CEO and Executive Compensation Practices: 2017 Edition

The Conference Board, in collaboration with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and MylogIQ, recently released CEO and Executive Compensation Practices: 2017 Edition, which documents trends and developments on senior management compensation at companies issuing equity securities registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and, as of May 2017, included in the Russell 3000 Index.

The report has been designed to reflect the changing landscape of executive compensation and its disclosure. In addition to benchmarks on individual elements of compensation packages, the report provides details on shareholder advisory votes on executive compensation (say-on-pay) and outlines the major practices on board oversight of compensation design. Moreover, the study reviews the evolving features of short-term and long-term incentive plans (STIs and LTIs) and performance metrics in a sub-sample of mid-market companies included in the Russell 3000 index.

Compensation data is examined and segmented by business industry and company size (measured in terms of annual revenue). For the purpose of the industry analysis, the report aggregates companies within 10 industry groups, using the applicable Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) codes. In addition, to highlight differences between small and large companies, findings in the Russell 3000 index are compared with those from the S&P 500 Index. The S&P 500, or subset of the S&P 500, is also used to further investigate certain compensation practices, such as changes in pension value, perquisites, and incentive plans. Figures and illustrations used throughout the report refer to the Russell 3000 analysis unless otherwise specified.