Alternative Exit

In 2012, Monica’s boss told her he treated his staff “like dogs on leads.” That conversation shaped everything she built after it. Monica started in dentistry at 18 as a dental assistant, became a dentist, and founded Your New Dentist in 2015. In 2023 she moved 100% of the business into an Employee Ownership Trust. Australia has no dedicated EOT legislation, so she worked it out with her accountant and lawyers as they went. She talks about funding the move through a 5 to 7 year buyback, running two practices with no middle management, flexible quarterly profit share for a mostly female team, and why she expected the business to get smaller before it grew.

Chapters

00:53 Welcome and introduction
02:22 The “dogs on leads” boss
05:54 Dentistry, trust and conscious capitalism
07:47 Your New Dentist: two practices, 10 people, no middle management
09:59 Buurtzorg and self-management
14:19 The 2016 turning point
16:05 An industry that is 88% female
17:37 “Employees don’t want this”
19:46 Why ownership: wealth distribution and social justice
22:40 Choosing an EOT over corporate, franchise and ESOP
24:50 Being a pioneer without legislation
26:33 Funding the transition: a 5 to 7 year buyback
28:21 Telling the team with a 10-year strategic plan
30:10 Rebuilding trust takes patience
32:41 Financial transparency and women’s financial independence
34:22 Naked in, naked out: no secondary market
37:19 Why she went all in at 100%
37:46 Quarterly round tables and flexible profit share
40:26 Fast round
43:49 Where to follow Monica, plus Grace O’Malley

Key Takeaways

✅ You can do an EOT in Australia without dedicated legislation if you have advisors willing to work it out with you.
✅ Monica funds her exit through incremental buyback payments over 5 to 7 years.
✅ Going 100% builds trust in a way a partial transfer doesn’t.
✅ Expect some people to leave. The transition shows who is committed to the work.
✅ Profit share can fit around people’s lives: showing up counts, and doing more earns more.
💡 Trust takes years to build. Monica started talking to her team about it in 2017.

Notable Quotes

🎧 “I don’t do infantilisation and I don’t do exploitation.”
🎧 “Be prepared for your business to get smaller before it gets bigger. It’s the breakdown before the breakthrough.”
🎧 “I’d be being disingenuous to the mission if I didn’t go a hundred percent.”

Links

🔗 Monica O’Malley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-o-malley-233a2021/
🔗 Your New Dentist: https://yournewdentist.com.au
🔗 Employee Ownership Australia: https://employeeownership.com.au
📚 Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux: https://www.amazon.com/dp/2960133501
📚 Small Is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061997765
🔗 Buurtzorg: https://www.buurtzorg.com
🔗 Corporate Rebels: https://corporate-rebels.com
🎙️ Host: Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
🌟 a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

Earlier this year, Brittany Brown left a career across corporate finance, venture capital and private equity to build one thing: a fund whose job is to create employee owners. CoRise Capital buys 100% of stable, profitable businesses, professionalises them over three to five years, then exits by selling to a 100% ESOP.

Brittany explains the “ESOPs creating ESOPs” model, why the fund is evergreen, and why investors have agreed to roll 50% of every distribution back in. She walks through the debt structure that offsets management fees, the governance, finance and culture work needed before an ESOP conversion, and where the fund stands on its first close.

• 00:53 Welcome: a fund built to create employee owners
• 01:48 ESOPs creating ESOPs: where CoRise came from
• 03:00 Leaving PE for employee ownership
• 04:45 Same playbook, different end game
• 06:12 An evergreen fund and the 50% reinvestment commitment
• 08:03 Who invests: ESOP companies, then individuals
• 09:38 Why ESOPs invest in other ESOPs
• 12:05 Using portfolio debt to offset management fees
• 14:01 Additional fees for value creation
• 16:24 Getting a company ESOP ready in three to five years
• 19:29 Who sits on the board
• 19:56 Reading culture on the shop floor
• 22:11 Bringing governance to life through transparency
• 23:38 Budgeting for culture change
• 26:13 Fund status, first close and pipeline
• 29:12 Fast round

• ✅ An evergreen structure gives the fund time to convert each business when an ESOP will be most successful, not when a fund term ends.
• 💡 Investors contractually roll 50% of each distribution back into the fund, compounding the creation of new employee owners.
• ✅ Part of each acquisition is structured as debt. The interest paid by the portfolio company offsets investors’ management fees.
• 🌟 For an ESOP investor, the fund adds asset value without adding heads to their census.
• 💡 Before conversion: finance and accounting capability, an independent board, annual valuations and audits, a stable leadership bench, and early profit sharing.
• 🎧 Culture diligence starts on the shop floor. If the owner doesn’t know people’s names, it may be a turnaround, not a platform.

