Executive Employment Agreement
Senior hires, where the exit terms are the negotiation.
A contract between an employer and an employee that sets out role, compensation, benefits, termination terms, and obligations like confidentiality and IP assignment. In Canada, an employment agreement operates alongside (and can't remove) minimum protections set by provincial or federal employment standards legislation, so getting the termination and notice provisions right matters.
- Business days
- 1–5Business days
- Lawyer reviewed
- 100%Lawyer reviewed
- Surprise bills
- $0Surprise bills
What an Executive Employment Agreement should include
Role and authority — title, mandate, reporting line, and any board involvement.
Compensation — salary, short and long-term incentive, and how each is measured.
Equity — the grant, the vesting schedule, and what happens to unvested equity on exit.
Termination and severance — with and without cause, and what triggers each.
Change of control — what happens to role, equity and severance if the company is sold.
Restrictive covenants — non-solicitation and confidentiality, drafted to be defensible where the executive works.
When you need one
For any hire senior enough to negotiate their exit before they accept — typically C-level and senior VP. These agreements are worth getting right at signature because they are read most carefully at the moment the relationship is ending.
How Ruby drafts it
Tell us what you need
Describe the agreement, your business context, and how fast you need it. A few smart questions, not a legal questionnaire. Your price and turnaround are confirmed before anything starts.
Ruby drafts it
Once pricing is confirmed a qualified Ruby lawyer is assigned to your file, and the first draft is built from your answers and real Canadian statute.
A licensed lawyer reviews every line
A lawyer licensed in Canada reviews and finalizes the document before it reaches you, and writes the plain-language summary that comes with it.
Signed, stored, and yours to revisit
You get the final agreement and its summary, stored so you can come back to it rather than hunting through email for the current version.
The fee is set before any of that starts. Hourly billing moves as scope does; a flat fee is one number, confirmed in writing, that doesn’t change after the work is done. See how Ruby prices agreements.
Or did you mean one of these?
These get confused with an Executive Employment Agreement often enough to be worth ruling out before you buy the wrong document.
Questions people ask
It sets what happens to the executive's role, equity and severance if the company is acquired. Executives ask because an acquisition is the moment their position is most likely to disappear through no fault of their own.
It is negotiated, and the middle ground is usually double-trigger acceleration: the sale alone does not accelerate, but a sale followed by the executive losing their role does. Full single-trigger acceleration is something acquirers notice.
Mostly in the exit and equity terms, which are individually negotiated rather than standard-form, and in the level of detail around authority and change of control.
Looking for the plain definition rather than the document? See Executive Employment Agreement in the Ruby legal glossary.
This page is general information about Canadian business law and is not legal advice. Laws differ by province and change over time, and how they apply depends on your circumstances. For advice on your situation, speak with a lawyer licensed in your province.
Need a Executive Employment Agreement?
Ruby drafts it for a flat $799 CAD, confirmed before any work begins, with a licensed Canadian lawyer on every document.