Avient New CEO Mike Frank Gets $18M in Hiring Awards

Avient's new chief executive, Mike Frank, starts with one-time hiring awards worth about $18.0 million at target, mostly stock and performance units that vest over three to five years. That is about three times the $5.82 million his predecessor, Ashish Khandpur, was paid for 2025, though the two figures measure different things, TradeFlock calculates. The same board is also reversing a governance call it made 17 months ago: it combined the chair and CEO roles under Khandpur on May 14, 2025, and has now split them again.

What Avient Announced on Friday

Avient said in an Oct. 9 news release that Frank, 62, the chief executive of UPL Corporation since 2022, had become president and CEO effective immediately. Khandpur "has stepped down" and will stay as an adviser through Dec. 31, 2026. Lead independent director Richard H. Fearon becomes non-executive chairman. The release gave no reason for the change and reaffirmed the third-quarter and full-year guidance Avient issued on Thursday, Aug. 6.

The company's Form 8-K, filed Friday, Oct. 9, says the board elected Frank on Wednesday, Oct. 7. Before UPL, he ran Nutrien Ag Solutions and spent 25 years at Monsanto, ending as global chief commercial officer.

Fearon called Frank "an exceptional executive with a record of accomplishment in agricultural chemicals." Frank said his priority would be to "sharpen execution and drive performance."

The Market Reaction

Investors did not take the surprise well. Avient closed Friday at $37.79, down 7.8% from $40.98, on about 2.6 million shares, more than three times the prior day's volume, according to Yahoo Finance price history. Avient's Aug. 6 results release had raised full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to $3.10 to $3.25 and adjusted EBITDA guidance to $575 million to $603 million, and the company reaffirmed that outlook on Friday.

Frank's Pay Package, Line by Line

The 8-K sets Frank's base salary at $1,222,000, with a target bonus of 120% of salary and a 2027 long-term equity target of 510% of salary. On top of that come three sign-on items:

• a $1.6 million cash payment, repayable if he quits or is fired for cause within 12 months;
• restricted stock units worth about $5.0 million, one third vesting after three years and the rest after five;
• cash-settled performance units with a target value of about $11.4 million, paying 0% to 200% of target based on adjusted EPS (67%) and relative total shareholder return (33%).

The 8-K does not say whether the awards replace pay Frank forfeited by leaving UPL.

Trend & Ticker first added those three items to about $18 million. By TradeFlock's calculation, his recurring target pay is about $8.92 million a year ($1.222 million salary, plus $1.466 million bonus at 120%, plus $6.232 million equity at 510%).

One detail is easy to miss. The performance units are measured from Jan. 1, 2026 through Dec. 31, 2028, so about nine of the 36 months (Jan. 1 to Oct. 7 is 279 days) passed before Frank took over. Part of his largest award will be judged on results delivered under Khandpur.

How It Compares With Khandpur's Pay

Avient's 2026 proxy statement reports Khandpur's total compensation at $5,818,257 for 2025, down from $6,903,295 in 2024. Frank's sign-on awards alone are about 3.1 times that 2025 figure by TradeFlock's calculation ($18.0 million divided by $5.82 million). His target annual package is about 1.5 times it, though that compares a target with a reported total.

Khandpur's own hiring year is the closer match. Avient named him CEO effective Friday, Dec. 1, 2023, after 28 years at 3M. The proxy shows a $1.5 million bonus and $5.0 million of stock awards for 2023, close to Frank's $1.6 million cash and $5.0 million in units. The difference is the $11.4 million in performance units, which has no counterpart in Khandpur's 2023 line.

A Board That Changed Its Mind

The proxy says the board "determined it was appropriate to recombine" the chair and CEO roles and made Khandpur chairman effective May 14, 2025, as Avient announced at the time. Fearon, chairman from 2023 to 2025, went back to lead director. The board said a combined role "enables faster execution." On Oct. 7 it reversed course and returned Fearon to the chair, 511 days later by TradeFlock's count.

Khandpur's exit terms follow the executive severance plan: two years of salary, the annual incentive as earned for 2026, and subsidized health coverage. In exchange for leaving the board, advising through 2026 and a one-year extension of his noncompete, the compensation committee let 76,093 restricted units vest in December 2026 and December 2027 that would otherwise lapse. At Friday's $37.79 close, those units are worth about $2.88 million by TradeFlock's calculation (76,093 x $37.79 = $2,875,554).

What This Means for Avient Shareholders

Splitting the roles again gives the independent directors back the chair while an outsider learns the business. TradeFlock recently covered other boards making different succession bets, including Stryker promoting an insider and Boston Dynamics hiring an Amazon AI executive, as well as FuelCell Energy's finance chief change.

The first public test comes Wednesday, Nov. 4, when Avient reports third-quarter results before the market opens. With most of his performance award tied to EPS through 2028, the guidance Frank inherited is now the yardstick for his own pay.

Cover photo: Teemeah via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)