Research Report | By Marco Pizzitola, Desmond Pang, Joe Sorrentino

Ensuring stability across the leadership team is an important factor in executing proper CEO succession, particularly as it applies to high-value individuals that may have been considered as CEO candidates themselves.

Research Report | By Sarah Lindenberg Cohen, Tom Kohn, Rachel Chiu

The 53rd edition of the Top 250 Report explores executive long-term incentive practices at the 250 largest companies by market capitalization, with an emphasis on how prolonged 5-year market volatility and uncertainty has influenced and shaped plan design and structure.

Research Report | By Warren Suh, Ezra Womark, Rachel Gibbons
FW Cook’s 2025 Annual Incentive Plan Report provides a comprehensive review of the annual incentive plans of the top 250 largest companies in the S&P 500 by market capitalization. This report examines trends in financial and non-financial metrics, goal-setting practices, and actual payouts, comparing findings over the past 3-year and 6-year periods.

Research Report | By Marco Pizzitola, Stephen Hom, David Cole

This third edition of the Global Top 250 Compensation Survey presents information on compensation levels for the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, the design of long-term incentives, and share usage at the 250 largest listed companies globally.

Research Report | By Lauren Shatanof, James Lutz, Voytek Sokolowski

FW Cook presents information on long-term incentives granted to executives at the 250 largest U.S. companies in the S&P 500 Index, with special focus on trends over the last five years.

Research Report | By Blake Davidson, Austin Lee

Our research focused on 300 companies spread across five industry groups and divided equally among small-, mid- and large-cap segments. Covering the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, the key findings of our 2024 aggregate share-based compensation study are as follows.

Research Report | By Jose Furman, Ian Kim, Michael Kenney
FW Cook’s 2024 Annual Incentive Plan Report provides a comprehensive review of the annual incentive plans of the top 250 largest companies in the S&P 500 by market capitalization. Annual incentive plans are critical tools used to align executive compensation with a company’s short-term goals and support talent attraction, motivation and retention objectives.

Research Report | By Shawn Lee, Zian Chen, Alec Lentz

Persisting economic uncertainties are challenging companies’ ability to establish long-term business forecasts and causing some to reassess long-term incentive plan designs. This Top 250 Report details executive long-term incentive practices at the 250 largest companies by market capitalization, with special focus on design trends that have emerged since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research Report | By Sara Salzbank, Elaine Yim

FW Cook conducted a study of the use of ESG measures in annual and long-term incentive plans among the largest U.S. public companies, consisting of the 250 U.S.-listed companies in the S&P 500 with the largest market capitalizations as of April 30, 2023.