Mary Kennedy

Mary Kennedy advises employers on a wide variety of employee benefit and executive compensation matters. Mary has developed a broad practice encompassing the full spectrum of benefits and compensation issues that arise in day-to-day counseling, corporate transactions, and cross-border operations.

Mary has substantial transactional experience counseling clients through complex benefit-related aspects of mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and corporate restructurings, including due diligence review, negotiation of transaction documents, compliance with golden parachute rules under Section 280G, and advising on post-closing integration of benefit plans.

In addition, Mary regularly advises both public and private company clients on executive compensation matters, including the design and implementation of equity incentive plans, the drafting and negotiation of employment agreements, severance arrangements, and change-in-control protections, and compliance with Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code. Mary assists public company clients with their executive compensation-related securities filings, including proxy statement compensation disclosures, Section 16 filings, and Form 8-K reporting obligations related to executive compensation events.

Drawing on King & Spalding’s global platform, Mary advises multinational employers on the design and implementation of global employee benefit and compensation programs, including the coordination of equity compensation plans for employees in multiple countries. Mary also has experience drafting and amending plan documents and participant communications for a range of U.S. employee benefit programs, including tax-qualified retirement plans such as 401(k) and pension plans, health and welfare benefit plans, cafeteria plans, and non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements.