I offer a balanced perspective in advising clients, reflecting on both external practices as well as internal goals and objectives. I strive to provide advice on key topics in executive and incentive compensation that is thoughtful, candid, and with a strong point of view.
Biography
Steve Van Putten is a senior managing director with Pearl Meyer and leads the firm's Northeast region. His primary focus and expertise is on advising compensation committees and senior management on executive and director compensation matters. Steve has twenty years of board-level experience consulting to Fortune 1000 companies on executive pay.
Steve specializes in the design of annual and long-term incentive programs that support long-term value creation. He has developed innovative methodologies for analyzing relationships between pay and performance as well as assisting companies in determining appropriate performance metrics and associated goals as well as calibrating performance-award slopes.
Prior to joining Pearl Meyer, he was the North America East Region practice leader of Watson Wyatt’s executive compensation consulting practice and North American practice director of Watson Wyatt’s performance metrics and measurement group. Previous to that, he was a senior consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Steve is a frequent presenter at national executive compensation forums and conferences, and is often quoted in a range of national and industry media outlets. He has written extensively on executive and incentive compensation and is the co-author of the book Myths and Realities of Executive Compensation (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He also wrote a recent article for WorldatWork’s workspan publication titled "Taking Peer Group Selection to the Next Level", which discusses the critical importance of considering various financial and operating characteristics in peer group selection.
Steve holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business and a BA from Trinity College.
