Three weeks ago, on Tuesday March 28, 2023, the executive career advancement website IvyExec published an article I wrote on Startup C-Level Executive Salary, Equity and Severance Compensation Package.

This new article offers contract terms to negotiate for executives senior executive looking to move up to C-level by joining a startup. Being a startup C-level executive can be rewarding in many ways. But taking that role has many risks too, so it is wise to go in with a job offer that protects you from the risks and ensures that if the startup succeeds, you will share financially in that success.

To help you negotiate your C-level job offer with the startup, this article discusses –
• Cash compensation expectations – base salary and bonus,
• Startup equity to seek in a funded vs unfunded startup,
• Huge tax opportunity of QSBS if you structure it right, and
• Severance triggers and package key terms to seek.

To see my full IvyExec career advancement website article, go to LINK: https://ivyexec.com/career-advice/2023/startup-c-level-executive-salary-equity-and-severance-compensation-package

Or on my website at https://www.executiveemploymentattorney.com/startup-c-level-executive-salary-equity-and-severance-compensation-package/

IvyExec hosts articles and webinars from experts in the career, leadership, and business spaces who wish to share their knowledge with our audience. In April 2021, I was invited to write for IvyExec since it seeks original content on the topics of career development, leadership, and business strategy as it applies to senior-level and C-Suite professionals. IvyExec blog posts and webinars are shared with its community of more than 2 million members on its website, in its newsletter, and on its social media channels. https://www.ivyexec.com/career-advice/write-for-us/ IvyExec claims a “Community of 2.5M+ Leaders”.

See also – https://www.ivyexec.com/

It is my hope that this article will be helpful to those offered or considering and offer for a C-level position in a startup company. If you or any colleague of yours has a need in this area, please do reach out to me at rob@attorneyadelson.com.

The bold self-help response when your employer reneges on promise of shared ownership
Two weeks ago yesterday, on Sunday February 19, 2023, CEOWorld magazine published an article I wrote on “Forming a competing company to take 100% ownership of the business you built”

This new article is designed for designed for CEOs, COOs, C-level and senior executives, who were brought aboard a company by the owner or owners of the company to fill the need specific knowledge or capabilities, to retain or develop new business, to exploit a perceived opportunity, or to otherwise develop and execute a business turnaround for the business. To take on this assignment to join the owner’s company as CEO or other senior position, the executive was recruited with the owner’s offer of significant equity and shared ownership, to thus enable the executive to have a significant stake in the value he or she was bringing to the business and its owner. Yet, once your job was done or largely done, the owner moved the goal posts on you or has otherwise reneged on the promise made of significant equity on which you relied to take the position.

In this case, where you have done your job, met expectations and delivered value as expected, and the owner now changes the rules and denies you the equity you earned, this article suggests to you a self-help strategy to make you whole for what the owner has denied you, and maybe even more equity than you were first promised (serves the double-dealing owner right!).

My article discusses this self-help strategy covering these topics –

• What are the right circumstances to take, for yourself, the ownership you were promised?
• What are the constraints and circumstances that would limit such corrective self-help action on your part?
• How do you go about setting up shop, to create your own company in head-to-head competition with your former company and its owner?
• Is this self-help strategy the right choice for you?

As part of the discussion on forming your own company, my article offers important cautions and tips for those who would wish to take this advice and form their own competing business. These important cautions and tips, are also drawn from lessons learned and experience gained from my past CEO and C-level executive client representations in this field.

At the end of the article, I conclude by stating that if you have essentially built a business, with production, marketing and sales, and the owner has chosen not to fulfill his or her promises to you of shared ownership, this article suggests to you a road map for self-help. With the right executive employment counsel advising you, you may well be able to take charge. For many who have done just that, it has proven to be professionally and financially rewarding. Whichever course you take, best of luck to you!

To see my full CEOWORLD magazine. article, go to LINK: https://ceoworld.biz/2023/02/19/forming-a-competing-company-to-take-100-ownership-of-the-business-you-built/

Or on my website at https://www.executiveemploymentattorney.com/forming-a-competing-company-to-take-100-ownership-of-the-business-you-built/

This was my 40th article published in CEOWORLD since 2016. Previously, the editor advised that I can use “Featured in the CEOWORLD magazine” and the CEOWORLD “Logo” on my website and add CEOWORLD magazine in my LinkedIn profile’s “Experience Section” as an “Opinion Columnist.” and authority in the field.

On its own initiative, CEOWORLD magazine created on their website a library of Robert Adelson published articles. You can peruse this library and/or read as many of my 40 published articles as you wish. See https://ceoworld.biz/author/robert-adelson/

With more than 12.4+ million-page views, CEOWORLD magazine is the world’s leading business magazine written strictly for CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, senior management executives, business leaders, and high net worth individuals worldwide. https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceomagazine/

This presentation was given eight weeks ago on May 17, 2022, for the Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network (ENET), where I was one of three invited speakers for the ENET’s webinar that evening on the topic “Recruiting Board Members and Senior Executives”.

As I explained to the ENET audience that night, since 2016, my law work has increasingly focused on executive representations, negotiations over job offers, employment terms, equity, executive compensation, separation and severance, for C-level and senior executive clients.

