🤗 Welcome Back!
A meaningful Good Friday to all who observe. And a happy weekend to the rest of you! What we’ve been up to:
Dr. Hand examines the philosophical foundations of the Ownership Economy
Tiffany explores the relationship between employee ownership and social responsibility
Dr. Hand makes a guest appearance on B Lab’s Forces for Good podcast, exploring Patagonia’s perpetual purpose trust 👇
📢 Top Shelf News
Warburg Pincus acquired ESOP-owned Vermont Information Processing for one billion (!) dollars, highlighting the appeal of ESOPs to private equity firms (h/t Certified EO)
Organically Grown CEO and PTON board member Brenna Davis announced her book, Leading Through Fire
Austin-based Electric Power Engineers transitioned to employee ownership (and is hiring)
Ownership Capital Lab is hosting a survey aimed at providing data on investing in employee ownership. Check it out here
The Grid, a new free platform from software company Zolidar, aims to support small businesses in transitioning to employee ownership. Sign up today!
🔍 White Papers, Op-Eds, and Analysis
👉 Research & Analysis
Felix R. FitzRoy and Michael A. Nolan analyze why employee ownership is more efficient than control by capital owners
Jonathan Rothwell explores the absence of succession plans for small-business owners and how employee ownership could be a solution (h/t Project Equity)
👉 Commentary & Media
ImpactAlpha shares how employee ownership finds support on both sides of the aisle at the Employee Ownership Ideas Forum.
Also check out others’ key takeaways from the event
Maxwell Johnson explores Clegg Auto’s Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) and how this model drives a “culture of ownership” (h/t Steve Storkan)
Kevin Sims shares his experience working in employee owned firm Web Industries
Worker-owned Pidgin Cooperative is coming to Seattle (h/t The ICA Group)
Expanding ESOPs poses seven questions to Amy Hartnett, Managing Director at Principal
Purpose Economy examines how steward ownership safeguards employee interests, following concerns raised by Komoot staff after the company’s sale
Alan Coleman and David McWilliams discuss what an employee owned company looks like on this latest podcast (h/t IPSA)
🌇 New Events + Events Next Week
We’re shifting our events section to its own post, updated every Friday. We’ll continue to include here this week’s events and new events we learn about.
April 21-23: MO Summit 2025 in North Carolina hosts a session on perpetual purpose trusts
April 22: Project Equity’s webinar, Attract & Keep Top Talent-Why Employee Ownership is the Key
April 23: North Carolina Employee Ownership Center’s webinar, Advisors’ Edge: Unlocking Employee Ownership for Your Clients
April 24: Ownership Capital Lab’s webinar, NextGen investors for social impact: The power to scale EO
April 24: National Society of Accountants for Cooperatives’ ExitPro 101: Employee Ownership for Small Business Advisors and Accountants. Non-members, register for free using this promo code: PE-VIP99$
🆕 | July 22-24: Rutgers’ Future of Equity: Silicon Valley Employee Ownership Symposium in Palo Alto
🆕 | July 22-24: The ESOP Association’s CFO Summit in Park City
⏪ In Case You Missed It
John Courtney highlights why Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) are great for companies in the UK, and how it compares to other succession options
Corey Rosen, John Case, and Martin Staubus explore the four factors that enables employee ownership to flourish in workplaces (c. 2005)
Check out Onboarding Nature, a toolkit with four models for Nature-inclusive corporate governance, from B Lab Benelux, Earth Law Center, and Nyenrode Business University (c. 2023)
So glad to see this research and elevation of Ownership Economy! Will you be at the Ownership Economy summit in Manhattan this Oct? Would love to connect, we are doing an experimental cohort https://workers.vc next month, with the equity drops from task tracker, Mike Moyer is advising also from Slicing Pie, for startups its a little different than ESOP and more participatory. I think my colleague Zakia Mangal reached out to you on LinkedIn about this, she found your substack here. We need to make this change bottom up so that the norm is democratic control!