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Leading Companies Online Magazine
The 2007 Employee Ownership Conference in Review
By Debra Sherman, Beyster Institute Staff
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It just keeps getting better. That’s what we heard from the record west coast crowd that attended the 2007 Beyster Institute/NCEO Employee Ownership Conference in San Diego in March. For two and a half days, the attendees immersed themselves in the latest and best in employee ownership thinking, action and strategy.
From the well-attended pre-conference sessions to the structured networking events, conference participants had the opportunity to learn from leaders, experts and peers. They met Beyster Institute guests from the Middle East and North Africa had access to a wide range of authors who unveiled new books at the conference, and met one-on-one with some of the best advisers in the field. |
| The conference's "Meet with an Expert" sessions always fill up fast |
The conference offered over 50 breakout sessions on topics ranging from innovative employee ownership companies to valuation and S Corporation ESOPs. Speakers, sponsors, and attendees hailed from across the U.S. and Canada.
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At the opening leader dialogue panel, moderator Ray Smilor from the Beyster Institute talked with Mary Baker, Chairman and President, ATA Engineering; Wayne Winton, Chairman and former CEO, SPARTA; and Johannes M. Bos, CEO, Berkeley Policy Associates.
These three leaders shared their wisdom and insights into how and why employee ownership helps make their companies successful. They saw their roles as inwardly-focused – for instance, making sure that employees get the real facts about what makes the company work and what affects company finances – and outwardly-focused on creating a good place to work and making sure that employees’ careers are successful. |
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| The program kicked off with a panel discussion featuring distinguished leaders from employee-owned companies. |
Beyster Institute consultants Martin Staubus and Tony Mathews presented some of the lessons learned from their combined 50 years of experience in employee ownership. Here are some of their insights:
- Defining and meeting stakeholders’ objectives is key to the success of employee ownership. Even a well-crafted program won’t be successful if it doesn’t account for the range of objectives deemed important by owners, investors, and other stakeholders in the company.
- A major point of vulnerability for the continued success of an established employee ownership program is at ownership or management transition. Even the best programs can become stagnant or even fail if new management isn’t on board.
- When establishing a new employee ownership program, it is critical to communicate with middle managers early in the process. They are the key link between the executives establishing the program and the employees who will make it succeed.
The conference also focused on already established plans. Chuck Bachman from Menke & Associates and Gregory Brown from Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP discussed problems facing mature ESOP companies and offered best practices for dealing with the issues. Included in their session were suggestions for reviewing corporate governance, determining whether to appoint independent directors, establishing independent compensation and audit committees, compensating senior management and dealing with repurchase liability.
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Conference participants enjoyed being the first stop on a book tour by Dr. J. Robert Beyster, founder of SAIC and the Beyster Institute and author of the newly-released “The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee Owned Technology Company” (reviewed in this issue). Author and editor William Taylor (“Mavericks at Work,” reviewed Jan. 2007) gave a lively and engaging keynote address, telling of companies defying conventional wisdom and enjoying remarkable success.
Next year’s employee ownership conference is scheduled for
April 2-4, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. Information will be posted on the Beyster Institute and NCEO web sites starting in October. We hope you’ll be able to make it – remember, it just keeps getting better. |
The conference's keynote speaker, author Bill Taylor, signs the forward he wrote for the new book "The SAIC Solution" by Dr. J. Robert
Beyster (left) and Peter Economy. |
©2007. The Beyster Institute and its authors and their entities. All rights reserved.
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