Practice · Total Rewards & Compensation

Compensation and structure, built on a foundation that holds.

The pay philosophy, salary structures, and job architecture that every other pay decision rests on — from someone who has run them at scale, not advised on them from the outside. For HR and People leaders and founders who need senior comp judgment without a full-time hire.

Pay structures & leveling
Job architecture
Incentive design
The architecture

Structure first — the decisions get easier.

Every pay decisionOffers, merit, promotions, and adjustments — only as sound as what holds them up.
rests on
Job architecture & levelingRoles and levels that mean the same thing across the org.
Salary structure & bandsRanges and midpoints that put the philosophy into numbers.
Compensation philosophyHow you decide to pay, before any single number — the foundation.
Scope of work

Six services, scoped to compensation and structure.

This is the full scope — stated up front, nothing held back for a sales call.

Service 01

Compensation philosophy & structure

What it is

Pay philosophy and market positioning, salary structures — bands, midpoints, and range spreads — and the leveling framework that ties roles to pay.

What you get

The architecture every future pay decision rests on — offers, merit, promotions, and adjustments.

Project
Service 02

Job architecture

What it is

Job-description audits and creation, role leveling, spans-and-layers structure, and the career bands that connect levels.

What you get

Titles, levels, and reporting lines that mean the same thing across the org — a Manager in one function maps cleanly to a Manager in another.

Project
Service 03

Incentive design — short- and long-term

What it is

Sales compensation (OTE, accelerators, SPIFs, ramp and draw), short-term and bonus plans, and long-term incentive design — equity grant guidelines, vesting, mix, and pool sizing against dilution.

What you get

The full incentive mix — short-term and long-term — aligned to revenue and the business targets you actually want to move.

Design and advisory — not plan administration, valuation, or filings.

Project
Service 04

Compensation health monitoring

What it is

An ongoing HR-side read on where pay is drifting — comp out of alignment, spend concentrating in the wrong roles, and pay-equity hot spots worth a closer look.

What you get

Turnover-cost modeling that shows what attrition is actually costing, in HR-leadership language separate from the Finance ledger.

I surface the signal; a formal pay-equity audit and any remediation stay with your counsel.

Recurring
Service 05

Annual merit-cycle support

What it is

Merit-budget modeling, increase guidelines, calibration support, and the manager talking points and total-comp statements that land with employees.

What you get

Your whole annual cycle driven end to end or backstopped alongside your team — kickoff through approvals, every cycle.

Recurring
Service 06

New-hire offer governance

What it is

A comp thought-partner for your TA team on every req — each offer evaluated against market data and internal equity, with the cost of saying yes modeled up front.

What you get

Recruiters with the analytical backup to justify the number, so offers reflect a framework, not who negotiates hardest — and new-hire pay stops quietly resetting your bands.

Recurring
The track record

Comp judgment earned at scale, across mergers and global teams.

Total direct comp led
$760M+
across 7,800 employees in 7 countries — Lucid Motors
Countries harmonized
9
total rewards unified through a public-company merger — Orthofix
Global comp team led
8
at Lucid Motors

At Lucid I built AI-powered comp tooling — Compa.ai plus Python and Streamlit — for real-time market pricing, scenario modeling, and the cost-modeling and turnover-impact analytics that compensation health monitoring runs on; I also led the enterprise SAP SuccessFactors Compensation implementation. At Orthofix I harmonized comp philosophy, leveling, job architecture, and the Workday platform across nine countries through a merger.

I have designed global equity programs at scale — RSU grants, vesting, dilution and burn-rate modeling — and that work is now part of the incentive-design service above. The boundary is operational and legal, not advisory: I design the program; I do not administer the plan — cap-table operations, 409A coordination, recordkeeping — value the shares, or run a formal pay-equity audit and remediation. Those stay with your equity administrator, a valuation firm, and counsel.

How it’s engaged

Most of this is project-scoped; three pieces fit a monthly retainer.

Project vs. retainer

The project pieces have a defined start and a defined deliverable; the recurring pieces (tagged above) fit a monthly retainer. Project work bills at $350/hr; the retainer is a fixed monthly fee. See how engagements work.

Start here

Tell me the comp problem you’re facing.

Whether it’s a structure that has drifted, a sales plan that isn’t paying for the right behavior, or a merit cycle you’d rather not run alone — bring the specific problem and I’ll tell you plainly whether it’s a project, a retainer, or out of my scope.

Book a 45-minute call The first one’s free.