Former Sen. Portman, former Rep. Pomeroy, former Assistant Secretary Gomez, Harvard’s Rouen, two employee-owner leaders to guide growing movement to scale ESOPs
WASHINGTON – Expanding ESOPs announced Wednesday the formation of an advisory board, bringing together two former members of Congress who championed employee ownership in office, a former assistant labor secretary, a Harvard Business School professor and two employee owners to help guide the organization’s work to dramatically scale the adoption of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).
Members of the board combine legislative and policy expertise with on-the-ground experience as employee owners, a winning combination that will help inform Expanding ESOPs’ policy agenda and propel it into law.
The inaugural members of the Expanding ESOPs Advisory Board are:
- Rob Portman (chairman), who represented Ohio in the United States Senate from 2011 to 2023 and previously served as United States Trade Representative, Director of the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the House of Representatives. In Congress, he was among the most consistent and effective bipartisan champions of employee ownership.
- Earl Pomeroy, who represented North Dakota in the United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 2011, where he served as a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee and chaired its Social Security Subcommittee. He previously served as North Dakota Insurance Commissioner and as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. He was a steadfast voice for workers’ retirement security throughout his career.
- Lisa M. Gomez, who served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, the agency responsible for the oversight and regulation of ESOPs, and who spent her career before that representing plans and participants in employee benefits law. While at EBSA she worked to bring long-sought clarity to ESOP regulations and to build a more constructive relationship between the Department and the employee ownership community.
- Ethan Rouen, the Terrie F. and Bradley M. Bloom Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and faculty co-chair of The Ownership Project, whose research examines employee ownership, human capital and wealth concentration.
- Laura Delgado, warehouse supervisor at Proponent, an employee-owned aviation parts manufacturer based in Brea, California. Read her ownership journey here.
- Keith Dixon, supply chain manager and executive team member at AMBAC International, an employee-owned manufacturer of diesel fuel systems based in Elgin, South Carolina. Read his ownership journey here and watch it here.
“We are so pleased to convene a group of the most prominent ESOP voices in the country,” said Michael Sinacore, head of policy and government affairs for Expanding ESOPs. “Together, these advisors have written the most consequential laws and regulations that ESOPs rely on. They include the very workers who know the day-to-day implications of the work done in Washington. That combination is rare, and it is exactly what this moment requires. Employee ownership has always been one of the few ideas in Washington that draws support from both parties, and having advisors of this caliber will help us turn that goodwill into policy that reaches many more workers.”
What members are saying about joining the advisory committee
Rob Portman, former United States Senator from Ohio: “This is a good thing, and it’s bipartisan,” Sen. Portman told Bloomberg Power Play this morning. “We can work together to make a difference in the lives of working people.”
Earl Pomeroy, former United States Representative from North Dakota: “Employee ownership is a proven way of providing employees a ‘piece of the action.’ Benefits include enhanced financial security for workers, rewarding long tenured employees, and giving everyone in the enterprise a sense of ownership by sharing the benefits flowing from good work and success. Sharing ownership with those who devote themselves to the success of the business through their efforts everyday creates teamwork and productive businesses long demonstrated by successful ESOPs.”
Lisa M. Gomez, former Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration: “When I first began meeting employee owners, my reaction was: where has this been all my life? The stories I heard were life changing. As Assistant Secretary of Labor, I made it a priority not only to help ensure clear rules and fair enforcement so that ESOPs could thrive, but also to meet with employee owners, businesses, advocates, advisers, and other stakeholders across the employee ownership community to listen and learn about their challenges, their aspirations, and what they needed from policymakers. I am excited to continue that work with Expanding ESOPs and to bring to it my decades of experience in worker protection, employee benefits, and labor relations. Employee ownership has tremendous potential to strengthen businesses while creating meaningful opportunities for workers to share in the value they help create. I look forward to helping ensure that as employee ownership expands, it fulfills both sides of that promise — helping workers thrive and businesses reach new levels of success.”
Ethan Rouen, Terrie F. and Bradley M. Bloom Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School: “Companies where employees hold a meaningful ownership stake tend to be more productive, grow faster and survive longer than their peers, and the workers inside them build wealth they would not otherwise have. Congress has an opportunity to bring those benefits to many more American workers, and I am glad to put my research to work for this coalition as it makes that case.”
