Celebrating Five Years of Service, Growth, and Transformation

Over the last five years, The ESOP Association has undergone significant changes as the executive team, Board of Directors, and TEA staff have strived to modernize, expand, and transform the Association’s capabilities and offerings in order to better serve our membership and the cause of ESOPs and employee ownership.

Earlier in March, The ESOP Association marked Jim Bonham’s five-year anniversary leading TEA and the Employee Ownership Foundation. 2024 also marks the completion of the Association’s most recent strategic plan, and as we look forward to the next phase of TEA’s exciting future, it’s also a time to reflect on a few major milestones and accomplishments. The ESOP Association would also like to celebrate the members, volunteers, and visionary leaders who have helped transform the Association into the largest, most comprehensive national organization promoting employee ownership.

2019-2021: Modernizing the Association and Leading Through a Global Pandemic

In 2019, The ESOP Association began to move in a new direction with the development of a strategic plan led by Gary Shorman (then Board Chair), Ali Jamshidi (then Strategic Planning Committee Chair), and newly hired CEO Jim Bonham. One of the team’s major priorities was to overhaul and modernize the Association’s technological capabilities to keep pace with the demands of TEA’s increasingly interconnected stakeholders and members. TEA invested heavily in state-of-the-art IT resources, and began the process of relocating its headquarters to a brand-new office building on Capitol Hill. 

By the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, The ESOP Association was in a position to rapidly pivot to virtual programming and support employee-owned businesses struggling to navigate the greatest economic upheaval in generations. TEA leadership and Cindy Turcot, then-Board Chair of the Employee Ownership Foundation, along with the EOF Executive Committee, made the decision to quickly transition to online and virtual educational programming for the ESOP community. Over the next nine months, TEA and the EOF sponsored 98 educational sessions attended by nearly 10,000 participants, with topics ranging from guidance on PPP loans, sustaining ownership culture in the face of economic uncertainty, and workplace health and safety. In 2021, The ESOP Association was the first trade association to hold an in-person event (National Conference 2021) in Washington, DC since the beginning of the pandemic, serving as a model for other organizations who were attempting to return to in-person and hybrid events.

Expanding High Quality Services for TEA Members

The ESOP Association is extremely proud of the growth in premium quality services we have been able to offer our members over the last five years. TEA’s current offerings are the result of a multi-year process led by the executive team and Board with considerable input from corporate and professional members and stakeholders, part of an overarching vision to provide best in class service to the entire ESOP community. 

Chapter Growth

The ESOP Association’s nationwide chapter network is an unparalleled resource for members, providing local and regional educational, networking, and leadership development opportunities close to home. Yet the system in place today looked much different five years ago. The transformation of TEA’s chapters began with hiring full time, in-house Chapter Executives to manage the Association’s chapter activities, and a Development Officer to lead strategic planning and growth initiatives. And in 2023, in order to better serve our membership, TEA expanded and realigned its chapter system, adding new Rocky Mountain and Florida chapters. Over the last five years, The ESOP Association has seen tremendous growth in both the number of chapter events offered across the U.S., and in attendance at chapter and regional conferences and events. 

ESOP Executive Education and Programming

A major initiative of the last strategic plan was the implementation of programming specifically designed to help ESOP executives navigate the unique challenges of leading an employee-owned business. Through the EOF, TEA had long offered the only formal credential program for ESOP CEOs, Leading in an Ownership Setting: The Program for CEOs, in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice. To ensure current ESOP leaders are up to date on the latest trends and best practices, and to help the next generation of executives develop critical skills, TEA has worked to develop highly specialized executive-level programming with enhanced offerings for C-Suite leaders. These include dedicated CEO tracks at Employee Owned and TEA National conferences and CEO/CFO Roundtables at chapter events, offering valuable educational, collaborative and networking opportunities for senior ESOP leaders. 

