William Wainwright

About William Wainwright

Strategy is only as good as the incentives that drive it. With 25+ years in Financial Services, I specialize at the intersection of sales performance and financial discipline—designing compensation structures that don’t just reward activity, but drive intentional corporate growth.As AVP, Head of Sales Planning & Compensation at Lincoln Financial, I lead the end-to-end strategy for sales incentive design, forecasting, and performance analytics. My focus is on transforming complex data into clear, actionable compensation models that align a national sales organization with our most critical business priorities.My approach is defined by three key pillars:1. Strategic Alignment: Ensuring every dollar of incentive spend is mapped to long-term profitability and scalability.2. Operational Excellence: Navigating the complexities of highly regulated environments and implementing enterprise-level systems (Salesforce, ICM, etc.) with precision.3. Cross-Functional Synergy: Serving as the bridge between Finance, HR, Legal, and Sales Leadership to foster transparency and accountability.I believe that a well-designed compensation plan is a powerful communication tool. It tells a sales team exactly what the company values. I am passionate about building those bridges and leading teams that operate with integrity, data-driven insight, and a relentless focus on results.

Experience

1. AVP, Head of Sales Planning & Compensation

   Lincoln Financial

   Jul 2022 — Present · Radnor, PA, US

   Executive ScopeLead the end-to-end strategy for sales planning, incentive design, and performance forecasting. Serve as the strategic architect between Product, Finance, and Sales Leadership to ensure that 100% of incentive spend is mapped to corporate growth, fiscal discipline, and regulatory compliance.Strategic Sales Planning & Behavioral Design:Annual Sales Planning Leadership: Serve as the \"analytical hub\" for the enterprise, leveraging historical data and predictive modeling to translate product competitiveness into actionable sales projections and growth targets.Behavioral \"Mindset Reconditioning\" Initiative: Spearheaded a 10-month strategic pivot for a critical business line to reverse five years of stagnant sales. Engineered a series of threshold-based incentive \"sprints\" that successfully reconditioned the sales force\'s mindset, bridging the gap from legacy flat-rate models to high-growth priorities.2026 Compensation Architecture: Designed and launched a modernized, 3-tier breakpoint compensation structure for 2026. This high-incentive model directly aligns producer behavior with the firm’s long-term health, replacing low flat-rates with high-impact tiers that drive aggressive revenue growth.Enterprise Systems Transformation (Phase I & II):Phase I: ICM Digital Transformation: Orchestrated a 6-month migration to a modern Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) system. Partnered across IT, HR, and Strategy to replace an inefficient legacy platform with a high-integrity system that eliminated manual calculations and delivered real-time, transparent performance dashboards to the national salesforce.Phase II: SCM Infrastructure & Data Integrity: Directed the replacement of the Sales Crediting Management (SCM) engine. Modernized territory logic from \"zip-code only\" to a multi-dimensional hierarchy (County, State, Channel) and integrated automated USPS validation to eliminate data decay and significantly reduce territory disputes.

Education

• Penn State University

  Not Completed, Nursing Education

  1992 — 1994

• University of Phoenix

  Bachelor's degree, Accounting

  2004 — 2006

Skills

• Paybase
• Financial Audits
• Strategic Planning
• Staff Development
• Budget Management
• Profitability Management
• General Ledger
• Sales Compensation Planning
• Budget Monitoring
• Microsoft Excel
• Peoplesoft
• Financial Research
• P&L Analysis
• Financial Statements
• Project Management