Spill the Tea from Philly

and

Aug 23, 2025

The NCEO 2025 Forum is this week, in Philadelphia. Please send us your takes and LinkedIn posts for inclusion over the next couple of weeks. You can reply here or message any of us on LinkedIn!
We hope this week was kind to you. Find some easy weekend reading below 📚

On employee stock ownership plans
On employee/purpose trusts + steward ownership
On the ownership economy

Project Equity’s educational content is now accredited for CEPA continuing education credits through the Exit Planning Institute
Consumer Direct Holdings of Montana is now 30% employee owned via an employee ownership trust
Britain’s biggest toy shop chain, The Entertainer, will have 1,900 employee-owners by the end of September

August 26: Kennesaw State University’s A Tax Advantageous Ownership Transition Strategy for Family Business (virtual)
August 24-26: The ESOP Association’s Annual CEO Summit in Jackson Hole, WY
August 27–29: The NCEO Forum in Philadelphia
- EOT One-Day Workshop – A deep dive into employee ownership trusts
- Tailoring Governance Structures: How ESOP Boards Are Shaping Board Strategies to Fit Their Unique DNA, in which Sheila Bangalore and Jennifer Briggs will share how ESOP boards can design governance aligned with their cultural DNA and long-term goals
- A Big Tent: The Movement to Expanding Employee Ownership, hosted by Expanding ESOPs and featuring Anna-Lisa Miller, Megan Walsh Thompson, Loren Rodgers, and Mary Sullivan Josephs
September 10: Project Equity’s Small Business Forum, Doing Business in Uncertain Times (virtual)

For a full list of upcoming ownership economy events, see our Events page.

BoiseDev honors the legacy of Bill Long, former CEO of WinCo Foods, one of the nation’s largest employee-owned businesses ❤️
MAGNET spotlights AECO Corp, Ohio’s oldest ESOP
Harvard’s BiGS Institute interviews Joseph Blasi how to expand employee ownership through including tax incentives for ESOPs, profit sharing, founder retirements to ESOPs, and small ESOP stakes in large companies
Up & Over Advisors has joined the NCEO community to expand employee ownership through acquisition
Morgan Uridil wants to see more employee ownership in Iowa

Purpose Economy argues that steward ownership should be included in the ‘28th regime’ being considered by the EU
In the UK, David Pett announces the 2nd edition of his book, Employee-Ownership Trusts
Two recent Zolidar podcast episodes:
- Michael Kramer explains how Natural Investments, a financial advisory firm, became a perpetual purpose trust to preserve its mission
- Biohabitats chose a purpose trust over private equity to align its ownership structure with its mission of ecological stewardship

Joseph Blasi and Jonathan Michie published Realising the Mutual Advantage, the introduction to a special issue on employee ownership
- The collection includes Dr. Hand’s recent co-authored paper Where Employee Ownership Works Best
Shelley Poole of the University of South Wales published her doctoral dissertation, Hearing the Employee Owner's Voice: A Critical Appraisal of Indirect Mechanisms for Hearing the Employee Owner's Voice in employee-owned companies in the UK. Congrats Dr. Poole!
Dan Huang and colleagues find that in China, employee ownership is associated with higher tax avoidance
In a Georgetown law journal, Julie C. Cortes writes on the silver tsunami, economy democracy, and worker cooperatives

In Stanford Social Innovation Review, James Boomgard argues for putting employee ownership on the inclusiveness agenda (2021)
Katie Boland and Brian Boland, co-founders of the Delta Fund and the Unlock Ownership Fund discuss whether ownership about equity or agency (July 2025)
Joseph Cureton discusses the Obran Cooperative, a worker-owned conglomerate, at the Social Cooperative Academy (2024)

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