In celebration of Cinco de Mayo this week and the start of Spring in Cleveland, this session offers a concise, big-picture tour of a handful of today’s most pressing equity compensation topics. We’ll touch on techniques to reduce compensation expense in your equity programs, trends in setting executive performance incentives, what’s new in ESPP prevalence / design, and how firms are thinking about pay equity (focusing on equity compensation in particular) in 2026. Designed as an overview, this interactive session will highlight key questions and practices to help you navigate what’s next. After the speech, please join us for a festive happy hour and networking!
Agenda
2:30 – 3:00 pm Networking before presentation with light snacks and beverages
3:00 – 4:00 pm Presentation
4:00 – 4:30 pm Roundtable Discussion
4:30 – 6:30 pm Festive Happy Hour and Networking Event nearby
PRESENTERS
Professional Biography for Stephen Popowski, CEP, CECP
Stephen Popowski is an Associate Partner in Aon’s equity services practice. In his current role, Stephen consults directly with management and Compensation Committees on issues related to share-based compensation programs and performs valuations under Accounting Standards Codification Topic 718 (“Topic 718”) as well as under International Financial Reporting Standard 2 (“IFRS 2”) using Monte Carlo simulation.
Stephen previously served as the interim Head of European Equity Services, where he led Aon’s equity valuation practice in the UK and European markets. Prior to that he was the Associate Practice Leader for Aon’s CEO Pay Ratio market offering, where he advised over 100 US-based clients on compliance, modeling, statistical sampling, and communications relating to CEO Pay Ratio.
Stephen is a member of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (“NASPP”) and served as the Treasurer of the Wisconsin NASPP chapter from 2019 to 2022. Stephen received his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and received his master’s degree from Temple University’s Fox School of Business. Stephen is a Certified Equity Professional (CEP), Certified Executive Compensation Professional (CECP), and is an FSA Credential Holder through the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (Value Reporting Foundation).
Professional Biography for Phillip Sanderell, ASA, CEP
Phillip is a Senior Consultant with Aon Equity Services, a part of Aon’s Rewards Solutions business. The Equity Services group assists over 600 companies with all aspects of Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 718: Compensation — Stock Compensation and ASC Topic 805: Business Combinations; ranging from plan design considerations to expense accruals.
In his current role, Phillip manages client relationships and works on a variety of employee benefits and compensation issues that involve developing sound equity programs, analyzing equity compensation data, performing statistical analysis, developing assumptions, producing financial reporting information for valuations and accounting under Topic 718, and calculating dilutive common equivalents related to their share based payments under ASC 260.
Phillip graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science in 2018 and attained the Certified Equity Professional (CEP) designation in 2019 and the Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) designation in 2023.