Operating global share plans is a tricky business, and despite best efforts, errors can and do occur. In this session, the expert panel identifies common mistakes that arise with global share plans and how to address them.

In each case, you will discover how to rectify past errors based on real-life case studies and receive practical tips and best practices for mistake-free global share plan offerings.

• Uncover common mistakes in tax-qualified plans, including US Section 423 ESPPs, French-qualified option and RSU plans, and UK tax-qualified share schemes
• Learn how to deal with plan interpretation or governance failures
• Discover how to correct tax withholding, reporting and other compliance issues

Israel is an entrepreneurial powerhouse and a hotbed for pioneering technologies, profitable business opportunities, and high investment returns. Many of the world's leading multinational companies have all chosen Israel - Microsoft, Motorola, Google, Apple, Meta, Berkshire-Hathaway, Intel, HP, Siemens, GE, IBM, Philips, Lucent and J&J are just some of the companies of over 200 MNCs who have opened offices or innovation centers in Israel. Understanding how business is done and how AI is impacting ownership tracking is key to building high growth businesses in Israel.

Participants will learn:

• Determine how to be competitive in Israeli and retain employees in a hot labor market
• Understand the special requirements under Section 102 and 3i to allow for special tax treatment for Israeli taxpayers
• Learn how AI is utilized to support employee share scheme requirements, board meetings and share registrars

How do you navigate the exponential growth of cross-border employees?

Do you know what your company’s risk exposure is if your participants are in a location other than where they were when grants were awarded?

Which risks cause the biggest concerns for your company’s equity program?

Many companies have seen an increase in the movement of their workforce. Such an increase can create employer risks.

During this session, the expert panel will review real life case studies that will highlight factors to help you assess your organization’s risk profile.

• Gain valuable insights from issuers of a publicly traded and a privately held company
• Get access to a tool that will provide a self-assessment score of your company’s mobile equity risk profile
• Discover the key ways you can identify the most significant risks for your mobile population entitled to long-term incentives
• Plan for your next steps with your fellow stakeholders

The liquidity madness of 2020-2021 has passed and alternatives to capitalize on investment, including prospects of employee liquidity are reducing. Companies who are mature and were planning on an IPO or sale, must change their strategy or sell at a low price.

This brings significant challenges to companies attempting to show employees value in their equity awards.

This session will focus on privately held companies in the Israeli market as a mirror to the global high-tech market.

• Find out if companies really have to wait for an IPO or sale to enable employees to liquidate part of their equity awards
• Discover how companies can attract employees when liquidity is unknown
• Hear best practice and learnings for private companies to engage their employees

While fairness has received a great deal of media attention, especially in connection with bonus payments, employees are increasingly questioning the allocation of long-term compensation. Valuable insights from the latest research in academia can be well applied to prevent unhealthy discussions of right and wrong in the office.

This session will dig deep into the concept of fairness and explore individual perception of compensation and more. The expert panel will highlight the specific implications for companies and the measures that can be taken for ensuring fair LTI allocations whilst giving a sneak peek into rigorous academic research.

• Discover what academia tells us about equity allocations: are they actually fair?
• Hear from Siemens Energy and hkp/// on how academic methods and practical tools can be applied in industry
• Explore the education and communication measures that contribute to ensuring fairness

Does your technology have the power, capabilities and strength to flex and grow with your equity program? It may be time to place your technology on ‘superpower mode’!

With the shortening of processing times, need for real time data, T+1 settlement time for stock options for SEC registrants starting in April 2024, this session will help you to consider and reduce the turnaround times, manual inputs, and touch points in your equity program processes.

The panel includes Best in Technology GEO Award winners who will share how they used automation to achieve operational effectiveness, streamline and validate processes, and manage compliance and risk for their equity programs. Bring your superhero cape!

• Hear best practice from Best in Technology GEO Award winners
• Understand current trends in automation and technology
• Take away suggestions and recommendations to streamline your equity program delivery

The trend to hire globally based talent began well before the pandemic but has now become almost common place. Even large companies cannot always justify setting up local entities and hiring employees in a ‘conventional’ way, and are exploring alternative work arrangements, such as remote work, hiring consultants or hiring employees through a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) or Employer of Record (EOR).

The tax and legal issues for granting equity awards, not to mention the administration of such awards, can differ greatly depending on the grantee’s arrangement with the company.

This session shines a light on how US, UK and EU companies have tackled these challenges, examining the differences in communicating and documenting awards and provides an overview of the countries in which grants to indirect employees remain challenging.

• Explore the different service models prevalent in the market, with an emphasis on PEO and EOR arrangements
• Get an overview of the different tax and legal challenges for granting awards to individuals who are not employees of the issuer or a local entity in various countries.
• Hear solutions to the practical tax, communication and education challenges of administering awards granted to individuals engaged through an alternative work arrangement

For companies that are choosing whether to remain privately held, become a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), or go public, there are design, regulatory requirements and tax implications that must be considered for employee stock plans.

This case study-based session considers the choices companies have at each company life stage and how these impact equity compensation.

• Uncover the best plan designs for each company life stage
• Discover how to manage liquidity events
• Hear from WeTransfer, Stripe, and Edinburgh-based fintech FNZ, a UK unicorn-status company

The growth of the global economy has resulted in a significant increase in the number of companies with employees across multiple countries, presenting employers seeking to implement global share plans with unique challenges.

In this session, the expert panel will cover the most significant tax issues impacting global share plans. Topics include how to avoid ‘dry tax’ situations, where ‘sweet equity’ works, how to avoid taxation of equity awards at ordinary income tax rates, and more!

• Explore common global share plan designs and their tax treatment in various jurisdictions
• Discover how to secure capital gains treatment for equity awards across jurisdictions
• Explore impacts on mobile workforces and common tax pitfalls that can arise in various jurisdictions

Market and performance awards have gained in popularity over the past few years and can take on many forms from Options to Restricted Stock, and TSR goals to individual sales goals. As popularity has gained traction, so has the complexity in the design features.

This session explores the ways companies have gotten creative with their award design for their global workforces, and the administrative and accounting implications. The expert panel will help you decide on the right metrics to use, and how to value, communicate and administer these complex award designs.

• Explore the types of performance and hybrid awards and the ‘gotchas’ to be aware of as you build out the final design structure.
• Discuss strategies in communicating the award design for a global population.
• Review the various valuation methodologies and financial reporting implications for market and performance awards