Webinars

Join the Rutgers NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership for an information session on Monday, December 9 at 5:00pm. The virtual session will cover what employee ownership means, how businesses can use Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) as tools for succession, and the benefits of ESOPs for business-sellers, companies, and workers in New Jersey. Representatives from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) will also join to discuss a forthcoming state program designed to assist eligible businesses considering ESOP adoption.

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Speaker: Nick Romeo

Join us for a FREE 45-minute webinar on Friday, March 22nd at 12:30 pm EDT with Nick Romeo, a nationally known author inThe New Yorker and other national publications. Nick will discuss his new book, The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy, in which he reports on new innovative approaches to building a more equitable economy.

Romeo will summarize some of the major arguments from the book and the talk will briefly explore the role of economics education in creating our current economic reality and consider the power of both living wages and job guarantees before turning to employee ownership. Romeo will explore one European example and a variety of American models for employee ownership, considering the particular advantages and limitations of each and their prospects for broader adoption.

Five individuals from among those who attend the webinar will be randomly selected to receive a complimentary copy of Nick's book!

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Speaker: Ken Baker

Join us for this FREE webinar on Friday, December 1 at 11:30am EST, as Ken Baker, President and Chief Executive Officer of NewAge Industries, discusses how he converted NewAge Industries to a 100% employee-owned ESOP in multiple steps.

He will focus on how an ESOP can attract team members, retain team members, and create wealth for everybody in the organization and will also discuss how his work building the ESOP firm led to management’s decision to become a certified B Corporation.

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Speakers: Jay Ward, Rob Brown, & Heather Foran

Join us for a FREE 60-minute webinar on Thursday, November 9 at 11:30am EST.

Too many small business owners don’t have a realistic plan for how to exit their business, earn a decent retirement income, and preserve the legacy they’ve built and the jobs they’ve created. Jay Ward was like many of those small business owners—he was nearing retirement and didn’t know what to do with the business that four generations of his family had been building since 1890.

At the height of the pandemic, his company worked with a group of advisors that led them through the transition process of selling the business to his employees, accessing financing and executing a transaction. Now, over two years later, Ward Lumber Worker Cooperativeis a thriving, growing business owned and controlled by all the worker-owners.

In this webinar, you’ll learn why exit planning and employee ownership are so important for business owners to consider right now, and hear the story of Ward Lumber Worker Cooperative from Jay Ward and advisors from the Cooperative Development Institute.

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Speaker: Corey Rosen, Ph.D., founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO)

Join us for a FREE 45-minute webinar on Friday, March 3 at 1:30pm EST with Corey Rosen, Ph.D., founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO). Corey will discuss his new book, Ownership: Reinventing Companies, Capitalism, and Who Owns What (co-authored with John Case), a deep dive into how employee ownership originated, how it works now, and what needs to be done to expand it.

The book looks at how the idea of employee ownership is growing, both in the United States and around the world—and why all sides of the political spectrum support it. Corey emphasizes that employee ownership creates stronger companies, helps workers build wealth, and therefore can contribute to a more equitable and stable society. This book is the winner of the 2023 William Foote Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte Book Prize, an award that recognizes significant contributions to the advancement of economic democracy.

Five individuals from among those who attend the webinar will be randomly selected to receive a complimentary copy of Corey’s book!

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Speaker: Adria Scharf, Ph.D., Director of Education and Collaborations for the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University

Many business owners are thinking about selling their companies to their employees through an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP.

What does research suggest are some of the benefits of ESOPs, for employees? 

What are some of the benefits of selling to an ESOP for the selling owners, and what do business owners who chose to transition ownership to their employees by selling their shares to an ESOP say about their decision?  

This free webinar on Thursday, July 7 features highlights from research and interviews with eight ESOP companies.

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Speaker: Dr. Bill Castellano, Professor of Strategic HR Management at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, Executive Director for the Center for Employee Ownership and a Fellow at Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.

Join the NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership on Tuesday, May 24th at 1:00pm EDT for a free webinar that will cover behavioral economic and behavioral finance theories to shed light on how individuals make financial decisions. People rely on a limited number of cognitive and emotional shortcuts, which oftentimes lead to severe and systematic errors. Understanding these potential biases can improve one's decision making when making important financial decisions.

People who attend this session will learn:

1. How behavioral economics and behavioral finance are impacting the world of equity compensation
2. What are the common biases and heuristic principles that lead to poor financial decision making?
3. How to design equity compensation programs to help employees make better financial decisions

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Speaker: Adria Scharf, Ph.D., Beyster Fellow and Director of the Curriculum Library for Employee Ownership.

The newly redesigned Curriculum Library for Employee Ownership (CLEO), the online library dedicated to employee share ownership, features more than 600 resources—including company case studies, links to scholarly research articles, informative videos, and policy reports.

In this webinar, Beyster Fellow and Director of CLEO Adria Scharf, Ph.D. introduces this FREE online library and highlights resources of interest to business owners who are considering employee ownership. Research suggests that employee share ownership can lead to improved business performance and lower turnover while enabling employees to build significant wealth.

Designed for educators and researchers, CLEO includes: 

• Short videos of leaders and employees at companies that have transitioned to employee ownership models 
• Reports that give simple overviews of the advantages of employee ownership
• Employee ownership articles featuring family businesses, succession issues, mini-case studies and more

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Speaker: Richard Van Doel, President and CEO, Performance Validation

Performance Validation has been serving the life science industries since 1988, and is a nationwide leader in providing validation, commissioning, and quality services for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device manufacturers.  Performance Validation helps clients qualify the equipment and infrastructure, and validate the manufacturing processes that make life-saving FDA-regulated products. 

