Compensation
06/04/2018

2018 Compensation Survey: Board Composition a Key Issue


compensation-6-4-18.pngAn effective board starts with having the right members, making board composition a key issue for today’s banking industry. Forty-five percent of the directors and executives responding to Bank Director’s 2018 Compensation Survey, sponsored by Compensation Advisors, a member of Meyer-Chatfield Group, say that developing a board succession plan is a top challenge related to board composition, followed by the recruitment of tech-savvy directors, at 44 percent.

More than 200 chief executive officers, human resources officers, senior executives and board members participated in the survey, conducted in March and April 2018, which examines the talent challenges faced by the banking industry. The survey also includes data collected from proxy statements to reveal how—and how much—CEOs, directors and chairmen were compensated in fiscal year 2017.

Thirty-five percent of respondents cite the recruitment of female directors as a top board challenge, an area where the industry appears to have made some improvement. Seventy-seven percent of respondents indicate that their board has at least one female member, up from two-thirds last year. However, boards still have progress to make, with just 14 percent indicating that their board has three or more female members. And boards still struggle to represent diverse ethnic backgrounds—77 percent report that their board doesn’t have a single ethnically diverse director. They also need to gain more age-diverse views, with just 16 percent reporting they have a director who is aged 40 years old or younger.

Conducting an effective board evaluation—which rates the effectiveness of individual directors, as well as the board—is cited by 42 percent as a top governance challenge. Board evaluations are often touted as effective tools to fuel board diversity efforts, because they identify ineffective directors and help push them out of the boardroom, leaving empty seats to be filled with the skill sets, expertise and backgrounds needed by today’s board.

Other key findings:

  • Commercial lenders remain in high demand, cited by 68 percent of respondents as an area where they expect to actively recruit employees in 2018, followed by technology, at 38 percent.
  • Forty-seven percent indicate their bank has increased salaries over the past three years to attract younger talent. Twenty-seven percent offer more equity compensation or profit-sharing incentives.
  • Forty-four percent indicate their bank has dedicated more resources to train young employees. Overall, 80 percent offer external training as a benefit to employees, and 74 percent say their bank has an in-house training program.
  • The median age of a bank CEO is 58 years old. The median CEO salary in FY 2017 was $370,232, with total compensation at $621,000.
  • Paying board members appears to be a low-level concern: Just 14 percent indicate that offering a competitive director compensation package is a top challenge faced by the board.
  • Seventy percent of non-executive chairmen and outside directors receive a meeting fee, at a median of $1,000 per board meeting in FY 2017. More than three-quarters of non-executive chairmen, and 71 percent of outside directors, receive an annual retainer, at a median of $35,000 and $24,000, respectively.
  • Fifty-one percent most recently increased director compensation in 2017 or 2018, and one-quarter raised director pay in 2016.

To view the full results to the survey, click here.

WRITTEN BY

Emily McCormick

Vice President of Editorial & Research

Emily McCormick is Vice President of Editorial & Research for Bank Director. Emily oversees research projects, from in-depth reports to Bank Director’s annual surveys on M&A, risk, compensation, governance and technology. She also manages content for the Bank Services Program, including Bank Director’s Online Training Series. In addition to speaking and moderating discussions at Bank Director’s in-person and virtual events, Emily writes and edits for Bank Director magazine, BankDirector.com and Bank Director’s weekly newsletter, The Slant. She started her career in the circulation department at the Knoxville News-Sentinel and graduated summa cum laude from The University of Tennessee with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and International Business.