TTS_03Team & Talent System™ 6–8 weeks build, refreshed annually

Compensation Architecture

Salary bands, ESOP lifecycle, variable pay & pay-equity — institutional-grade comp discipline.

Why it matters

Ad-hoc comp creates internal inequity, offer-acceptance failures, and ESOP cap-table chaos that wrecks fundraising. This module installs the comp OS that scales from 20 to 2,000 people.

Scope covered

Salary bands by level × geo with 25 / 50 / 75 / 90 percentile range

Range penetration tracking and merit-cycle guardrails

ESOP / equity lifecycle — pool sizing, refresh, vesting, cliff, accelerator

409A / FMV linkage to FIR (Financial Intelligence Reporting) module

Variable pay design — STI (annual bonus) and LTI (multi-year equity)

Multipliers, claw-back, malus, and severance frameworks

Pay-equity audit (gender, level, function) and pay-transparency policy

Offer construction logic — base + variable + ESOP + sign-on + retention

How we run it

Our methodology

A senior-led delivery sequence — not a template dump. Each phase is operated with your team, not handed over as a deck.

1
Job architecture & levelling
Week 1–2
Build the job architecture — families, levels, grades — that survives 3× headcount growth.
2
Market benchmarking
Week 2–4
Benchmark cash + equity by role / level / geography against Mercer / AON / Pave / sector cohort data.
3
Pay bands & ESOP grant ladder
Week 4–5
Lock pay bands per level, ESOP grant ladder and the new-hire / promotion / refresh policy.
4
Variable comp & sales plans
Week 5–7
Design role-specific variable / commission plans aligned to OKRs and gross-margin discipline.
5
Annual cycle & governance
Week 7–8
Install the annual comp review cycle, comp committee charter and exception governance.