01 · FOR EMPLOYERS
Designing an offer that lands
01
Benchmark on revenue band first, level second
Below $1B the chief title carries almost no premium in this data — VP, SVP/EVP and C-suite medians land at $250,000, $250,000 and $255,000. Anchoring an offer to the title rather than the scale of the organization is how ranges drift.
02
Design the bonus target before the base
47% of the market targets 31%+ of base. Moving a target from 21–30% to 51%+ is worth about $306,000 in median total cash. A 1–10% target performs worse on both pay and satisfaction than no target at all.
03
If you are private, compete on the equity multiple
Base is within a few percent between public and late-stage private companies at the same revenue. Late-stage private grants run 0.93× base against 0.58× at public companies. That is where private wins — say it explicitly in the offer.
04
Budget the negotiation into the range
76% of these executives negotiated, and most who did got more. Approving a range that already contains the negotiation margin costs less than losing a finalist at the last step.
02 · FOR EXECUTIVES
Reading your own market
01
Optimize the bonus target, then the base
Moving from a 21–30% target to 51% or more is worth roughly $306,000 in median total cash. No other single change in this study moves the number that much. Ask what the target is before you argue about base.
02
Below $1B, do not trade cash for a title
The market does not reprice a chief title at that scale. Above $1B it does, and the step is substantial. Know which side of that line the company sits on before treating the title as compensation.
03
Negotiate. A competing offer is not the prerequisite
Median base is identical at $300,000 whether an executive held no competing offer, one, or several. Those who negotiated and got more report $310,000. Waiting for a competing offer is waiting for something that does not move the median.
04
Compare offers at total cash, not base
Median total cash is $400K against $300K in base, and the spread widens with seniority. Two offers with the same base can be $200,000 apart.
One caution
The group that negotiated and got nothing reports a median base $50,000 below the group that simply accepted the first number. We read that as selection rather than penalty — executives in weaker positions negotiate harder and still lose — but it is a real pattern and worth knowing before assuming negotiation is free.
03 · THE MARKET BY SEGMENT
Where the mandate differs most
Ownership structure changes both the pay and the job. Public companies (42% of the cohort, $312.5K median) buy scale and governance; late-stage private including PE-backed (27%, $300K) buys value creation on a clock; government and nonprofit (15%, $270K) carries the clearest discount. The private-equity themes below are where we see the sharpest version of the new executive mandate — but they are one segment of several, and the commentary reflects Burtch Works search activity alongside the survey data.
01
The playbook is evolving toward operational value creation
Financial engineering and multiple expansion still matter, but returns increasingly come from how portcos perform day-to-day: gross profit, EBITDA margin, durable enterprise value. Many firms now field fund-level operating teams — sometimes larger than their investment teams.
02
AI is rapidly becoming a core lever for value creation
No longer experimental — a foundational driver of productivity, efficiency, and margin expansion. PE leans in because it is incentivized by hold periods, structurally faster than public companies, and actively seeking partners who translate AI strategy into execution.
03
Data is a strategic advantage at the fund level
Leading firms invest in interoperable data infrastructure across portcos, centralized analytics, and decision intelligence informing both deal flow and operations. Aggregating and operationalizing portfolio-wide data compounds performance and speed.
04
The talent model is going forward-deployed
Demand is rising for data & AI leadership at fund and portco level, operators who implement rather than advise (repeatable ROI use cases), and flexible talent models — contract and project-based included. The premium sits on business acumen, execution, and ownership.
05
Riches in niches — specialization compounds
Firms are doubling down on sector specialization: packaging industry-specific AI use cases that redeploy across portcos and feed the underwriting process pre-acquisition as part of the value-creation thesis.
06
Where the momentum is
Healthcare (data scale and complexity, transformation upside), lower-middle-market companies (operational upside, earlier in AI adoption), and VC-to-PE transitions, where firms operationalize and scale previously venture-backed businesses.
Hiring an AI operating partner or forward-deployed talent for a portfolio? See our private equity search practice.
04 · THE SEAT ITSELF IS CHANGING
AI is expanding the executive mandate
91%
Say AI expanded their responsibilities in the past 12 months
86%
Are confident their role exists in its current form in 3 years
51%
Are satisfied with total compensation — 25% report dissatisfaction
How AI changed role scope
Confidence the role persists (3-year view)
Retention context: one in four executives reports some dissatisfaction with total compensation, 41% of hires arrived with competing offers, and a fifth of the cohort is less than a year into the seat. In a market still creating seats faster than it fills them, the leaders you already have are being benchmarked — whether you do it or someone else does.