Insights from our 2025 Private Company Executive Compensation Survey

Wolfe is the leader of Deloitte Private for the US and globally. With offices in more than 80 countries, Deloitte professionals address the unique needs of private companies and their stakeholders leveraging the network’s business expertise and industry capabilities to serve mid-and large-sized private businesses. As the US leader of Deloitte Private, Wolfe oversees a segment of the firm serving more than 8,500 clients including privately held businesses, family enterprises, family offices, private equity funds and related portfolio companies, emerging growth companies, and high-net worth individuals. In both the US and around the globe, Deloitte Private connects founders and executives of these organizations to a network of ideas, knowledge, and experiences, providing audit and assurance, tax, consulting, and risk and financial advisory services to help them address today’s complex challenges and identify tomorrow’s opportunities. Wolfe is also actively engaged as a client service partner, leading multi-disciplined engagement teams that provide a variety of services including tax compliance and consulting, financial and risk advisory services, corporate restructuring support, M&A diligence, IPO planning, cyber risk solutions, technology transformations, and attest services. Wolfe and his wife reside in the suburbs of Chicago and are blessed with two wonderful children and a pair of very active Labradors. When Wolfe is not supporting his kids and their activities, he enjoys fishing, traveling the world, and cheering for his beloved Iowa Hawkeyes.

Ian Dawson is a principal with Deloitte Tax LLP and leads Deloitte’s US Executive Compensation practice. He has more than 15 years of consulting experience in the areas of compensation, benefits, and total rewards, and has worked with many clients spanning over multiple industries on a wide range of executive and board of director compensation matters. Ian’s experience includes: designing company-wide compensation philosophies in conjunction with senior management and the board of directors; reviewing and assisting in the development of compensation programs for executives and boards of directors; conducting competitive pay assessments for broad-based, executive and boards of director positions; establishing stock ownership guideline policies and retention requirements for executives and non-employee directors; reviewing and assisting in the design of executive employment contracts, change-in-control and severance agreements, and short-and long-term incentive plan arrangements; analyzing market assessments of equity dilution levels and annual share utilization rates; providing clients with information regarding legislative, regulatory, and accounting updates impacting executive and board of director compensation programs, with particular focus on the latest corporate governance developments and institutional investor concerns; preparation of proxy table disclosures, including the latest pay versus performance disclosure; and conducting pay equity analyses and designing customized remediation strategies. Ian is a frequent author and contributor on the topic of executive compensation.