Company: WHWK
Filing Date: 2025-01-31
Form Type: DEFM14A
Source: 0001193125-25-018470
Chunk: 192

Company: Whitehawk Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-01-31
Form: DEFM14A
Chunk 192
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 2024 our Compensation Committee retained Radford, a business unit of Aon plc, as an independent compensation consultant, to provide a market analysis against companies that had
recently gone through analogous transactions as those described in this proxy statement. Based on the results of such analysis, our Compensation Committee determined that based on the shares available under the 2021 Plan relative to the
Company’s total outstanding shares, the Company would be severely limited in its ability to attract and retain key talent and therefore recommended, and our board of directors approved, the Amended and Restated Plan and the Equity Plan
Increase.

Approval of the additional shares under the Amended and Restated Plan will allow us to continue to provide incentives to attract, retain
and motivate eligible persons whose present and potential contributions are important to our success by offering them an opportunity to participate in our future performance. We believe that the Equity Plan Increase is in the best interests of the
Company because of the continuing need to provide stock options, restricted stock, restricted stock units, and other equity-based incentives to attract and retain qualified personnel and to respond to relevant market changes in equity compensation
practices. The use of equity compensation has historically been a significant part of our overall compensation philosophy and is a practice that we plan to continue. In addition, equity awards granted to employees under the Amended and Restated Plan

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will provide our eligible employees with an opportunity to acquire or increase their ownership stake in the Company, and we believe this aligns their interests with those of our stockholders, creating strong incentives for our employees to work hard for our future growth and success. We firmly believe that a broad-based equity program is a necessary and powerful employee incentive and retention tool that benefits all of our stockholders. Equity ownership programs put employees’ interests directly into alignment with those of other stockholders, as they reward employees based upon stock price performance. Without the ability to grant market-based equity incentives to our employees, we believe we would be at a disadvantage against other companies with whom we compete for talent to provide the total compensation packages necessary to attract, retain and motivate the employee talent critical to our future success. Without equity incentives, we would be forced to consider cash replacement alternatives to provide a market-competitive total compensation package necessary to attract, retain and motivate the employee talent critical to our future growth and success. These cash replacement alternatives could, among other things, reduce the cash available for investment in growth and development of new business and research, cause a loss of motivation by employees to achieve superior performance