• Brittany Brown: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-brown-b9b84076/
• CoRise Capital: https://corisecapital.com
• Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
• a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

In 2022, Aaron Schroeder sat down after work and wrote what he calls his “Jerry Maguire letter” to his team. In it he committed to moving Brightspot Climate, the climate consultancy he founded in 2015, to employee ownership once the right structure existed. Canada’s Employee Ownership Trust legislation arrived in 2024, and in April 2025 Brightspot became one of the first companies in the country to use it.

Aaron explains how the team built financial literacy ahead of the transition, why the transition year carries an asterisk in the company’s books, and why every bank asked him for a personal guarantee. He also shares how owner thinking is starting to show up across the 40 person team.

• 00:53 Welcome: one of Canada’s first EOTs
• 01:46 From burnout to founding Brightspot Climate
• 03:13 Sharing the wealth: project level profit sharing
• 03:38 The “Jerry Maguire letter”
• 05:22 Planning before the legislation existed
• 06:36 Preparing the team: open books and financial literacy
• 07:39 “How much is this going to cost me?”
• 09:29 The asterisk year: the cost of non billable time
• 11:13 Life as an employee owned company
• 13:17 Brightspot Labs: two and a half hours a week in the sandbox
• 15:38 Financing: no assets, and a personal guarantee
• 17:45 Why not sell to a big firm?
• 19:24 Bank loan plus deferred consideration
• 20:25 Financial Freedom Day: five to seven years
• 21:08 Fast round

• ✅ Start on financing early. Banks lending against an asset light services firm asked for a personal guarantee from the seller.
• 💡 Plan for an “asterisk year”. The transition brought heavy non billable time plus legal and accounting fees.
• ✅ Open the books well before the deal. Brightspot shared its balance sheet and income statement regularly from 2022.
• 🌟 Expect to repeat yourself. People come along at different paces, and “zero money down” takes time to believe.
• 🎧 Owner thinking grows after the transition. Staff questions have shifted from “will my bonus change?” to the company’s five year finances.
• 💡 Protected time builds ideas. Brightspot Labs has already produced new processes and business lines.

• Aaron Schroeder: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronlschroeder/
• Brightspot Climate: https://brightspot.co
• Brightspot’s EOT announcement: https://brightspot.co/library/brightspot-climates-next-chapter-begins-with-employee-ownership/
• Employee Ownership Canada: https://www.employee-ownership.ca
• Employee Ownership Canada Conference 2026, Vancouver, 20 to 22 October: https://www.employee-ownership.ca/conference/
• Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
• a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

Two years ago Denmark had almost no employee-owned companies. Since then it has passed employee ownership legislation (in force 1 January 2026), launched Center for Medarbejdereje, a national centre for employee ownership, and completed the largest study yet comparing UK Employee Ownership Trusts with management buyouts.

Andreas explains how the Danish model differs from the UK EOT, with direct ownership through an employee association and tax that is paid back from surplus over time. He shares the study’s headline numbers, why Denmark’s unions moved from sceptical to supportive, and what other countries can learn from a decade of groundwork.

• 00:54 Welcome back: a year of momentum
• 02:03 The first companies using the new law
• 04:47 A perfect storm: politics, unions and 40,000 businesses
• 05:51 Why the unions came on board
• 11:17 The Danish model vs the UK EOT
• 13:03 Tax: level treatment, paid back from surplus
• 16:25 Gifting a company to employees
• 17:24 The largest EOT vs MBO study
• 23:10 The most surprising finding
• 29:37 Scaling: pioneers, advisors, policy
• 34:16 Lessons for other countries
• 37:59 Fast round

• ✅ In a study of 218 UK EOTs against 330 comparable management buyouts, EOTs showed productivity about 5 percentage points higher and revenue growth 8% higher.
• 💡 Payroll per employee was £6,300 higher in EOTs, with investment and EBITDA margins on par with MBOs.
• 🌟 The Danish model gives employees direct, democratic ownership through an association, not a trust.
• ✅ The seller’s tax moves to the employee vehicle, which repays it from surplus, so a weak year does not trigger a tax bill.
• 🎧 In highly unionised countries, bring the unions in early. Denmark started those conversations ten years ago.

