Tom Paleka joined Gallagher in September 2008 as Vice President of Global Compensation, a newly created role. Promoted in 2016 to lead the global rewards function, he now has overall responsibility for guiding the company’s equity, compensation, benefit, and mobility programs, as well as the payroll organization. In 2018, he was named as an officer of the company.
He has been instrumental in designing the company’s long term incentive plans, securing shareholder approval of five of Gallagher’s long term incentive and employee share plans, automating many compensation and payroll processes, and driving a global benefit philosophy.
Tom joined Gallagher from Tellabs, a large telecommunications manufacturer of infrastructure equipment. While at Tellabs, he designed and managed sales compensation programs and was promoted to Director of Global Compensation and Benefits in 2005, with responsibility for all broad-based and executive programs. Prior to that role, he had twenty years of extensive background in the telecommunications industry with AT&T and Ameritech in sales compensation, direct sales, sales management, and sales operations.
Tom currently serves on the Global Equity Organization (GEO) Board of Directors since 2017, and is co-chair of the Issuer Advisory Council. Tom has served as a judge for the GEO Awards for several years, the last two as co-Lead Judge. He also has been an active member of the Fidelity Stock Plan Services Client Advisory Board. He has spoken at many conferences for such organizations as GEO, Certified Equity Professional Institute, Equilar, World at Work, Conference Board, and the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. In addition to his professional organizations, Tom has also served on the Junior Achievement DuPage County Board of Directors from 1994 to 2000 and 2007 to present, and a volunteer since 1982.