Bringing together Australia's employee share plans community, Momentum 2025 – Computershare's flagship annual event – sparked powerful conversations and practical collaboration in Perth (15 May) and Melbourne (23 May). The event featured insightful panels and future-focused discussions, delivering big ideas and strategies to help organisations drive the success of their employee share plans.
3 key insights:
1. Transparency in executive remuneration is more important than ever
Our panelists from Computershare, CGI Glass Lewis and Georgeson discussed how companies are selecting and defending financial and non-financial metrics for long-term incentives – highlighting the growing need to clearly articulate these structures to shareholders.
Marnie Reid, CEO Issuer Services ANZ, Computershare added: “... organisations in Australia do some really good communication throughout the year, engaging people in the broader story rather than just at results time, which is very heavily financially driven and doesn't tell the why. It's telling the what, and it's the why that you need to try and capture – what you're trying to do in the longer-term plan.”
2. Key leaders and advocates are crucial to driving employee engagement
Our panelists Coles Treasury Wine Estates and Computershare shared how empowering key frontline leaders can significantly boost share plan participation and perceived value. This goes beyond just the executives within an organisation.
Nicole Zanette, GM Reward and Governance, Coles said: “Those advocates are really important depending on the demographic of your team... A lot of those people work in our 800+ stores across Australia, their connection is not through our head office. It's actually through the communications that come from their store leader. Having advocates all the way out through the business… that's where it best resonates.”
3. Groundbreaking innovation as well as incremental improvements are important
Trudi Giouris (Product Director, Computershare) outlined opportunities to better engage participants, simplify share plan management and scaling your share plan. Through a combination of groundbreaking innovation and smaller changes to our existing functions, including continuous mobile enhancements, automation, systems integration, tax solutions and richer share plan performance insights, Computershare's innovation programme is addressing the needs of companies and participants into the future.
Trudi Giouris emphasised: “We analyze how our platforms are being used. We explore trends identified by leading consulting firms. We engage with the regulatory experts and we keep an eye on our competition. We are also looking to bring participants closer to the innovation process by engaging them at times of innovation, not after. All of these things shape the initiatives we decide to target and our guiding principles for participants.”
Momentum 2025 showcased the energy, expertise, and shared vision driving the future of employee share plans in Australia.
Missed it? Hear from Leon Butler (Global Director, Performance & Reward, Treasury Wine Estates) on why this long-awaited gathering of equity, tech, and engagement experts was so valuable.