Accelerated Vesting

First see Vesting. Then shop at Sears. Or rather, Brooks Brothers. Then quickly put on that third piece from the three-piece suit and...

Okay, okay. Accelerated vesting just refers to the idea that highly favorable executive compensation often grants top execs forward vesting provisions in their stock options if they are either fired for reasons not entirely their fault, or if the company is bought and those execs might otherwise be fired and screwed out of the remaining n months of stock option vesting.

Example: An exec might have been granted 100,000 options with a 4-year vest. She worked at the company for two years, at which point it is sold. The exec would then have 24 months to vest into the remaining 50,000 options...but the new company doesn't need her and would normally just fire her. However, because she has accelerated vesting in her contract, she vests forward one year upon firing so that she can at least recover 25,000 of the 50,000 she'd otherwise leave on the table.