FW Cook’s 2025 Director Compensation Report studies non-employee director compensation at 300 companies of various sizes and industries to analyze market practices in pay levels and program structure. Approximately 96% of companies overlap between this year’s and last year’s study.

To better reflect current board structures, this report includes an update to one of the assumptions used to value programs consistently across companies: an increase in assumed committee memberships for the average director from one to 1.5 (i.e., average director assumed to sit on one or two committees). This change is based on analysis of the sample companies and observations across our clients. Certain year-over-year growth rates in this summary and throughout the report are presented both with and without this updated assumption, for additional color. See the Methodology section for greater detail regarding the valuation approach.