Laura Delgado, warehouse supervisor at Proponent: “It isn’t just the financial rewards of employee ownership that have been life changing. Being an owner has given me a sense of initiative and drive that have changed the way I think about myself. I’ve gone from packer to picker (I had to learn how to drive a forklift to make that jump!) to transportation coordinator, among other roles, and am now a supervisor of the warehouse. I’m excited to lend my voice and experience to the growing movement to bring the benefits of employee ownership to more workers.”
Keith Dixon, supply chain manager at AMBAC International: “Fifteen years ago, I was homeless, sleeping in my car in a Walmart parking lot. Today, I manage the entire supply chain and am on the executive leadership team for AMBAC. I look to the future and know I’m building wealth and will have a secure retirement. Employee ownership changed my life and I wish that peace of mind for every worker in the country. I’m thrilled to join this committee and get to work to give more workers a stake in the companies we help build.”
100+ organizations working to scale ESOPs
Founded in 2024, Expanding ESOPs is a coalition of more than 100 organizations working to scale the use of ESOPs — a powerful, but underused, means of providing front-line workers with the benefits of employee stock ownership. ESOPs provide tax incentives to extend ownership opportunities throughout a company, allowing workers to share in the wealth they help create. Worker ownership often results in greater worker retention, engagement and productivity for companies.
ESOPs were formally incorporated into federal law through the Employee Retirement Income Security Act in 1974, and decades of academic research have demonstrated their effectiveness as a wealth-creation tool for workers.
At the same time, prevailing ESOP structures can have limited applicability. While ESOPs can own any percentage of a company, private-company ESOPs are commonly structured as 100% employee-owned. In those transactions, there is typically no outside investor providing equity capital; instead, the purchase must be financed through company resources, borrowing and, often, the selling shareholder. That can make a 100% ESOP impractical for owners seeking greater liquidity at exit, companies that cannot support the additional leverage, or where an outright sale is not desired or feasible.
Partial ESOPs, where the ownership percentage is lower, have broader potential applicability, but have been in decline due to statutory and regulatory complexity, litigation risk, and inconsistent tax incentives. Making it easier to form partial ESOPs will make the model more appealing to more businesses and ultimately will increase the ownership opportunity for more workers.
The movement to grow employee ownership is gaining momentum as working Americans are struggling. The share of economic output going to labor just hit an all-time low, while most Americans have little or nothing saved for retirement. At the same time, they have largely missed out on the extraordinary wealth creation taking place in the equity markets: the bottom 50% of households hold only about 1% of the country’s equities. Since 1980, the S&P 500 has skyrocketed by nearly 20,000%, far outpacing gains in real estate or real wages — and this divergence is accelerating.
Poll: ESOPs can revive American Dream
The announcement of the advisory board follows the release of new poll results that show expanding employee ownership can help revive belief in the American Dream, which has been slipping away, especially among younger Americans.
Most voters believe that if more companies shared ownership with workers via ESOPs, it would provide more opportunity for average Americans to get ahead and achieve the American dream, the poll, conducted by Echelon Insights, shows.
Only 29% of voters think the American dream is achievable for most Americans these days. But more than 3 in 4 (78%) think that if more companies shared ownership with employees through ESOPs, it would make the American dream achievable for more Americans. Eight in 10 voters (80%) who are employed by a business or company say having an ESOP would make them feel like their company cared about their ability to get ahead, compared to 46% who currently feel their company cares — a 34-point increase.
Seventy-eight percent expressed support for government to incentivize companies to offer employee ownership programs. And 69% say that if a politician supported expanding tax breaks to encourage more companies to form ESOPs, they would see that as a sign the politician cared about how much opportunity the average American has to get ahead financially.
“In a culture where young people look at an economy that feels rigged against them, is there anything that can potentially turn the tide?” pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson wrote in a Substack column. “What, if anything, can businesses do to create opportunity and reignite faith in our economic system for a new generation? One potential pathway is expanding a culture of ownership, inviting younger workers to share in the success of their employers.”