How to get workers to act like owners
The Ownership Economy Newsletter (Vol. 128)
Welcome back!
Dr. Hand was supposed to be at the Kelso Workshop this weekend, but a sick toddler kept him home. You can share his FOMO and get an inside look the state of employee ownership by skimming the program1 and reading about the Rutgers Institute’s 2025-2026 fellowship winners. Happy weekend and happy 2026!
Top shelf news
Project Equity and Zolidar won a grant from OpenAI’s People-First Fund; OpenAI also set the record for employee stock compensation. Congrats!
Melissa Hoover is now Managing Director of Ownership Culture at Apis & Heritage Capital Partners. Congrats!
Jobs jobs jobs
Project manager at Trust Neighborhoods (apply by Monday)
Vice President of Marketing at Project Equity
Co-Executive Director at the Tennessee Center for Employee Ownership
Project Leader at Rewrite Capital Advisors in Canada
Scott Galloway told Ben Stiller he gives more than half of every company to his employees because “the only way to get people to act like owners is to make them owners”:
Everything else
Events
See our full list of upcoming events and share your event recaps with us!
Jan 15: Legacy Exit of Colorado’s Succession Planning Cohort Information Meeting
Jan 16: USqaure’s panel, L’entreprise doit-elle appartenir à ses salarié.e.s? in Brussels
Jan 19: U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives’ webinar on filing taxes as an LLC Cooperative
Jan 23: Dr. Hand’s birthday 🥳
Jan 24: TPSS Co-Op hosts Jon Steinman at its Shaping Our Second Store event in Tacoma Park, near DC
Event recaps
Common Trust on its 2025 Stewards Circle
Maddie Poore on the 2025 Cooperative IMPACT Conference, for The51st
The Platform Cooperativism Consortium on its 2025 events and progress
The Skoll Centre on their 2025 Community Convening, where Dr. Hand led a workshop on how companies can lock in their purpose, broaden financial participation, and broaden decision-making power
Employee stock ownership plans
Bob Whalen, CEO of employee-owned HB McLure, is publishing a book in March about selling to employees
NCEO published its 2025 ESOP Executive and Board Compensation Report
The TX/OK chapter of the ESOP Association was on Capitol Hill this week
Expanding ESOPs interviews Regina Carls from JPMorganChase and Trevor Gilmore of ESOP-owned Menke & Associates
Worker cooperatives
Incarcerated worker cooperatives can improve the criminal legal system, argue Susan Nembhard and Jessica Gordon Nembhard
More Perfect Union discovers Italy’s Radical Solution to Extreme Inequality (spoiler: it’s cooperatives)
Purpose trusts and steward ownership
HMS Motorsport is now North Carolina’s second employee ownership trust, and its CEO Joe Marko lays out the thought process behind the sale
In ImpactAlpha, Issie Corvi and Dana Stranz lay out avenues for financing purpose trust-owned companies (paywall)
Melanie Rieback has thoughts about the development of the 28th regime in Europe, which could create a continent-wide form of steward-ownership
Employee ownership opinion and analysis
One of Main Street Journal’s ten recommendations for state legislators? Facilitate worker buyouts
Lafayette Square Institute released new congressional district-level data on its 535 Insights, including on employee ownership
David Ellerman is not a fan of the new Danish employee ownership trust legislation; and he gives some backstory on the new employee ownership law in Slovenia
Founders Market & Co. is the first company to convert to direct employee ownership with Tandem
News from the states: Grand Rapids, MI, is the first city to provide purchasing preferences for employee owned businesses; North Dakota now has a center for employee ownership
From Canada: Blake Wolfe argues for permanent EOT legislation; Firefly Insights published a short course on employee ownership; ESOP Builders wants to hear from business owners that have considered employee ownership
The CEO of Firebond, based in Louisiana gave employees 15% of the cash from a $1.7 billion sale (happy Mardi Gras season, cousins!)
The ownership economy
Elle Griffin shares more on her book We Should Own the Economy in Utah Business
Common Planet Foundation published Another World is Possible on creditism, a “non-debt, non-scarcity economic system designed to move beyond ownership toward stewardship, access, and shared purpose”
Matthew B. Crawford argues that ownership of AI will mean ownership of the means of thinking
Read Paula D’Ambrosa on the intersection between the ownership economy and the neoliberal abundance agenda
Missed opportunities: In The New Republic, Sarah DiGregorio reports on the private equity firms that gobble up hospitals and spit them out
ICYMI: We’re learning more about social cooperatives from Elias Crim in Nonprofit Quarterly
And on community ownership specifically:
British MP Alistair Strathern says pubs should be community-owned 🍻
ICYMI: Gretchen Beesing asks what it would take to make community ownership the rule
The Urban Institute’s white paper on Community Ownership and Self-Determination has ideas
Democracy Collaborative posted a video about community ownership of Leo’s Casino Arts & Music Collaboratory in Cleveland:
📚 Academic updates
In case you missed this newsletter’s topline: Rutgers Institute’s annual Kelso Workshop is happening this weekend. Check out the program, learn about its new fellows, and apply to its 2026-2027 fellowships by February 28
The Royal Geographical Society put out a call for papers call for its Democratising the Economy conference in London in September
New data? Lafayette Square Institute released new congressional district-level data on its 535 Insights, including on employee ownership; ESOP Builders is running a survey of selling business owners in Canada
Miloš Kovačević argues that employee ownership is the path to property-owning democracy in Serbia
Thibault Mirabel and Aurélien Quignon find, oddly, that “the share of worker-owners among workers positively influences innovation, whereas the share of worker-owners among owners negatively impacts innovation”
Corey Rosen assesses the risks of ESOPs for employees, managers, and business owners
An earlier version of this newsletter linked to an older Kelso program. Sorry!