Today, more than 95% of my law work and 98% of all new law work consists of those representations. 

But on occasion, a company will hire me.

Why would a company do that?  Why would a company hire an attorney known to be one so focused on representing the interest of executives?

The reason:   The company is  having difficulty recruiting an A-level senior executive.  They cannot pay top dollar and are willing to try something different to recruit that ideal man or woman to fill the pressing need in their organization.

So … in that time of pressing need, the company hires me, as one who knows what executives seek to help the company “think out of the box” – to devise a strategy and prepare documents to get the best executive at the least cost and within the company budget.   For a startup or  early stage company, it is executive recruitment on a shoestring.

In my work representing companies, my slogan is “Appear Generous.  Demand Performance.”  The strategy I develop and then the documents I prepare are radically different then most executive employment and equity documents.  My documents do appear to be fair …even generous.  And in recruitment, I help the company with its “sell” – telling executives, “Even at less base pay you will come out ahead with our package.  And what’s more, this package reflects a culture where you will be valued and respected.”

But we still demand performance.  My documents are still employment “at-will” and I make sure that a company can readily terminate a non-performer.  But what is different, is that my documents provide that if the executive does perform, he or she won’t be cheated out of what they earned.   Sadly, that element of basic fairness, is often so rare in today’s corporate America.

In my presentation and slides, I discuss such issues as

• Employment position and terms
• Base pay and bonus structure
• Tax favored equity structure
• Fair equity terms and vesting
• Reasonable equity rights
• Reasonable termination protections
• Fair severance terms

Between the revolutionary terms I suggest,  and our explanation and “sell” to the executive recruit, I have had a high success rate.   Although we are often significantly outbid on the dollar figure, I often get my target man or woman for my company client.

For my slides for this presentation, LINK:  https://www.slideshare.net/RobertAdelson/building-keeping-your-executive-team-how-to-recruit-and-retain-senior-executives-for-your-startup-or-early-stage-company

To see and listen to the video of my 19-minute ENET presentation on executive recruitment from my website, LINK:  https://youtu.be/vCCJ5RO1blw

​or access both my presentation slides and video recording on my website, LINK:   https://www.executiveemploymentattorney.com/building-keeping-your-executive-team-how-to-recruit-and-retain-senior-executives-for-your-startup-or-early-stage-company/   

It is my hope that this article will be of benefit to CEOs and Company founders who are having difficulty in recruiting a high caliber C-level and senior executive for a role key to growth, and might want to think out of the box….  Feel free to share these slides or this portion of my July 2022 Business Law Newsletter.  If you or any colleague of yours has a need in this area, please do reach out to me.

Last Tuesday, on April 27, 2021, CEOWorld magazine published an article I wrote on “Don’t Let Disparagement or Defamation Blackball Your Executive Career Prospects”.

This new article is designed for CEOs, C-level and senior executives, who may face, on occasion, issues of disparagement and even defamation, in connection with employment termination. For those executives who do face this prospect at the time of employment termination, disparagement or defamation can have effects on your career and prospects, both short and long term, that can be even more far reaching than how much severance will be paid.
The article first discusses three such situations that faced C-level and senior executive clients of mine in recent representations and our successful resolution of each, as follows:

• Company’s plan to fire the executive for cause, where, on short notice, we effected a complete reversal of that situation from a negative to a positive for the C-level executive’s reputation, plus significant severance and deterrence of any future recurrence of attempted defamation;
• Company’s public announcements that made the innocent C-level executive toxic and essentially unemployable in his industry, where the public company was made to rectify the situation, including signing a document that I prepared, a corrective document to the company’s 8K filing, that the company’s securities law counsel then filed with the SEC; and
• Changes initiated to a draconian no-rehire provision in the executive’s separation agreement that met the company’s needs but removed the cloud over this senior executive with recruiters and for future employment..

The article then moves on to and concludes with a discussion of other provisions of the separation agreement and my recommendations on the handling of termination and terms for a mutual non-disparagement clause to protect not just the company (as the company’s first draft separation agreement almost always does) but the executive as well (through language we seek to add).
To see my full CEOWorld magazine. article, go to LINK: https://ceoworld.biz/2021/04/27/dont-let-disparagement-or-defamation-blackball-your-executive-career-prospects/
Or on my website at https://www.executiveemploymentattorney.com/dont-let-disparagement-or-defamation-blackball-your-executive-career-prospects/
This was my 33rd article published in CEOWORLD since 2016. Previously, the editor advised that I can use “Featured in the CEOWORLD magazine” and the CEOWORLD “Logo” on my website and add CEOWORLD magazine in my LinkedIn profile’s “Experience Section” as an “Opinion Columnist.” and authority in the field.
On its own initiative, CEOWORLD magazine created on their website a library of Robert Adelson published articles. You can peruse this library and/or read as many of my 33 published articles as you wish. See https://ceoworld.biz/author/robert-adelson/
It is my hope that this article will be of benefit to CEOs, C-level and senior executives who at some point in their career might face disparagement or defamation, which if not properly dealt with could seriously derail an otherwise successful and rising career. So, my hope is that this article will offer insights on these important matters. Feel free to share this article. If you or any colleague of yours has a need for a separation agreement attorney, please do reach out to me at rob@attorneyadelson.com.