• Andreas Pinstrup Jørgensen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreas-pinstrup-jørgensen-021ba3a8/
• Tænketanken Demokratisk Erhverv: https://demokratiskerhverv.dk
• Center for Medarbejdereje: https://medarbejdereje.dk
• Medejer, Andreas’s book: https://www.gyldendal.dk/produkter/andreas-pinstrup-jørgensen/medejer-46926/hæftet-9788702254112
• The Citizen’s Share, by Joseph Blasi, Richard Freeman and Douglas Kruse
• Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
• a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

About the episode:
Shannon co-founded 5by5, a Nashville marketing agency that made the Inc. 5000 list in five of its first seven eligible years. As private equity and trade buyers came calling, she realised selling would mean walking in the next day and saying goodbye to the team that built it. Then a new client told her over lunch that his employees owned the company.

Shannon walks Andy through years of research, winning over a sceptical boomer partner, and starting with a 30% ESOP because a bigger loan felt too risky. She explains why she brought 12 leaders into the plan a year early, how 55 people heard the news at Disney World, and why companies need a steady cadence of inspiration and information.

Then a conversation with her mentor, 3LS CEO Eric Strickland, made 5by5 100% employee owned within weeks. Today Shannon leads 3LS Professional Services, part of an employee-owned group of about 1,500 people, and argues the movement should count employee owners, not ESOPs.

Guest:
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slitton/
🔗 3LS: https://3ls.com
🔗 5by5: https://5by5agency.com
🔗 Tennessee Center for Employee Ownership: https://www.tnceo.org

About The Alternative Exit:
A podcast exploring employee ownership as a succession planning strategy, hosted by Andy Farquharson of a better monday.
Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
Learn more: https://abettermonday.me

Links and resources
Alternative Exit #42 with Eric Strickland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNLYhuPNAio
NCEO: https://www.nceo.org
Journey to an ESOP podcast (The ESOP Guy): https://journeytoanesop.buzzsprout.com
The ESOP Association: https://www.esop.org
Book: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni

#EmployeeOwnership #ESOP #SuccessionPlanning #BusinessExit #AgencyLife #OwnershipCulture #SilverTsunami #Leadership #EmployeeOwned

am Boustred, Chair of the Global Members' Board, Scott Bader (Wollaston, UK)

Scott Bader went employee owned in 1951, 63 years before the Employee Ownership Trust existed in UK law. Founder Ernest Bader was a Quaker who did not want to share ownership. He wanted to dissolve it. So he put every share into a registered charity, the Scott Bader Commonwealth.

Sam joined the company in 2012 as a process operator on the shop floor. He is now the first person to hold the Chair of the Global Members' Board as a full time role, leading industrial democracy across a group of around 800 colleagues.

He talks Andy through the profit formula that has not moved since 1951, the strike that finally forced Ernest to hand the company over, why every pound paid to colleagues must be matched to charity, and what ownership means when nobody owns anything.

• ✅ Scott Bader's shares sit in a registered charity, so the Charity Commission holds the business to its purpose as well as its numbers.
• 💡 The split has held since 1951: 60% of surplus stays in the business, up to 20% goes to colleagues, and every pound paid to colleagues is matched to charitable causes.
• 🌟 Ownership is not automatic understanding. Six months of structured onboarding, culture cafés and refreshers every couple of years keep it real.
• ✅ Members do not vote on daily decisions, they vote on who makes them. The 1963 constitution gave members appointment rights over directors.
• 🎧 When the 2022 constitution review went to a vote, 80% of colleagues took part and 95% of them backed the changes.

"We don't own the shares, we own the responsibility."

"You don't get many bosses or owners of businesses who go on strike, because you'd be poking yourself in the eye."

"In a true democracy you're not deciding all of the day to day decisions. You're deciding who is making those decisions, and you have the right to appoint and remove them."

