Headline figures are how exits are announced; the compensation detail is how they’re actually valued — the bonus sorted into earned or discretionary, the commission crystallising after departure, the award vesting three weeks after the proposed termination date. This page is the detail, because exits signed without it routinely leave real value on the table.
Bonus, Commission — the Earned/Discretionary Battle
The central sorting: amounts genuinely earned — commission on completed work, bonuses whose conditions are already satisfied — are debts in substance, and packages quietly waiving them are underpriced; amounts genuinely discretionary sit weaker — though discretion must be exercised, not merely invoked, and payment history, communicated targets met and the documents’ actual language all bear on what’s really owed. The method here: contract and scheme documents read against the payment record, each element sorted into earned / arguable / discretionary, and the negotiation run from the sorted position — because “the bonus is discretionary” is an opening claim, not a verdict, and treating it as one is how the executive tier earns its keep. Pro-rating for the exit year and amounts crystallising after departure get the same document-first treatment.
Equity, Dates — and the Question That Isn’t Ours
The scheme rules decide equity — which is why award letters and plan rules belong in the first email: schemes address unvested awards on termination, often by leaver category, with treatment ranging from lapse through pro-rating to continuation — and where good/bad-leaver framing exists, the characterisation itself is negotiable terrain in a settlement, flagged here as the valuable term it is. The cleanest lever on the whole page: the termination date — employers care that the exit happens, rarely precisely when, while for you the date can decide whether an award vests, a bonus year completes, or notice spans a benefits-relevant period; moving a date across a vesting cliff is concrete, priceable and grantable without any principle conceded, which is why the calendar of vesting, bonus and benefit dates is built at the start of every senior engagement, before positions are taken. And running through all of it, the question that isn’t ours: tax treatment materially affects what an exit is worth, those questions belong with your accountant and Revenue’s published guidance — and this practice’s job is sequencing: the accountant in the loop before terms finalise, the structure conversation happening while it can still shape the drafting, nothing signed and then discovered.
Awards, Bonuses, Dates in the Mix?
Then the documents come first: contract, scheme rules, award letters - emailed today, calendared tomorrow, negotiated from the sorted position. The detail is where senior exits are won.
Call 01 5827148