Martin Cooper
About Martin Cooper
Martin Cooper is an experienced tax partner specialising in share plans and reward. He leads the employer solutions business in the UK, a team of 100+ specialists that advises on employment tax, global employer services as well as share plans and reward.
Martin delivers tailored solutions to help businesses create an engaged and aligned management team and workforce, driving business performance and results for shareholders.
He and his team work closely with clients to understand their corporate priorities and commercial objectives, developing strategies that make a transformational difference to their business. The team provides commercially-effective and tax-efficient solutions to incentivise, motivate and reward employees.
Martin’s expertise includes all forms of tax-advantaged arrangements eg enterprise management incentives (EMI), company share option plans (CSOP), share incentive plans (SIP) and save as you earn (SAYE) option plans. He also advises on growth shares, other bespoke equity-based and cash-based short and long-term incentive plans, and the valuation of shares for tax purposes.
He acts for a large number of private equity houses and their portfolio companies, advising them on their management equity arrangements.
In addition to advising private businesses, Martin is an experienced adviser to remuneration committees of AIM and Main Market-listed companies. He supports them in creating an effective directors’ remuneration strategy, aligning the interests of key executives with those of investors and helping to recruit, retain and motivate directors to deliver their strategic goals.
Martin is also one of the UK’s most experienced advisers on employee ownership trusts (EOTs), having led on a large number of transactions over the past decade, including some of the UK’s biggest EOT deals.
Before joining RSM, Martin worked in the reward teams of a large international law firm and a Big Four accountancy firm, and has also worked in-house. Martin is a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
“People are central to every business and dealing with the challenges and opportunities this brings for our clients is at the heart of everything that I do. Seeing the enormous impact that a well-designed incentive structure can have on a business and its people is the most rewarding part of my job.”
Away from the office, Martin enjoys photography and spending time walking in the countryside with his family.
RSM timeline:
- 2025: promoted to Head of Employer Solutions
- 2022: became Head of Share Plans & Reward
- 2019: promoted to Partner
- 2017: joined RSM
Press and media highlights
Share plans uncovered series