• Sam Boustred: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samboustred/
• Scott Bader: https://www.scottbader.com
• Scott Bader Commonwealth: https://www.scottbader.com/about-us/commonwealth-board/
• Fred H. Blum, Work and Community: The Scott Bader Commonwealth and the Quest for a New Social Order (1968): https://www.routledge.com/Work-and-Community-The-Scott-Bader-Commonwealth-and-the-Quest-for-a-New-Social-Order/Blum/p/book/9781041396406
• John Hoffmire: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hoffmire-5999621/
• John Hoffmire on The Alternative Exit, episode 34: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2414792/episodes/17747330
• Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
• a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

In 1980 Kevin walked out of his accountancy studies to cut hair. Three years later he opened his first salon in Southend with five chairs and a £1,000 decorating budget. This April, 43 years on, he handed the whole business to his team. novo hair is now 100% employee owned through a UK Employee Ownership Trust, 15 people, all partners.

Kevin walks Andy through the three trade sales that fell over, why he could not stomach three years of being hated by his own staff, how he landed on a number and then deliberately took the bottom of the valuation range, and the grand announcement that landed to fifteen completely blank faces. Five months in, he shares what has actually changed: the bonus pot the team controls, the financials they now lean into, and the tumble dryer filter that suddenly matters.

• ✅ A trade sale is not the only number. Salons typically fetch one to one and a half times earnings, and every offer Kevin received came with three to five years of him staying put.
• 💡 Leaving something on the table can be the point. Kevin took the bottom of the valuation range so the business could carry the debt and still pay the team an annual bonus from year one.
• 🌟 Do not save the announcement for a big reveal. Fifteen people who have never heard of an EOT cannot get excited in the two minutes before you explain it.
• ✅ Give the team a quick win they control. Retail profit and in-salon treatments go straight into a bonus pot, so ownership shows up in this month's numbers, not year five.
• 💡 Ownership changes how the financials land. The same numbers that used to glaze people over now get real attention, because the net profit is theirs.
• 🎧 Get your ducks in a row first. If the business cannot run without you for a month, it is not ready to be handed over.

"The old adage is if it feels too good to be true, it's too good to be true. I very much feel with the EOT it feels too good to be true, but it is true."

"I can be hated to a degree, but I can't be hated for three years and be there every day."

"That won't save me a hundred and twenty pound. It will save you a hundred and twenty pound."

• Kevin Franks on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-franks-208b4aa/
• novo hair: https://novohair.co.uk
• Go EO (Chris Maslin), who valued the business: https://goeo.uk
• Chris Maslin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-maslin-9a5a2316/
• Richer Sounds, the EOT Kevin learned from: https://www.richersounds.com
• Host, Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
• a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

Our first ever double episode. 🎧

Andy sits down with both founders of Monarch Investment Partners to explore the question at the heart of employee ownership: who should own your business next?

Katie and Michael unpack why external capital has been the missing piece in scaling employee ownership, how ESOPs create genuine alignment of incentives, and why returns and purpose belong on a level playing field. A candid, practical listen for any owner weighing their exit. 🌟

00:00 — The double episode format 04:00 — Bridging employee ownership and external capital 05:18 — Why the "benevolent seller" model needs capital to scale 06:57 — Monarch's focus: 100% employee-owned ESOP transitions 08:04 — How ESOPs create alignment of incentives 09:53 — Turning open-book data into ownership behaviour 12:38 — Underwriting and the buy box 14:16 — Diligence on the management team 18:36 — How Monarch differs from the wider field 21:27 — The buy box: $5–15m EBITDA, US, industry agnostic 23:48 — Post-transaction support and Michael's book 27:16 — Measuring success: the double bottom line 30:13 — Rapid fire questions 36:06 — The monarch butterfly effect

✅ Capital, not appetite, is the biggest barrier to scaling employee ownership. ✅ ESOPs align incentives, but that only compounds through repeated communication, typically from year three. ✅ People manage their behaviour to the data they are given. Open-book transparency turns employees into owners. ✅ Returns and purpose can sit on a level playing field. Impact and competitive returns aren't a trade-off.

