EQUITY COMPENSATION

Equity compensation planning for tech, biotech and pharma professionals

Subhead: Equity compensation can change your financial life—sometimes overnight. Paceline helps executives and employees make clearer decisions around stock options, RSUs, concentrated company stock, acquisitions, IPOs, and private-company and PE-backed equity.

Turn complex equity compensation into a clear, coordinated plan
Make informed decisions about options, RSUs, taxes, and timing
Plan for major events like acquisitions, IPOs, tender offers, and career transitions

Book a call—get financial clarity

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WHO WE ARE

What Paceline is

Paceline Wealth Management is a fee-only, Boston-based firm specializing in equity compensation. We work with directors, vice presidents and executives at public, private and PE-backed companies in tech, biotech and pharma, including those facing an acquisition, an IPO or a concentrated position in employer stock. We serve clients in Massachusetts and across the country on a remote basis.

What's happening with your equity?

My company is being acquired.

What happens to each award, what you'll actually receive, and why to start planning before close.

My RSUs and company stock now dominate my net worth.

Sell or hold, the withholding gap, and how much concentration is too much.

My company may go public.

What to decide at each stage, from before the S-1 through the end of the lockup.

I hold private-company or PE-backed equity.

Options, incentive units and rollover equity before there's an exit.

I'm changing jobs, leaving or retiring.

Exercise deadlines, unvested awards, and what a new offer is really worth.

Employee at a company with a pending deal or IPO?

Equity we work with

Restricted stock units (RSUs) and restricted stock
Incentive and non-qualified stock options (ISOs and NSOs)
Employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs)

Performance shares and performance awards (PSUs)
Profits interests and incentive units at PE-backed companies
Rollover equity in private equity transactions

How Paceline Works

Analyze the documents

Your stock plan, grant agreements and, in a deal, the merger agreement and change-in-control terms. These decide your outcome.

Evaluate your options

We consider different scenarios, including taxes, timing, and liquidity, so you can compare your choices with clarity.

Decide

What to sell, hold, exercise or set aside, weighed against your cash needs, taxes and the rest of your plan.

Implement

Trades, tax payments, and coordination with your CPA and attorney.

Adapt as your career evolves

As your company, role, and goals change, we help you revisit your plan and make adjustments along the way.

MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts adds a 4% surtax on income above about $1.1 million, a threshold indexed each year. A large vest, option exercise or acquisition payout can push you over that line in a single year, and payroll withholding rarely accounts for it.

Articles on equity compensation planning

Practical, experience-based insights on the key decisions equity-compensated professionals face.

When you first hear that your company is in active M&A discussions, your mind might immediately jump to the potential changes in your role, the strategic direction of the company, or the cultural shift that results from joining a larger company. But there's another critical area that demands your attention: your equity. The reality is that by the time an acquisition is announced, the terms of what you receive are largely set in stone, and the window for tax planning has mostly closed. This common oversight glosses over a critical aspect important to all employees, even those who haven’t done any planning at all. What’s that? Getting a close understanding of how equity is handled in the transaction, and calculating your payout to ensure that it’s actually correct.
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Most directors and VPs at Amazon, Google, and Microsoft didn't consciously decide to make employer stock their largest financial asset. It accumulated, it appreciated, and the assumption became that it would keep doing both. Deferring the tax bill felt like the smart move — but waiting only made the gain larger and the decision harder. By the time a real decision got made, it was usually because the money was needed for something, and whether the stock price was actually attractive was not a primary consideration.
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The IPO is done. The celebration is over. Now comes the part that actually matters — turning your stock into a lasting, life-altering windfall, or passing over an important planning opportunity.
Once your company begins trading publicly, the dynamic shifts in ways that catch many employees off guard. Typically this manifests as a combination of emotion and urgency — a sudden impulse to act on goals and plans that were previously just ideas. Employees may find themselves saying "now that my company has gone public, I can finally…" — but the IPO marks the beginning of the process of converting highly appreciated stock into liquid cash, not the end of it.
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You just got the notice. Your company is running a tender offer — a program that lets employees sell some of their shares for cash while the company is still private — and there's a closing date. Now you're stuck on one question. How much should you sell? The instinct most people feel is to treat this as a simple yes-or-no bet on whether the company still has room to run. In reality, it’s much more nuanced than that.
READ MORE

Frequently asked questions

Most advisors start with your investment portfolio. An equity compensation specialist starts with the documents that govern your awards, such as the stock plan, grant agreements and deal terms. Those decide what you'll receive, when, and how it's taxed.
Before, when possible. Decisions about exercising, withholding and timing often have to be made before an acquisition closes or a lockup ends, and some can't be undone afterward.
Yes. Paceline is based in Boston and works with clients nationwide on a remote basis.
Paceline is a fee-only fiduciary. The fee is a percentage of the assets Paceline manages for you at Schwab. We don't accept sales commissions.
Answer pending from Jeremy.
OPEN: answer pending; leave this question out until approved.

Is one company outcome becoming too important to your financial life?

If your biotech or pharma equity has become meaningful—or could become meaningful quickly—the right next step is a conversation about your actual grants, taxes, timing, and goals.

Jeremy Bohne, CFP®, CEPA
Principal & Founder

Paceline helps biotech and pharma professionals in Boston and on a remote basis by professionally managing investments and delivering financial planning. As a fee-only fiduciary, Paceline is required to place your interests first and does not accept sales commissions.

Jeremy is a Cornell MBA whose professional experience spans comprehensive financial planning, institutional investing, insurance, and management consulting. Clients value his investment expertise, listening skills, and attention to detail.