Rethinking Corporate Ownership

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Jun 21, 2025

In case you missed last week’s newsletter, the EO+WD Weekend Newsletter is now The Stakehold. New name. Same great flavor.

The Department of Labor’s stance on employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) were featured in Politico, a news site for Washington DC insiders.
Marjorie Kelly’s LinkedIn post on the Innovative Finance Initiative drew a solid amount of attention and comment over the last two weeks.
Purpose Economy in Germany launches steward-ownership.com, a new hub for steward ownership, featuring a financing course and real world case studies.
New state-level legislation in Massachusetts aims to increase the number of small businesses selling to employees.

Here is what’s coming up next week:

July 17: The Ownership Capital Lab is hosting Employee Ownership Fund Spotlight: Place-Based Investing for those interested in eo investing! (virtual)

For a full list of events, see this page.

In Washington DC, H.R. 3105 would expand private ESOPs (h/t ESCA).
NCEOC highlights Blythe Development, which converted to an ESOP one year ago.
Expanding ESOPs interviews Chris Fredericks, CEO of Indiana-based Empowered Ventures, an ESOP holding company.
California-based electrical contractor Ickler Electric Corporation is now an employee-owned, thanks in part to financing from Lafayette Square and Mosaic Capital Partners (h/t Damien Dwin).

The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives highlights stories of worker-owners from the Harvest Cooperative and Sustainergy Cooperative, plus the union co-op org. that helped them get started, Co-op Cindy.
The ICA May newsletter covers cooperatives’ contributions to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Reporters in Western Canada are launching the country’s first worker-owned cooperative news outlet.

Erinch Sahan discusses purpose-led business on BBC World Service, using OpenAI’s nonprofit governance model as an example. SOCAP’s Kevin Jones agrees. Anthropic, which owns the ChatGPT competitor Claude, has one.
At this year’s PublicSpaces Conference, Alkemio CEO Neil Smyth called for “alternative models of governance that are transparent and aligned with the long-term interests of society,” which sure sounds a lot like purpose trust ownership.
NPR examines the “golden share” agreement in the U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel partnership. (Golden shares are sometimes considered a type of steward ownership).
From above: Purpose Economy in Germany launches steward-ownership.com, a new hub for steward ownership, featuring a financing course and real world case studies.

Yesterday was Employee Ownership Day in the UK! EO Sector has your updates.
Julie Menter recaps a SAFSF panel on integrated capital, highlighting how blended finance strategies like grants, loans, and guarantees plus equity can align with community needs.
Michael A. Golden explains how concentrated, place-based capital investment in historically redlined areas, paired with employee plus community ownership, can spark true economic empowerment.
The Georgia Center for Employee Ownership teamed up with the local Conscious Capitalism and B Local chapters to bring together purpose driven business, stakeholder orientation, and employee ownership to build stronger companies and communities.
The recording of Rethinking Corporate Ownership, hosted by the Center for Responsible Business at Berkeley Haas in April, is now available (also see Dr. Hand and company’s similarly titled article from 2024, Rethinking Ownership):

“Firms with higher levels of employee ownership are better equipped to capitalize on the advantages of corporate cultural diversity,” find Aleksandra Klein and company.
Worker cooperatives “can provide sources of control over working life for individuals through collective, democratic management and effective autonomy over working time,” argues Robin Jervis.
Cecile Gabrielle Betit published a case study of 100% employee-owned, Vermont-based Carris Reels. (Also See Deb Olson’s case study on the company).
Meitong Dong and company find that among public Chinese firms, “the adoption of employee ownership promotes firms’ digital transformation.”
Using a 30,000 firm survey (!), Dylan Nelson and Nathan Wilmers find that “employers using worker voice pay workers more and have higher productivity.”

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