On June 23, 2020, as part of the annual Beyster Symposium held by the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. Menke Group founder John Menke was honored with the Founding Supporter award in recognition of his decade of support for the Institute, its conferences, and the creation of an employee ownership support fund.
The Institute’s Beyster Symposium and Kelso Workshop are the two largest scholarly conferences in the world on the subject of employee ownership.
The award was presented by Adrienne Eaton, Dean of School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) and Joseph Blasi, Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.
“I’ve personally appreciated getting to know John and having some very wonderful conversations with him about his work and our work,” Professor Eaton said in her introductory remarks. “And I have really appreciated not just his financial support over the years, but his broader support, his help with our research agenda, and his support for the conferences, as well.”
“[John Menke] has literally been in the modern employee ownership movement from the very beginning,” said Professor Blasi. “I also want to extend my appreciation to John because we’ve tried to develop a number of practice-meets-research panels over the years, and it’s no exaggeration to say that John has been one of the most thoughtful and creative contributors to this.”
In his acceptance speech, John praised the work being done at the Institute, and at the larger SMLR, and expressed his appreciation at being able to contribute to their ongoing work to promote employee ownership, and ESOPs in particular, at a policy level, and spoke about this unique moment in American economic history.
“In the last three months, as we’ve seen, there’s been a sea-change of ideas, and of sentiment, and of momentum for change. For the first time, the average man on the street, woman on the street has come to the realization that we have essential workers in this country, and they’ve never been fully appreciated until now,” he said.
He went on to speak about the responsibility of the ESOP industry to prepare to support this momentum for change by pushing for new policies that would promote employee ownership after the 2020 election.
He also emphasized the importance of Employee Incentive ESOPs—ESOPs where the shareholders are not looking to sell full, or majority control of their business, but want their employees to be able to enjoy the benefits that an ESOP can bring.
“We also need to have ESOPs for ordinary companies that are still in the beginning stages of their growth,” he said. “Maybe they only have 20% employee ownership, or ESOP ownership, or 30%. Because otherwise there are millions of employees who are missing out. They don’t get a chance to participate in the growth until the owner is 65 or 70 and finally willing to sell the whole company.”
A 2019 study by the Institute was a major focus of a recent article written by Menke in collaboration with Hilary Abell of Project Equity (who was named a new fellow at this year’s symposium) investigating the role of ESOPs in helping to close the racial wealth gap.
Watch the full presentation and remarks below:
Menke & Associates, Inc. has helped over 3,500 companies successfully transition to employee ownership. Our holistic ESOP approach enables a positive outcome for the company, its employees and its shareholders. We believe ownership is powerful.
