Shaun Bisman and Cedrick Jean-Louis’ research was highlighted in Compensation Standards’ article on how often and when activist investors raise issues with executive pay during proxy contests. CAP’s findings show that activist investors raise pay concerns in nearly half of all proxy contests annually, often pointing to pay-for-performance misalignment (91% of cases) and excessive CEO pay as key issues.

Partner Shaun Bisman was a guest on the Pay and Proxy Podcast (compensationstandards.com) where he discussed the following topics: 1) Executive compensation-related updates to Glass Lewis’s 2025 Voting Policy Guidelines; 2) ISS’s 2024 FAQ updates regarding the presentation of realizable pay, evaluation of program metrics and changes to in-process pay programs; 3) ISS’s new FAQ on performance-vesting equity disclosure; 4) Potential changes to ISS’s Benchmark Voting Policies for 2026 relating to the treatment of time-vesting equity awards; 5) Practical implications and action items for compensation committees.

Partner Shaun Bisman and Analyst Rebecca Friday’s recent CAP Alert “ISS Publishes 2024 Global Benchmark Policy Survey Results” was mentioned in a blog post discussing the topic on CompensationStandards.com.

Partners Dan Laddin and Matt Vnuk appeared on CompensationStandards.com’s The Pay & Proxy Podcast to discuss CAP’s recent Director Pay Research study “Director Compensation: Steady State is Current State”.

CAP’s recent research on “Early Filers” (i.e., CEO pay levels among 50 companies with fiscal years ending between August and October 2023) was referenced in a Compensation Standards article.

Partner Melissa Burek and Principal Michael Bonner published a report regarding their findings on long-term incentive plans, which was cited by Compensation Standards. They analyzed the long-term incentive plan performance cycles of 120 companies from 10 different industries. The companies had a median revenue of $36 billion. The report analyzes the performance cycles that ended in 2015 through 2020 for these 120 companies. Long-term incentive plans are significant because not only do they represent the largest portion of an executive’s compensation, they are also a tool used by companies to incentivize executives to achieve the company’s median and long-term financial objectives.

Compensation Standards features CAP’s memo examining a sample of 20 high-profile tech IPOs from recent years to understand equity practices leading up to going public. The memo finds, among other insights, that options are still the favorite form of equity awards – but there’s been a shift to granting more RSUs, typically with double-trigger vesting based on both years of service and going public.