Day Three – 18.11.2021
UK’s Latest Research Into Governance of Employee Ownership Trusts
14:15 – 14:55
You will learn:
- New comparative insight into how employee owned businesses are structuring their Employee Ownership Trusts
- Experts Graeme Nuttall OBE and Sue Lawrence share results and showcase good governance
About the speakers
Sue Lawrence
Sue is the Founder of Independent Directors and Trustees Limited, a collective of NEDs and Independent Trustees to SME companies who share their collective knowledge and experience for the benefit of their own continued education and in support of their clients needs.She is appointed as an Independent Trustee to a number of EOTs across professional services, architecture, construction and distribution ranging from 15 to 800 employees.
A Chartered Director by training with over 15 years board experience, she specialises in working with clients to identify and implement a robust but effective governance structure that meets their needs. From an EOT perspective, this means identifying the different roles and responsibilities between the board, the trustees and the employees of an EOT organisation.
Independent Directors and Trustees Limited have sponsored a survey on governance within EOT organisations supported by Ownership at Work and the Employee Ownership Association.
In sponsoring a governance survey of EOT companies, Sue says “By undertaking the survey and sharing the outcomes and our knowledge, we hope that a wide range of EOT organisations will gain benefit from seeing what others have achieved and what can be possible once the framework of good governance is in place. Signing the legal documentation for transition is just the first step in an exciting journey that has organisational success and individual achievement at its heart. What comes next in identifying and differentiating the roles and responsibilities of those within the organisation creates the real foundation for the future.”
Graeme Nuttall OBE
Graeme Nuttall OBE is a solicitor and chartered tax adviser; partner at Fieldfisher; Head of Fieldfisher’s Employee Ownership Solutions practice; Fellow of Ownership at Work (OaW); Executive Fellow at Rutger’s Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing; a trustee of the Institute for the Future of Work and a director of several employee ownership trust (EOT) trustee companies. Author of ‘Sharing Success: The Nuttall Review of Employee Ownership‘ (BIS, 2012), ‘EO v3.0 – Employee ownership with added Gandhian purpose’ (Fieldfisher, 2020) ‘How Robert Oakeshott made paritarian governance good practice for employee trusts‘ (OaW, 2021) and co-author and contributor to many other publications.
He was a member of the HM Treasury Advisory Group that developed the UK’s tax advantaged share incentive plan (SIP) and enterprise management incentives arrangement. He drafted a successful Private Member’s Bill to democratise SIPs. Graeme helped make the case for public service mutuals by advising pathfinder mutuals and as a Cabinet Office Mutuals Ambassador. He was the Coalition Government’s independent adviser on employee ownership (2012-2015) and, in particular advocated the case for the trust model of employee ownership. The employee ownership trust (EOT) was introduced in the UK as a result of the Nuttall Review of Employee Ownership.
Current projects include supporting the growth of EOT ownership in the United States, Australia and Canada. He was the Financial Times 2013 Innovative Lawyer of the Year. Graeme received an OBE in the Queen’s 2014 Birthday Honours for services to employee share plans, public service mutuals and employee ownership. T @nuttallreview E: graeme.nuttall@fieldfisher.com