Pay-transparency laws rewrote the senior offer
Posted-range laws moved the first number from the offer to the job post. The expensive fallout is internal, where the range is legible to the people already doing the job.
9 min readRead
Compensation benchmarking
Compensation benchmarking for GCC leadership turns on details a salary survey misses, like the IC4 to IC5 jump and what equity actually clears at that level. We benchmark against the offers our searches close, not job-board averages. Read the breakdowns below, or track the numbers each week in The Mandate Desk.
14 articles
All insightsThe offer that reads generous in New York and thin in Bengaluru
Converting a US band by exchange rate, cost of living or a fixed ratio to headquarters all look rigorous. All three answer a question the candidate isn’t asking.
9 min readRead
The published band and the closed offer are two different numbers
One is written by people not running mandates. The other is what the candidate actually signs. Only one of them should set your budget.
9 min readRead
The AI/ML band split in two
Traditional ML sits where it was a year ago. The GenAI end has pulled away. Price them as one band and you lose the top while over-paying the bottom.
9 min readRead
Counter-offers are biting again, but which ones actually hold?
The “80% leave within six months” figure is folklore. The real number is about a third, and the ones who go are the people whose reason for leaving was never pay.
10 min readRead
The consultancies are selling you a benchmark. You need a decision.
A published band tells you where the market was six months ago. Sachith Rai on why the big firms stop exactly where the useful part begins.
4 min readRead
Compensation Index: IT & BFSI edition, Q2 2026
Band-by-band movement across senior IT and BFSI GCC roles, drawn from the placements we closed this quarter rather than survey aggregates.
7 min readRead
What the 75th percentile is actually buying you
It sounds rigorous. In the senior segment it’s a way to avoid taking a position, and it loses to the 90th-percentile counter every time.
9 min readRead
Base, variable, ESOP, and the one most committees under-weight
At VP level the parent ESOP can carry more of the deal than the cash. If you’re competing without one, splitting the difference loses the candidate.
10 min readRead
Pharma GCC pay is moving for a reason IT isn’t
While IT and BFSI bands have steadied, senior pharma roles are climbing. The driver is regulatory-side, not technology-side.
7 min readRead
The skills index: what GCCs actually paid for AI talent this quarter
Band-by-band movement across IT and AI & Data roles, drawn from placements closed in Q1.
7 min readRead
How to read a salary benchmark without being misled
The method note. Every published benchmark carries a lag and a basket bias; here’s what to inspect before you set a band from one.
10 min readRead
Why your comp bands break at the VP line
Banded comp fails at senior levels. The off-band levers, scope, title, equity-equivalents, that close without a bidding war.
9 min readRead
The title inflation nobody wants to name
‘Head of’ means less every year, and it’s distorting how leaders are hired and paid. What we see when the label and the mandate stop matching.
5 min readRead