BioTen video series: Executive compensation

Interviewer: Jonathan Wildman, Senior Client Partner, Biopharma/Med Device Advisory Lead, Korn Ferry

Speaker: Theo Sharp, Senior Client Partner, LS Compensation Strategy, Korn Ferry.

Jonathan Wildman: Welcome back to BioTEN. I'm with Theo today and the topic is executive compensation, specifically compression in the space and Theo I think you're going to elaborate on this.

Theo Sharp: Yeah, it's really a trend we've been seeing with many of our clients. We look at a company who needs to hire one or maybe two say VP level executives. Those folks are demanding more and more these days as compensation rises with the demand for talent in the area. So, in order to bring those people in we need to pay them a little more. I had a client yesterday in fact that needed to pay, in order to get the talent they want at a VP level what was actually over an SVP level sort of guideline within that organization.

So the challenge is how do we get this new talent in the door without making the existing talent, the talent that's brought the company to where it is feeling like they've been left out. Um and it really takes usually a multi-year strategy in order to get those guidelines right for each level of the organization. But what we're seeing the trend right now is those guidelines are resetting from what they have been in the past. And this is something that we would work hand in hand with our executive search partners as well as they're in the market.

They're trying to attract the talent for our clients and then the compensation question comes up quite quickly. We rely on our search colleagues to sort of, I guess, confirm that what we're seeing in our market is actually happening and I think that goes both ways. We're informing each other a lot of times but making sure that what we're seeing makes a lot of sense.

Jonathan Wildman: That's perfect. If you have any questions for Theo, please see his email address, and reach out directly. Theo, thanks so much for the time.

Theo Sharp: Anytime.

Watch all of the BioTEN Video Series