Employees often do not understand their equity compensation benefits, viewing any gain as found money rather than a part of their total benefits package. And language and cultural differences can exacerbate this knowledge gap. With many participants facing cuts in other benefits programs and plan sponsors more closely measuring the return on costly employee stock plans, improving participant knowledge of these important programs can increase the value being delivered to both employer and employee. This panel discussion will describe communications programs designed to address the unique challenges of educating global participant on their equity compensation programs.

Billy Vitense, Manager, Stock, Starbucks Coffee Company (US)
Michelle Lundquist, Communication Consultant, Fidelity Investments (US)
Kelly Geerts, Sr. Program Manager for Global Payroll Process and Strategy, Apple Inc. (US)

As taxing authorities sharpen their focus on generating revenue from incentive compensation awards, managing trailing global tax obligations is of growing concern by multinational employers. Your increasing reliance on a globally mobile workforce and the task of tracking and monitoring the associated trailing tax liabilities can be quite daunting. Join us for a discussion on the latest issues and best practices for effectively navigating through the sea of trailing tax complexities. This session will address some of the essential steps to getting your arms around the inherent challenges including: risk assessment, opportunity planning, teaming across functions and business case justification. We will walk through "real world" scenarios to provide practical approaches to assist you in addressing the issue with key stakeholders within your organizations.

Lucy Tavella, Senior Manager, KPMG LLP (US)
Leann Balbona, Senior Manager, KPMG LLP (US)
Julie Molloy, Global Tax Manager/International Assignment Services, Bank of America (US)

During these unprecedented economic times, employers are under intense pressure to control expenses and optimize all investments. Executive retirement programs are no different from other investments in this regard, especially during this time of heightened scrutiny of all the elements of executive compensation. By reviewing executive programs with the same lens that is used for other business investments, this session can help organizations better support stakeholder expectations, more effectively align programs with current business needs, and maximize their return on investment.Focusing on the ROI for all investments including benefit programs is essential. Revalidating executive benefit objectives is especially critical now given the increased scrutiny on all forms of executive pay and the critical role that retirement benefits can play in the overall executive remuneration package. In many cases, the cost inefficiencies in the plan financing strategy alone can be significant. In today's economic climate, employers should not overlook the opportunity to ensure programs stay current with market practices, reduce costs where warranted, and promote executive behaviors consistent with employer and stakeholder needs.

Doug Frederick, Head of Executive Benefits Practice, Mercer (US)
Matt Leckrone, Principal, Mercer (US)

This presentation will examine the actual experiences Philip Morris International went through during its recent spin-off from former parent Altria Group from both an issuer and service provider perspective. Issues to be considered include how the transition was managed, the resulting impact on stock plans, taxation and knowledge transfer issues. Also included in the discussion will be a look at the support provided by a key service provider, including dealing with a new database and resulting systems issues.

Part I - PMI
1) How it was handled
2) Impact on the stock based plans
3) Taxation issues
4) Knowledge transfer (challenges of becoming a public company)

Part II - UBS Financial Services Inc.
1) Setting up PMI as a new client
2) Setting up the new PMI database
3) System issues

Laurence Duc, Manager Global Processes, Philip Morris International (CH)
Doug Jones, Director, Head of Stock Plan Administration, UBS Financial Services (US)

Aventis Inc. introduced an ambitious global share purchase plan in 2000. The plan, which originally had elective leverage and non-leverage components, was rolled out in 26 countries, with many of the countries having very specific share registration and tax requirements. Also, because the plan was based on ordinary shares traded on the Paris Exchange, there were in the U.S. share conversion and currency conversion issues. The plan was updated with new programs launched in 2002 and 2003. In August 2004 (shortly following the 2000 program maturity), Sanofi-Synthelabo completed its merger with Aventis Inc. to form Sanofi-Aventis. The share purchase plan shares from the 2002 and 2003 programs were converted under terms of the merger. A new renamed program, "Action" was launched in 2005 with follow on programs in 2007 and expected in early 2010. This discussion looks at a number of practical lessons learned from the evolution of this program.

Stephanie Ceglia, Vice President - Strategic Integration, Solium Equity Consulting Services (US)
Andrew Genecki, Sr. Mgr. U.S. Compensation and Rewards, The sanofi-aventis Group (US