What the board and the executive are paid, against the market
Benchmarks and policy review, in time for the remuneration committee. Two engagements: where executive and board pay stands against a peer group you define, and whether the policy itself holds. This page is how the work is actually done.
Two engagements, one committee
Total, fixed, shares, performance-linked, ex ante and ex post — against a peer group you define.
- 01CEO & board remuneration benchmarks ↗Executive and non-executive remuneration set against customisable peer groups — total, fixed, shares, performance-linked and other elements, ex ante and ex post — plus the cost of the board itself, with deviations from peers flagged.
- 02Remuneration policy review ↗The design of the policy itself: short- and long-term incentives compared with peers, the materiality of ESG criteria in executive pay, pay-for-performance analysis — so the remuneration committee decides on evidence.
The vote, the code, the committee
Executive pay is the one governance subject that comes to a vote every year, in public, with a number attached. Three things now frame the committee's work before it has opened a single peer table.
Ex ante on the policy, ex post on the sums
Shareholders vote the policy before it applies and the amounts after they are paid. When the ex post vote comes in low, the AMF expects the board to say publicly what it changed as a result — and checks that it did.
The peer group is a governance object
Under the Afep-Medef code, performance conditions may be altered mid-course only in exceptional circumstances — among them the loss of relevance of a reference index or of a comparison group. A peer group is therefore something the board owns and explains, not a technical annex.
More work, less ownership
Our own training material for remuneration committees puts it bluntly: the new norms risk de-responsibilising the board — excessive objectification of pay, complexity that non-technicians cannot own, power migrating to shareholders — and a workload that can turn committees into rubber-stamping fora. The benchmark exists to give the committee its judgement back, not to replace it.
Ethics & Boards data is cited in the AMF's 2025 report on corporate governance and executive remuneration. Client engagements are confidential; references are available on request, under mandate.
Three panels, public sources, two readings
A benchmark is only as honest as its peer group. So the peer group is the first thing agreed with the committee — and the first thing disclosed in the report.
Five parts, in this order
The remuneration pack has a fixed structure, so that a committee that reads it every year finds each thing where it was.
- 01Purpose, deliverables and methodWhat was benchmarked, against which panels, from which sources, with which conversions.
- 02Executive summaryThe position of the chief executive and of the board in one page each — and the deviations that deserve a decision.
- 03Short- and long-term incentive policyRadar charts and analysis of the STI and LTI design against the three panels: elements, weights, conditions, ESG criteria.
- 04Dashboards and benchmarks, ex post and ex anteThe dashboards, element by element, flagged on four levels; the ex ante policy read against the panels.
- 05Ex post rankingsWhere the actual award sits in each panel, for fixed, variable and total.
Board remuneration is benchmarked in cash only — equity grants excluded — in individual amounts converted to euro, segment by segment: members, lead independent director or vice-chair, committee chairs by committee, committee members, each with the number of meetings and the cost per meeting. Then the cost of the board as a whole, ranked in the panel.
Design, not just level
The level of pay is the question shareholders vote on; the design of the policy is the one that decides what the company gets for it. The review has three objectives, and one grid of its own.
The policy and the award, on forty-plus indicators
The chief executive's ex ante policy and ex post remuneration studied together: elements, weights, performance conditions, the gap between promise and payment.
The materiality of CSR criteria in variable pay
In the short-term and in the long-term plan separately — because the split is the story: sustainability criteria are common in annual bonuses and much rarer in long-term plans, and governance criteria are almost absent from the latter.
Practice against the panels
Incentive design compared with the three panels; pay-for-performance analysis; recommendations written as questions the committee can put to management — a more explicit methodology for the internal index? the weight, measure and scale of each qualitative criterion?
Percentages are deliberately not quoted here: the last full study dates from 2021, and a committee deserves current figures — which Gov360 Data produces for the panels you define.
What the benchmark does not settle
We teach remuneration committees, and we tell them the limits of our own product. A benchmark informs a judgement; it does not make one.
Three known side-effects
It can lead to ratcheting; it is based on size rather than value creation; and it is highly dependent on the companies included in the peer group — which is why the peer group is agreed first, and disclosed.
A figure that depends on its method
The ratio varies greatly with methodology and is difficult to interpret. Compensation is best evaluated in terms of suitability for the job.
Objectification, complexity, migration of power
Excessive objectification of remuneration; complexity levels that make it hard for non-technicians to grasp and own; power migrating to shareholders; a quantum that has become a political issue. The committee's job is to keep its judgement inside all of that.
Compensation is best evaluated in terms of suitability for the job.
A remuneration committee meeting ahead?
Tell us the peer group you have in mind and when the committee sits — the benchmark follows its calendar.
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Every week, one governance ratio drawn from Gov360 Data — a measured fact on boards, remuneration or ESG, with the context to read it. Plus our studies and press mentions as they are published.
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