Your board approves remuneration. Does it govern it?
Many remuneration decisions rest on benchmarking, CEO recommendation and committee judgement. The gap shows up later, when discretion, fairness, retention treatment or executive authority needs to be explained.
The Remuneration Framework gives Chairs, RemCo Chairs, CEOs and Company Secretaries a clear structure for how rem decisions are made, escalated, recorded and explained.
Real-world Triggers
Rem governance gaps usually become visible around specific decisions:
- a CEO contract renegotiation or transition where the board has to justify its reasoning
- a retention or sign-on payment that starts looking like special treatment
- an STI or LTI discretionary adjustment applied with no documented threshold
- a leaver treatment that sets a precedent no one intended
- a gender pay gap publication, internal equity concern or executive grievance
- an audit, adviser, lender, funder, insurer, regulator, PE or proxy adviser question
- a new RemCo Chair, new Chair, new CEO, board evaluation or governance review
These moments tend to expose the same underlying issues: benchmarking starts carrying too much of the judgement, discretion has no clear limits, RemCo and CEO disagree on review and approval, and minutes record the outcome without the reasoning the board may later need.
What This Solves
Remuneration governance breaks down in predictable ways. The board approves but doesn't really decide. The CEO recommends and the recommendation becomes the decision. Fairness is asserted from market data with no internal evidence. Discretion is applied case by case and the precedents stack up without anyone tracking them. Risk appetite, the Delegation of Authority and rem settings live in separate documents and rarely reconcile.
The Remuneration Framework sets the structure for Board, RemCo and CEO authority, defines what gets escalated and when, requires evidence for fairness and discretion, and gives the board a decision record.
Compare Remuneration Framework editions
| Feature / Domain | Essential Snapshot (Free) | Foundation Edition ($2,950 ex GST) | Governance Edition ($12,800 ex GST) |
| Behavioural governance | ⚠️ Names recurring decision and authority gaps | ✅ Role boundaries plus baseline safeguards against drift, favouritism and informal influence | ✅ Safeguards for politics, bias and power dynamics, with conflict, precedent and evidence controls |
| Board, RemCo and CEO roles |  Surfaces unclear boundaries |
Defines roles, decision authority and escalation |
Detailed authority pathways, adoption settings and material-exception treatment |
| Pay & performance linkage |  Names common misalignment |
Sets fixed and variable remuneration principles and performance rules |
Detailed incentive architecture, risk-linked settings and adoption parameters |
| Risk & fairness integrity | Framed as issues |
Includes baseline risk, fairness and pay-equity provisions |
Adds evidence requirements, detailed exception treatment and standing decision records |
| Virtual implementation support | Up to two hours |
Up to eight hours |
|
| Designed for | Common tension points | Boards needing a usable baseline they can adapt | Boards dealing with recurring material exceptions, complex incentives or deeper evidence and record requirements |
Which Next Step Fits Your Board?
| Situation | Recommended Tier |
|---|---|
| We want to know whether our rem governance has visible gaps | Remuneration Governance Assessment |
| We want to start a conversation about a remuneration framework | Essential Snapshot |
| We need a usable, Board-ready baseline that we can adapt to our organisation | Foundation Edition |
| We need detailed authority, escalation, discretion controls and decision records | Governance edition |
| We require a custom solution for a large, multi-entity or structurally complex organisation | Institutional discussion |
How to Engage with NorthSeat
Step 1 - Assess Your Governance
Download the Essential Snapshot
Free download. The most common tension points.
Remuneration Governance Assessment – $649 ex GST
A structured board-level review of remuneration authority, fairness, discretion and decision records, with a reasoned next step.
🔒 Secure payment via Stripe.
Immediate access upon purchase.
Step 2 - Choose Your Framework
Foundation Edition – $2,950 ex GST
Board-ready baseline for remuneration authority, principles, incentives, fairness, risk and reporting.
Governance Edition – $12,800 ex GST
Detailed framework for authority, escalation, discretion, material exceptions, fairness evidence and decision records. Includes the Adoption Schedule, Remuneration Governance Register and scenario-based Stress Test.
Institutional discussion – Contact Us
Custom design and implementation for large, multi-entity or structurally complex organisations.