Our mission is to help organizations build and maintain great leadership teams to create value for the organization's stakeholders over the long term. All of our work on compensation benchmarking, plan design, and related governance issues is structured to fulfill this mission. Our advice is thoughtful, tailored to the organization, frequently innovative, and always straight-forward, open, and candid.
Biography
David Swinford, President and Chief Executive Officer, joined Pearl Meyer in 1998. Dave works closely with boards to link compensation with business and leadership development strategies in order to build and maintain strong executive teams that create value over the long term. He provides a strong focus on developing performance standards, balancing retention with pay for performance alignment, and compensation-related corporate governance issues. For more than 35 years, Dave has worked with boards and management teams in all major industries.
Dave previously served as senior managing director and head of Pearl Meyer’s New York office. Prior to joining the firm, he was a managing director and worldwide partner of William M. Mercer, Incorporated, where he was a national practice leader for executive compensation. Dave also has served as a vice president at Towers Perrin, with worldwide responsibility for the executive compensation consulting practice, and in positions at Sibson & Company and Harris Corporation. He holds BS, MS, and JD degrees from the University of Wisconsin.
Dave works closely with the National Association of Corporate Directors on director education and intellectual capital issues, and serves on WorldatWork's Executive Rewards Advisory Council. He writes and lectures regularly on issues related to executive compensation and board governance. He is on the board of PM&P Holdings LLC, and chairs the board of the Humane Society of Greater Rochester.
