Item 8.01 Other Events

ConnectOne Bancorp, Inc. (the "Company") is providing additional information regarding certain of its compensation policies, and specifically regarding its annual incentive compensation program awards for 2022. In setting the performance measures for 2022, the Company's Compensation Committee took into account a number of factors, including the fact that during 2021, the Company (like many financial institutions) recorded releases from its loan loss reserves, benefiting 2021's performance, based on improved macroeconomic data. While the macroeconomic data remained stable during 2022, the Company experienced strong loan growth (an increase of $1.3 billion), resulting in a provision during 2022 of $17.8 million, versus an allowance release of $5.5 million during 2021. The Committee also considered the Company's planned growth and need for investment in talent, which resulted in an increase in average head count of approximately 10% and increased employee compensation and benefits expense by $16.9 million. Critical hires included a former Chief Lending Officer of a Long Island based institution, along with his team, to bolster our Long Island market and a health care lending team the Company hired from a competitor bank that was sold. In addition, we provided additional financial support to our Fintech subsidiary, Boefly. Based on the forgoing, the Company's Compensation Committee believed that the targets set for 2002 reflected at least the same level of rigor historically applied, if not an increase in rigor. As can be seen from the table below, despite these changes year over year from 2021 to 2022, the Company's actual performance in 2022 would have qualified for stretch payouts in either year under the Core Return on Assets and Operating Efficiency Ratio metrics applied to the annual incentive compensation program in either year:



Performance    Threshold   Threshold   Target   Target   Stretch  Stretch  Actual
Measure        2021        2022        2021     2022     2021     2022     Performance
                                                                           2022
Core Return on 1.05%       1.00%       1.25%    1.20%    1.45%    1.40%    1.47%
Assets
Operating      43.5%       44.0%       41.5%    42.0%    40.0%    40.0%    39.0%
Efficiency
Ratio

Finally, historically, the Company's Long Term Compensation Program has used a single metric for performance to determine whether awards have been earned. In order to keep pace with emerging best practices, beginning with Long Term Compensation Awards granted in 2024, the Company's Compensation Committee will begin considering more than one performance metric.

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