In this webinar, Richard Van Doel, President and CEO of Performance Validation, shares his experiences about the company's 4-year journey from closely held private ownership to a 100% employee owned S-corporation.  Rick also discusses how company "ownership culture" can be a positive influence on company and ESOP success.

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Speaker: Christopher Michael, Professor of Professional Practice, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations & Affiliate, Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing

Selling to an employee ownership trust (EOT) can be a strong alternative to an ESOP where the cost of an ESOP is a major consideration, as well as where perpetuity of the employee ownership structure is a major goal.

Join the NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership on Friday, January 21st at 12:00pm EST for a webinar to learn why an EOT might be the right option for your business succession.

This webinar will feature a discussion with Christopher Michael and Bill Foster, founder and CEO of BioWorks in Rochester, NY, who will speak about his sale to an EOT. 

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Speaker: Bill Castellano, Ph.D., Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Rutgers NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership recently conducted a study to understand what motivates employees when designing equity share plans and found what drives one employee may not necessarily motivate another, particularly when considering a multigenerational and diverse workforce. In this webinar, Bill Castellano, Ph.D., Professor of Human Resource Management at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and Executive Director for the NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership discussed important information for designing your equity share plan programs that can enhance employees' performance, improve overall performance, and drive results.

Please note the recording of this webinar is unavailable.

Speaker: Matt Hricko, Managing Director in the ESOP and ERISA Advisory Practice, Stout

Financial valuation of the business is necessary for a firm that is considering converting to, or has converted to, an ESOP structure. In this webinar, we discussed why and when a valuation is necessary, valuation opinions in the context of establishing a new ESOP, and Traditional valuation methodologies and approaches.

Please note the recording of this webinar is unavailable.

Speaker: Corey Rosen, Ph.D., Founder, National Center for Employee Ownership

Is an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) right for you? In this 30-minute webinar, Corey Rosen, Ph.D., Founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership, talked about how ESOPs are a flexible way for business owners to provide for ownership transition and can also preserve business legacy.

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Speaker: Bill Nobles, Executive Fellow at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and Former Executive at Exxon

Since the Industrial Revolution, management has created hierarchy in organization structures to control assets and employees. The potential negative impacts of hierarchical control on employee performance and engagement have been recognized for a long time.  Listen to this webinar recording to gain a better understanding of how an organization can create and adopt a management approach that emphasizes liberating servant leadership. Using specific company examples, including his own experience at Exxon, Bill discussed how leaders can coach and serve employees to produce extraordinary business results.

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Speaker: Bill Castellano, Ph.D., Rutgers NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership

In this webinar we discussed equity share plan strategies that can increase equity participation and employee share ownership and the key policies and practices that create an engaging ownership culture. Based on a large body of research mostly conducted by the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, these practices can positively impact employee engagement and organizational strategic and financial outcomes.

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Speaker: Christopher Michael, Esq., Professor of Professional Practice, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Selling to an employee ownership trust (EOT) should be considered as a strong alternative to an ESOP where the cost of an ESOP is a major consideration, as well as where perpetuity of the employee ownership structure is a major goal. In this webinar, you will learn "why" to use an EOT instead of an ESOP, "how" to transition to an EOT, and "where" to look for further guidance.

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Speaker: Bill Castellano, Ph.D., Rutgers NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership

The Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing has a long tradition researching the impact of equity share plan designs and organizational culture on individual, strategic, and financial outcomes. In this webinar you will learn how organizations can design effective share plan strategies and create an ownership culture to increase the returns on their equity program investments.

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Speaker: Stephen White, Onyx Partners Group

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are not just a vehicle designed to enhance the value of a business or to transfer ownership.  In this webinar you will learn how employee and sales productivity can increase in companies after they establish their ESOPs.

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Speaker: Corey Rosen, Ph.D., National Center for Employee Ownership

What do most companies on the Fortune lists of best workplaces have in common? A culture of ownership - they share ownership widely with employees and many are majority owned. In this webinar you will learn what makes these ownership cultures tick.

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Speaker: Bill Castellano, Ph.D., Rutgers NJ/NY Center for Employee Ownership

How can a company measure the ROI of their equity compensation program? In this webinar you will gain effective strategies that can enhance the impact of your equity compensation program. Plus, learn how to apply research findings into practice and communicate the value of your company's equity compensation program.

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Speaker: John Vitucci, PKF O'Connor Davies

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) can offer significant succession planning and wealth creation benefits. They are also prized as the ultimate in employee motivation, as they make the employee into a vested owner of the company. In this webinar, we examined the key features and considerations, as well as instances where ESOPs make sense.  In this webinar you will learn what factors about the business, owners, and business timeline make it attractive to use an ESOP. Also, determine whether an ESOP is appropriate to accomplish a business owner's succession planning and wealth creation goals, understand the succession and tax planning opportunity, and outline considerations and steps to implement an ESOP.

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Speaker: Corey Rosen, Ph.D., National Center for Employee Ownership

Many closely held firms want to provide employees with a stake in the company's outcome through some form of equity compensation. But who should get how much? With what rules? And what forms of actual equity or synthetic equity make sense? In this webinar you will gain an understanding of the way closely held companies can provide equity compensation to employees. Topics such as stock, options, restricted stock, stock appreciation rights, and phantom stock were discussed, as well as their counterparts in limited liability corporations.

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Speaker: Corey Rosen, Ph.D., National Center for Employee Ownership

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are a highly-tax favored, flexible way for business owners to provide for ownership transition. An ESOP allows a company to use its future pre-tax earnings to buy out some or all of an owner's shares, and allow the owner to defer taxation on the gain.  An ESOP can preserve business legacy, help to get the seller a fair price, and allows owners to play whatever ongoing role they choose in the company.

ESOPs have been highly successful, but they are not for every company. In this webinar you will learn how ESOPs work and if they are right for you.

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