Research Reports
Since its founding in 1973, FW Cook has published annual reports that offer in-depth analysis of executive compensation trends, providing trusted, data-driven insights to inform sound decision-making.
2024 Director Compensation Report
Research Report | By Tahmid Ali, Matt Lum
FW Cook’s 2024 Director Compensation Report studies non-employee director compensation practices at 300 companies of various sizes and industries to analyze market practices in pay levels and program structure. At the median, year-over-year increases in total director compensation – observed to be meaningfully more muted than prior year trends.
2023 Executive Change-in-Control (CIC) and Non-CIC Severance Practices
Research Report | By Noah Kaplan, Eva Gencheva, Alyssa Imelio
Executive severance practices have evolved over the last decade, with changes influenced in part by large institutional investors and proxy advisors. This report summarizes current market severance practices for CEOs and CFOs, with specific focus on arrangement types, qualifying termination definitions, cash severance, equity treatment, continued health and welfare benefit duration, excise tax treatment, and restrictive covenants.
2023 Director Compensation Report
Research Report | By Rachel Chiu
FW Cook’s 2023 Director Compensation Report studies non-employee director compensation at 300 companies of various sizes and industries to analyze market practices in pay levels and program structure.
2023 Top 250 Report
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.
2023 Use of Environmental, Social, and Governance Measures in Incentive Plans
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.
2022 Top 250 Report – 50th Edition
Research Report | By Shyam Patel, Shane Anderson, James Park
The 50th annual FW Cook Top 250 Report details long-term incentive practices and trends of the 250 largest companies in the S&P 500 by market capitalization. This study focuses on understanding how long-term incentive (“LTI”) programs are currently designed and how they have evolved since the release of FW Cook’s 2021 report.
2022 Director Compensation Report
Research Report | By Tyler Janney, Michael Kenney, Stafford Schmidt
FW Cook’s 2022 Director Compensation Report studies non-employee director compensation at 300 U.S. public companies of various sizes and industries to analyze market practices in pay levels and program structure.
2022 Use of Environmental, Social, and Governance Measures in Incentive Plans
Research Report | By Lauren Shatanof, Blake Davidson, Rachel Gibbons
FW Cook has conducted a third study of the use of ESG measures in annual and long-term incentive plans among the largest U.S. public companies, consisting of 250 U.S.-listed companies in the S&P 500 with the largest market capitalizations as of March 31, 2022.
2022 Top 250 Annual Incentive Plan Report
Research Report | By Voytek Sokolowski, Austin Lee
FW Cook’s 2022 Annual Incentive Plan Report covers annual incentive plan design practices among the 250 largest companies in the S&P 500 by market capitalization. It focuses on understanding how annual incentive plans are currently designed and how they have evolved over a three- and six-year lookback period.
Global Top 250 Compensation Survey 2021/2022
Research Report | By David Cole, Stephen Hom, Marco Pizzitola
FW Cook, FIT Remuneration Consultants and Pretium Partners are proud to present the second edition of our Global Top 250 Compensation Survey, which contains information on compensation levels for CEOs an CFOs, the design of long-term incentives, and share usage at the 250 largest listed companies globally.
2021 Top 250 Report
Research Report | By Shawn Lee, Metin Aksoy
This 49th annual FW Cook Top 250 Report details the long-term incentive practices and trends of the 250 largest companies in the S&P 500.
2021 Use of Environmental, Social, and Governance Metrics in Incentive Plans
Research Report | By Christina LaRocque, Matt Lum
Increased investor and stakeholder interest in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) topics has led to increased focus on ESG among public companies. One approach for signaling the importance of ESG externally is to incorporate ESG metrics and goals into executive incentive plans.
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