Mary Samsa, Esq.
With more than 20 years of experience, Mary Samsa focuses her practice on executive compensation matters and tax-qualified retirement programs for a wide range of organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, privately held companies, multinational organizations and nonprofit entities, including health systems and educational institutions. She works directly with boards of directors, compensation and retirement/investment committees, plan administrators and plan fiduciaries on the implementation and maintenance of their employee benefit programs. With a prior background as a Certified Public Accountant, Mary brings a multi-faceted approach to advising employers with respect to their legal, financial, and administrative challenges.
Mary regularly advises on nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements, Code Section 409A, equity incentive programs for private and public entities, and represents employers and high-level executives with respect to employment agreements, severance arrangements, golden parachute plans, and the reporting and disclosure of these compensatory arrangements. Mary also advises multinational companies on cross-border employment issues and executive compensation programs, with a focus on the potential ramifications of utilizing certain features or structures from the perspective of labor, tax, privacy and securities laws under the laws of non-U.S. jurisdictions. Her counseling of multinational companies includes the analyses of employee benefit plans and executive arrangements in the context of complex corporate transactions such as mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs.
Mary’s practice also covers the representation of employers in the design, implementation, and administration of tax-qualified retirement plans (defined benefit pension plans, 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans and 457(b) plans) coupled with an evaluation of associated risk with respect to varying options as they pertain to the entity’s legal and regulatory compliance in this area.