The ‘Lease’ on Your Salary: Melina Panetta on Capturing Your Expertise’s True Value

In a recent LinkedIn post, Melina Panetta challenges the conventional understanding of employee compensation, arguing that a salary, while feeling like security, is more akin to a “lease” on one’s expertise. Panetta, a prominent voice on career transitions and entrepreneurial ventures, contends that the corporate structure is designed to resell employee value at a significant markup, leaving the individual capturing only a fraction of the true worth they generate.

Panetta’s core argument is laid out starkly: the math behind corporate reselling dictates that companies profit substantially more from an employee’s contributions than they compensate them directly. She illustrates this with hypothetical scenarios of significant business achievements.

“You close a $4M deal. You negotiate a restructure that saves $12M. You build a supply chain that runs 40% leaner. What do you get? A 3% raise. A Town Hall shoutout.”

This stark contrast, Panetta points out, highlights the inherent imbalance where the company reaps the major financial rewards. “What does the company get? The upside. The equity. The multiple. It’s how the structure works,” she states, emphasizing that this is not a matter of opinion but a consequence of the established business model.

The Structure of Resale

Panetta elaborates on how the traditional employment model inherently benefits the employer by allowing them to capture the “upside” of an employee’s specialized skills. This system, she argues, often leads to senior professionals feeling undervalued, not because they lack expertise, but because they are operating within a framework designed for resale rather than direct value capture.

The Advisory Alternative

To counter this, Panetta proposes an alternative structure, showcasing the potential earnings when individuals control their own expertise. She presents a model where leveraging specialized knowledge through advisory roles can yield significantly higher returns with less operational overhead.

“→ 3 advisory clients at $8K/month = $288K → 20 hours a week. No PTO approvals. No reorg risk. No raise bands.”

She provides a compelling case study of a former VP of Operations who, after 18 years in a corporate role with a $310K compensation package, transitioned to an advisory capacity. According to Panetta’s account, this individual saw their income increase substantially in the subsequent years, earning $390K in their first year as an advisor and $460K in their second.

“Same expertise. Different structure.”

This shift, Panetta argues, demonstrates that the issue is not a lack of inherent value, but the structure in which that value is deployed. “Most people spend 20 years perfecting their craft, then let someone else capture the margin,” she observes, framing this as a critical juncture for senior leaders.

Reframing Value and Ownership

Panetta urges professionals to move beyond questioning their own worth and instead focus on the ownership of the financial upside generated by their expertise. “The real question isn’t what you’re worth. It’s who owns the upside,” she concludes, encouraging a fundamental reevaluation of career trajectories and compensation models.

Her post serves as a call to action for seasoned professionals to consider alternative paths that allow them to directly benefit from the value they create, moving from a position of being “underpaid because you’re inside a system designed to resell it” to one where they control the margin and the upside.