What happens when a CEO with over a decade in Fortune 500 companies returns to a family auto business and insists from day one that any exit must benefit the employees?
You get America's first employee ownership trust – and one of the most compelling performance stories in the employee ownership movement. Kevin Clegg shares how Clegg Auto, a group of four repair shops in Utah County, doubled profits and grew employee profit-sharing tenfold in their very first year as an EOT – without raising a single price. He also digs into the real challenge: building an ownership culture from the inside out, and his evolving vision for a business cooperative movement that could reshape small business succession across the US.
Key Takeaways:
✅ Employee ownership isn't just an exit strategy – it's an operating model that drives measurable performance from day one ✅ Structuring profit-sharing so employees benefit immediately (not after former owners are paid off) is what makes it real and tangible ✅ Financial transparency is a powerful tool – but open-book management only works when employees can see their own personal impact on the numbers ✅ Building an ownership culture takes years, not a transaction – and even seasoned owners don't always act like owners ✅ A business cooperative (not a worker cooperative) could be the scalable model to bring the Silver Tsunami of retiring owners into employee ownership en masse ✅ The best employee voice frameworks match decision-making authority to expertise – not a one-person, one-vote free-for-all
Notable Quotes:
💬 "There should be some sort of exit that's beneficial for everyone – not just for the people who started the thing."
💬 "The hardest part of the transition to employee ownership wasn't coming up with the structure and transacting it. The hardest part still is – and is – the culture afterwards."
💬 "There's nothing better than preserving what you've created, and there's no better way to do it, in my opinion, than employee ownership."
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