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A podcast about the employee-ownership movement and building wealth at work for employees
A podcast about the employee-ownership movement and building wealth at work for employees
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Putting a company into the hands of employees is changing lives and building wealth for its workers

A conversation with Pete Stavros, founder and chair, Ownership Works
By Ramona Schindelheim
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In this episode of Work in Progress, I’m joined by Pete Stavros, founder and chair of Ownership Works, a nonprofit leading the employee-ownership movement, whose mission is to provide employees with the opportunity to build wealth at work by making them owners of the company for which they work. 

At scale, Stavros says, employee ownership can help millions of lower-income workers and people of color build savings and wealth – often for the first time – at businesses that are more dynamic, resilient, and successful. He says it allows employees to benefit from the value they help create in a business.

“The foundation of it is sharing stock ownership inside of a company with all employees, from the C-suite to the most junior colleagues who just joined the company, maybe working on the factory floor,” explains Stavros.

“If you look at Federal Reserve data on household wealth, and you look at why the top 1% and 10% are in the position that they’re in financially versus the bottom 50%, the biggest driver by a mile is the ownership or lack of ownership of stock assets.

“It’s not housing. It’s not other assets. It’s really ownership of appreciating stocks that has created this massive gulf of wealth inequality, and it’s what the folks at the bottom are lacking. I do not think this is going to solve all of our problems magically, but this is a way to help the bottom half of the country that does not own much in the way of assets. It’s a way of getting appreciating assets in their hands.

“One of the core principles is workers are not investing out of pocket, so they’re not risking whatever savings they do have and they’re not giving up wages or other benefits to get stock. This is a free incremental benefit.”

Ownership Works partners with companies and investors to find what Stavros – who is also co-head of private equity at KKR – describes as “fundamentally good businesses, with solid market positions, but where they’re not fully optimized.”

He adds, “There are ways to accelerate the growth, take more market share in their market, maybe expand into new markets, be more productive, more efficient, et cetera. That’s what we’re looking for. We’re buying the business. We’re investing in the company. And we’re going to make everyone an owner.

“It’s really about creating a different kind of culture – we call it an ownership culture – so people feel a different level of involvement in their business, not just through ownership, but through all of these different mechanisms that create a different kind of culture.

“We mean giving people financial information about the business, helping them understand the business plan and where they’re headed, really driving, measuring and managing to a higher level of employee engagement, teaching financial literacy, getting workers more involved in decision-making.

“It is a long-term effort and it’s got to be the top priority for the leadership team. The number one thing we are doing is we are going to engage employees in a different kind of way, and that is going to help us achieve all of our other objectives, which are secondary to this primary one of treating our people differently.”

Stavros says that, over a period of years, when it is well done, more value is created, benefiting the investors and allowing employees to build wealth at work. “I think this has a real potential across the entirety of the economy.”

Stavros discusses how his father’s career as a construction worker sparked his passion to start Ownership Works, as well as sharing some stories of employees who have built wealth at work from the employee-ownership movement.

You can listen to my conversation with Stavros here, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find this conversation and other recent podcasts on our new Work in Progress YouTube channel.

Episode 305: Pete Stavros, founder and chair, Ownership Works
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

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