Now more than ever, banks must find creative ways to attract and
retain executives with the specialized knowledge and experience to
meet new technological and regulatory challenges. Recruiting and
retaining these executives is particularly important for locally
owned banks who often find themselves competing with larger,
regional or national institutions for sought after C-suite execs.
To compete, locally owned banks should consider developing
lucrative executive compensation plans.
A competitive executive compensation plan that benefits both the
executive and the bank includes elements that directly reflect the
bank's long-term success, like stocks or cash bonuses, while
also linking compensation to better performance and creating
multi-year accountability. This means offering both cash and equity
incentives conditioned on both short-term and long-term benchmarks.
Cash and equity incentives may be structured so that to receive the
award, the executive must remain
