Wealth planning for corporate executives
Beyond RSUs and stock options. Your compensation is sophisticated. Your advisor should be too.
Executives at public and pre-public companies face a unique set of planning challenges - equity comp that vests on a schedule, trading windows that limit flexibility, and concentrated positions that create both risk and tax complexity. We build coherent plans around your total compensation picture so that every decision is made in context, not in isolation. As a fee-only fiduciary, we don't sell products or earn commissions on anything we recommend.
Equity comp decisions made reactively
Most executives exercise options or sell RSUs at vesting without a strategy - missing opportunities to smooth income, manage brackets, and reduce concentration.
Concentrated position risk
When most of your net worth is in your employer's stock, your income and your wealth are exposed to the same risk. Trading window restrictions make this harder to manage, not easier.
Deferred comp decisions with long tails
NQDC plan elections are made annually with multi-year consequences. The tax deferral benefit must be weighed against liquidity constraints, distribution timing, and counterparty risk.
RSU & Stock Option Strategy
We build equity compensation calendars that map vesting events, blackout windows, and tax bracket exposure across a rolling 12–24 month horizon. For ISOs, we model AMT exposure at different exercise levels. For RSUs, we identify optimal hold vs. sell decisions. Nothing is decided reactively.
10b5-1 Trading Plans
A Rule 10b5-1 plan allows insiders to pre-schedule stock sales during open window periods, providing a defense against insider trading liability and enabling systematic diversification regardless of blackout restrictions. We coordinate with your general counsel on plan design, cooling-off periods, and modification rules under the updated SEC guidance.
Concentrated Stock Diversification
For positions that cannot be sold through 10b5-1 plans alone, we evaluate collars, protective puts, variable prepaid forward contracts, and exchange fund eligibility. Each tool has different tax, income, and complexity trade-offs - we model them side by side so you can make an informed decision.
NQDC Plan Optimization
Nonqualified deferred compensation elections require decisions about timing, distribution scheduling, and counterparty risk. We model the break-even between deferral tax savings and the opportunity cost of reduced flexibility, helping you decide how much to defer, when to schedule distributions, and how to size the plan relative to your overall financial picture.
Multi-Year Tax Planning
High compensation creates bracket management opportunities that most advisors miss. We model income across tax years - coordinating equity comp vesting, deferred comp distributions, Roth conversions, and charitable giving - to minimize your lifetime tax burden rather than optimizing one year at a time.
Equity comp audit
We review your full equity comp picture - RSUs, options, ESPP, NQDC - alongside your existing holdings, trading restrictions, and upcoming vesting events.
Build the equity calendar
We map every vesting event, blackout window, and decision point across the next 24 months and attach a tax model to each one.
Implement the plan
We coordinate 10b5-1 plan setup, charitable structures, diversification trades, and NQDC elections - ensuring everything moves in the same direction.
Ongoing management
Equity comp is a recurring planning event, not a one-time decision. We revisit the plan at each vesting event and annually as compensation packages change.
Concentrated Stock Tax Exposure Calculator
Quantify the embedded gain in your position, estimate the tax cost of full diversification, and compare strategies including exchange funds and systematic selling.
What does wealth planning for corporate executives include?
Executive wealth planning starts with your total compensation: salary, bonus, RSUs, stock options, ESPP, and deferred compensation. From there we build an equity calendar around vesting dates and trading windows, model the tax impact of each decision, set up 10b5-1 plans where they make sense, and diversify concentrated company stock on a deliberate schedule. It also covers the things executive pay touches: multi-year tax planning, charitable giving, estate planning, and retirement timing.
How are RSUs taxed, and should I sell them when they vest?
RSUs are taxed as ordinary income on the value of the shares when they vest, whether or not you sell. Companies often withhold at a flat supplemental rate (22% federal up to $1 million of supplemental wages), which can be well below your actual bracket, so many executives owe more in April than they expect. Holding vested RSUs is economically the same as taking cash and buying your employer's stock, so the hold-or-sell decision should come down to how much of your net worth you want tied to one company.
What is a 10b5-1 plan and do I need one?
A Rule 10b5-1 plan is a written plan to sell (or buy) company stock on a preset schedule, adopted when you are not in possession of material nonpublic information. It gives insiders an affirmative defense against insider-trading claims and lets sales continue during blackout periods. Since the SEC's 2023 amendments, directors and officers face a cooling-off period of at least 90 days (up to 120) before the first trade, and overlapping plans are restricted. If you are an officer or regularly restricted by trading windows, a 10b5-1 plan is usually the cleanest way to diversify.
How do I diversify a large position in my company's stock without a big tax bill?
There is no single answer; it depends on your cost basis, holding period, trading restrictions, and goals. Common approaches include systematic sales spread across tax years, gifting appreciated shares to a donor-advised fund or charitable remainder trust, exchange funds (for eligible investors willing to accept a multi-year lockup), and hedging with collars or prepaid variable forwards where your company's policy allows it. We model these side by side so you can see the after-tax trade-offs before acting.
Should I defer compensation into my company's NQDC plan?
Deferral can make sense when you expect to be in a lower bracket when the money is paid out, but NQDC balances are unsecured obligations of your employer and distribution elections are hard to change. We look at how much of your net worth is already tied to the company, your expected income in retirement, the plan's distribution options, and state tax if you might move, before recommending how much (if anything) to defer.
Do you work with executives outside North Carolina and Florida?
Yes. Our offices are in Asheville, NC and Fort Lauderdale, FL, but we work with executives across the United States. Planning is done by video and phone, and we coordinate directly with your CPA, estate attorney, and company stock plan administrator.
A better plan for your equity comp.
A discovery call is 30 minutes. By the end, you'll know whether your current approach is leaving money on the table - and what a more deliberate strategy would look like.