In 2022, TEA launched the inaugural CEO Summit, which in two short years has become a must-attend event. The Summit is a unique opportunity for ESOP CEOs to interact with presenters and speakers from the highest levels of business and government on macroeconomic and geopolitical issues, in addition to complex ESOP issues and industry/geographic-specific challenges. 

Enhanced Public Policy and Advocacy, Leading to Major Victories

Another key objective of TEA’s strategic planning was the modernization and professionalization of the Association’s advocacy to achieve legislative and policy wins. When the plan was being developed in 2019, TEA and other employee ownership organizations had been trying to persuade the Department of Labor to issue guidance on adequate consideration to provide regulatory clarity for decades, to no avail. Understanding that a new and innovative approach was required, the executive team and Board began by making significant investments in TEA’s public affairs and advocacy structure. This included hiring new staff with decades of experience on Capitol Hill, and creating the Public Policy Council to help shape, focus and guide TEA’s advocacy activities. At the same time, TEA began building a nationwide grassroots and grasstops organization of volunteer employee owners, revitalized ESOP PAC, and launched the Corporate Council to help finance and support major initiatives.

TEA also developed a two-pronged strategy to compel the Department of Labor to begin drafting an adequate consideration rule. While continuing aggressive advocacy with Congressional champions to pursue a legislative pathway, TEA also filed a petition under the Administrative Procedure Act that required DOL to either agree to undertake rulemaking or state the reasons for declining. These efforts bore fruit, as a legislative mandate was enacted and the DOL informed TEA it will in fact begin rulemaking, marking a major victory for the ESOP community. Recently TEA has also released a model regulation to serve as a benchmark for DOL as the agency drafts its proposed rule. These efforts over the last five years, along with other significant policy wins like the creation of an Employee Ownership Initiative at the Department of Labor to promote employee ownership, serve to reinforce The ESOP Association’s position as the driving force for ESOP advocacy in Washington.

Growth of Employee Ownership Foundation Fueling New & Innovative Programs

The growth of the Employee Ownership Foundation over the last five years, driven by innovative fundraising efforts like ESOPATHON, has enabled the EOF to significantly expand programming in support of employee ownership. The Foundation’s donor base and contributions have been growing steadily, culminating in a record year in 2023. Last year, ESOPATHON raised more than $500,000, leading to total fundraising of nearly $800,000 for the Foundation.

These resources have allowed the EOF to innovate into new territory in its mission. While continuing to fund critical academic research to raise awareness of and illustrate the benefits of employee ownership, the Foundation has also begun aggressive outreach to business owners through the Business Succession Series. This program includes a series of videos, including instructional pieces as well as real-life ESOP success stories, that make a strong case for ESOPs as a viable, sustainable business model that can help stem the tide of the “silver tsunami.” 

The Foundation has also expanded its efforts into the international arena, convening global thought leaders on employee ownership at the Oxford Symposium on Employee Ownership in the United Kingdom. Here at home, in order to better educate new ESOP hires to “think like an owner,” the Foundation has launched the ESOP Employee Accelerator, a new program that instills a solid core of business and ESOP knowledge. And with the Foundation’s strong financial position, we are now giving back to our ESOP community with the new Trustee Scholars program, which awards two scholarships annually worth up to $20,000 (for a four-year degree) to employee owners and their children to help pay for college or vocational education.

Building Toward the Next Five Years

These varied achievements, and many more, would not have been possible without a visionary leadership team and dedicated staff, the hundreds of volunteer leaders serving in key advisory roles, and the support of thousands of TEA members committed to preserving and growing ESOPs and employee ownership. Thanks to you, The ESOP Association’s membership is at an all-time high, with employee owners who are better educated, more engaged and active than ever before. 

Because of your support, TEA can continue expanding our offerings to provide you even better service and more educational, networking and development opportunities at the national and chapter levels. As we build toward the next five years on this incredible journey, The ESOP Association would like to thank everyone who contributed to past successes, and we look forward to even greater things to come!