John J. Rinello

About John J. Rinello

John J. Rinello, age 56, is Senior Vice President, Global Business Sales (GBS) at Gartner, Inc. (ticker: IT), appointed in January 2025. He has 20+ years at Gartner across Sales, Services, Conferences, and Research; most recently SVP Global Strategy & Operations for Research (2023–Jan 2025) and previously SVP Sales for Finance, Audit & Risk, Legal, and other GBS products (2021–2023). Earlier roles include Sanford C. Bernstein, SAS Institute, and PwC, indicating strong commercial and analytical grounding . Company performance metrics that underpin executive incentives were robust in 2024: CV grew to $5,262 million (+7.8%), revenue reached $6,331 million (FX-neutral), and EBITDA was $1,586 million (FX-neutral), which drove a 162.6% bonus plan payout and 120.8% PSU earnout for executives .

Past Roles

External Roles

Fixed Compensation

• Individual base salary, target bonus %, and actual bonus for Mr. Rinello are not disclosed in the 2025 proxy. Gartner sets executive base salaries based on role responsibility, experience, and market data; annual bonuses are granted under the Executive Performance Bonus Plan .

Performance Compensation

Company Executive Bonus Plan (applies to executive officers, including SVPs)

• Bonus design: payout range 0–200% of target; all executive officer annual bonuses based solely on company-wide financial objectives in 2024 .

Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP): Equity Awards for executive officers

• Mix: 70% PSUs and 30% SARs; both vest 25% per year over 4 years, with PSUs earned on a one-year CV goal then time-vested; SARs stock-settled, 7-year term, value only if stock price appreciates .

• 2024 PSU Performance (FX-neutral):

  Metric	Weight	Minimum	Target	Maximum	Actual	Earned vs Target
  Contract Value (CV, $ millions)	100%	4,392	5,222	5,456	5,262	120.8%

• Grant timing: annual awards typically in February; grants for Section 16 officers approved by Compensation Committee; no awards timed around material disclosures; closed-window discipline adhered to in 2024 .

Equity Ownership & Alignment

• Stock ownership guidelines: CEO must hold ≥6x base salary; all other executive officers (including SVPs) must hold ≥3x base salary; counted holdings include directly held shares, vested/unvested RSUs and earned PSUs; options/SARs excluded. If not in compliance, must hold ≥50% of net after-tax shares from company equity until compliant .
• Hedging/pledging: prohibited for directors and executive officers under Insider Trading Policy .
• Beneficial ownership: NEOs and directors are enumerated in the Security Ownership table; “none of these shares has been pledged” for those listed. Mr. Rinello’s individual beneficial ownership is not disclosed in the proxy’s table .

Employment Terms

• Severance (other executive officers, i.e., excluding CEO):

  Component	Term
  Base salary	12 months continuation; accrued salary and up to 25 days PTO paid at termination
  COBRA	Up to 12 months reimbursement for executive and family
  Equity (no CiC)	Unvested equity forfeited (except death, disability, retirement)
  Equity (CiC + involuntary within 12 months, i.e., double trigger)	All unvested equity vests in full; PSUs vest at target if performance undetermined; options/SARs exercisable for 12 months post-termination
  Conditions	Separation agreement with reaffirmed confidentiality, non-competition and non-solicitation; potential delays under 409A

• Death/Disability/Retirement Treatment:

  Event	Treatment
  Death/Disability	100% vesting of outstanding awards
  Retirement eligible (≥55 years old and ≥10 years service)	Continued full vesting per original schedule; prorating if retirement in grant year

• Clawback: Gartner’s Compensation Recoupment Policy (updated 2023 to comply with NYSE Rule 10D-1) requires recovery of excess incentive-based compensation for current/former executive officers over the prior 3 fiscal years if a restatement is required .

• Change-in-control posture: No single-trigger vesting; accelerated vesting requires CiC plus qualifying termination (double trigger). No excise tax gross-ups for executives .

Investment Implications

• Pay-for-performance alignment: Executive incentives are tightly linked to CV (PSUs 100% CV) and annual EBITDA/Revenue, with rigorous targets and 0–200% payout ranges; 2024 outcomes (CV +7.8%, EBITDA and revenue above targets) drove 120.8% PSU earnout and 162.6% bonus payout, signaling alignment of pay with performance drivers that matter to Gartner’s long-term revenue and free cash flow trajectory .
• Vesting cadence and potential selling pressure: Annual grants in February with 25% vesting each anniversary can create predictable liquidity events for executives (tax withholding/settlement), typically around February, though individual Form 4 activity for Mr. Rinello was not accessible via our insider-trades tool during this session .
• Retention risk/contract economics: For SVP-level executive officers, severance is moderate (12 months salary, COBRA) with strong double-trigger protection on equity in a CiC, plus retirement-eligibility benefits for long-tenured execs—balancing retention with shareholder protections (no single-trigger; clawback) .
• Ownership alignment and risk controls: Robust 3x salary ownership guidelines, prohibition on hedging/pledging, and a formal clawback policy reduce misalignment and governance risk. However, absence of disclosed individual ownership for Mr. Rinello limits precision on “skin in the game” analysis .
• Shareholder sentiment: 2024 Say-on-Pay received 92% approval, indicating investor support for the design and outcomes of Gartner’s executive compensation program, which will also frame expectations for SVP-level executives like Mr. Rinello .

Note: We attempted to retrieve recent Form 4 filings for “Rinello” at IT to quantify current share ownership and transaction history, but the insider-trades API returned an authorization error. As a result, individual ownership and recent trading data are not included in this analysis for Mr. Rinello.