model to adopt a scorecard-based approach. Instead of assigning a single letter grade (A–F), the model now consists of up to six tests, each receiving an individual rating. These ratings are aggregated on a weighted basis to produce an overall score ranging from 0 to 100. This change is intended to provide a more nuanced and transparent assessment of executive compensation alignment with company performance.

See the proxy advisor’s Pay-for-Performance Methodology Overview for more.

In light of a recent announcement, the benchmark policy now includes this note:

For 2026, the language in this document has been updated to clarify that these guidelines contain the views of the Benchmark Policy. The Benchmark Policy reflects broad investor opinion and widely accepted governance principles and is intended to provide clients with nuanced analysis informed by market best practice, regulation, and prevailing investor sentiment.

This change better conveys Glass Lewis’ role as a service provider to a diverse, global client base with a wide spectrum of viewpoints and objectives. The Benchmark Policy represents just one of Glass Lewis’ policy offerings.

– Meredith Ervine