Loren Rodgers
On February 25th, I sat down with Onex, Inc. President Ashleigh Walters, who shared her ESOP story. Onex, Inc. an Erie, Pennsylvania-based manufacturing company, became an ESOP in 2020. Their decision...well, I won’t give it away. Listen to Ashleigh share their decision-making process.
Loren Rodgers
The NCEO is seeking to hire a Director of Finance and Operations. The DFO is a new position, and it reports directly to the Executive Director. The DFO is responsible for the overall financial management of the organization and for managing and budgeting human resources, office management and general business operations. This is a regular, full-time exempt, at-will position. The DFO serves as an analytic partner for the Executive Director for finance, human resources and business operations.
Corey Rosen
In its report "A Job Quality Agenda for the Next Administration," the Aspen Institute, a leading nonpartisan think tank, joined the Center for American Progress, Council of Economic Advisors member Jared Bernstein, and others to “Promote employee ownership and worker cooperative models, which have been shown to have a positive association with quality jobs, by offering technical assistance and access to appropriate financing to support transitions to employee ownership, as well as new business development that includes some form of employee ownership. Funds could be made available to state employee ownership centers, experienced nonprofit organizations, and interested Small Business Development Centers to raise awareness about different employee ownership models among small- to medium-sized businesses and to extend technical assistance and facilitate financing.”
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks
The heart of the NCEO is its members. Representing a wide variety of employee-owned companies, service providers, and other interested parties and stakeholders, we exist to serve our members and make employee ownership thrive. In an effort to better serve our members and further expand our membership offerings, we are expanding our membership team.
Corey Rosen
Forty-six of the 78 companies that have stock on the recently released Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 2020 have some form of broad-based employee ownership plan, the highest percentage yet. Twenty-two of the companies on the list are law or accounting firms, nonprofits, or a consumer cooperative and have no stock for employees to own. This is the highest percentage yet on the list of such firms with no stock, but normally about half the companies on the list do have employee ownership plans.
Corey Rosen
Based on data from Forbes calculated 11 months after the onset of the pandemic, the country’s 679 billionaires saw their wealth increase by $1.3 trillion since the official start of the pandemic in March 2020. That number is almost as much as the total asset value of the 14 million participant accounts in ESOPs, and one-fourth as much as the total assets in 401(k) plans. Looked at another way, if the increase on value had been evenly divided among the 164 million people in the workforce, it would come to almost $8,000 per worker. The combined wealth of the billionaires is now $4.3 trillion.
Jordan Boone
The NCEO is expanding our event and executive teams. We are currently seeking to hire an event and executive assistant, who will play an integral part in the success of events like our Fall ESOP Forum and support our executive director, Loren Rodgers.
Amanda DeVito
First and foremost, I am on the board for the NCEO, so I may be a bit biased! But hands down, one of my most favorite events is their Employee Ownership Conference. Connecting with everyone, sharing stories, and being part of the ownership tribe is an uplifting experience. And now, as we are less than two months away from the 2021 conference, I again start to feel uplifted.
Corey Rosen
Pete Stavros, a partner and co-head of private equity for the Americas at KKR, the third-largest private equity fund in the world, told the Wall Street Journal that he and his wife plan to contribute $10 million to launch the Center for Shared Ownership. The organization will focus on employee ownership through funding research, providing resources for companies to help set up plans, and possibly pushing for legislation and government support. Stavros told the Journal that “Giving ownership to lower-level employees better aligns their interests with those of shareholders and managers, makes them more engaged, and creates a stronger culture. And at a time when rising inequality has led to populist uprisings and geopolitical instability, awarding shares to blue-collar workers can lead to great social cohesion by helping lower income workers—many of whom are racial minorities—build wealth.”