💡 "Who do you want to own your business? It may very well not be a private equity firm." — Michael McGinley

💡 "We're not trying to sacrifice returns for impact. We want to prove both can coexist." — Katie Kimball

Monarch Investment Partners: https://www.monarchinvestmentpartners.com/ Michael McGinley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljmcginley/ Katie Kimball on LinkedIn: [add — see note below] Monarch Performance Disclosure: https://mcusercontent.com/3bef2e9f4d6f9832d50e71e3e/files/cd67868e-0f83-8cbb-9a4e-015bf2da300a/Monarch_Performance_Disclosure.pdf Host: Andy Farquharson — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/ a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

Disclosure: Any performance figures referenced are subject to Monarch's full performance disclosure, linked above.

Bob Whalen walked into a 94-year-old, third-generation family business in 2008 and, within two years, transitioned it to a 100% ESOP. What started as a way to make the deal more tax-efficient became his professional purpose. Fifteen years on, HB Global has grown almost 10x, completed close to 20 acquisitions, and built over $110M of value sitting inside its employee owners' accounts. In this episode, Bob shares why he runs the business like a sports team rather than a family, how he protects culture through every acquisition, and why the person who "gave away" the most is the happiest about it. A genuinely different take on ownership, legacy and shared success.

Chapters

• 00:53 — Meet Bob Whalen and HB Global
• 02:35 — Walking into a 94-year-old family business
• 05:50 — Where ESOPs and ETA meet
• 07:39 — Run it like a sports team, not a family
• 10:50 — Bringing culture to life across the group
• 13:26 — Why the "secret sauce" isn't really a secret
• 14:44 — Where the people-first conviction came from
• 19:58 — Spotting cultural fit in an acquisition
• 22:58 — Branding inward: communicating mission daily
• 26:38 — Keeping score and the great game of business
• 28:10 — The one number: return on capital
• 31:02 — Do frontline workers value ownership?
• 33:37 — Why business schools don't teach ESOPs
• 38:19 — Fast round
• 42:11 — Advice for owners on the fence

Key Takeaways

• ✅ An ESOP can start as a practical, tax-efficient deal structure and grow into a genuine cultural strategy.
• 💡 Run the business like a sports team: everyone does their job, and everyone shares what they create.
• 🌟 Culture is what you do, not what you write down. The CEO has to live it first.
• 🎧 Most acquisitions could fetch a higher price elsewhere. Owners choose HB Global to protect their people.
• ✅ Frontline technicians hold rare, valuable skills. The first job is helping them value themselves.
• 💡 Selling for top dollar often leaves owners unhappy. Decide what legacy you actually want.

Notable Quotes

• "It's my Christmas every year when our ESOP values come out. I get a spreadsheet with every single person's value."
• "If there was anybody who'd be upset about doing the ESOP, it would be me. And I couldn't be more thrilled."
• "It was a financial solution that started, but it gave me my purpose."

Links

• Bob Whalen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-whalen-4023a21b/
• HB Global: https://hb-global.com
• Book — Beyond Your Ownership by Bob Whalen and Jamie Dykstra
• Host, Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
• a better monday: https://abettermonday.me

After 400+ employee ownership transitions and over two decades in the space, Ewan Hall has seen what works and what doesn't. In this episode, he walks Andy through the practical realities of EOT transitions in the UK — from the tax recalibration last October to the four pillars every successful transition needs (deal, ownership, governance, culture). Ewan unpacks the concept of "enough" that unlocks seller psychology, the underused role of debt finance, and a deceptively simple framework — informed, consult, consent — that resolves who decides what after the founder steps back. Honest, experienced, and refreshingly free of the EO hype.

Chapters

• (00:00) Welcome and introduction
• (02:26) The story behind 20+ years in EO
• (05:53) Why employee owned firms still face succession challenges
• (07:42) Separating ownership succession from leadership succession
• (11:17) Why owners choose EO over a trade sale
• (13:21) The concept of "enough" and the magic number
• (18:00) The 25% rule: how long it really takes to fund a 100% disposal
• (22:21) The 2014 tax relief and mainstreaming EO
• (23:41) October 2024: from 100% to 50% CGT discount
• (28:34) The missed opportunity around debt finance
• (32:26) Refinancing the back-end of founder debt
• (33:26) The four pillars: deal, ownership, governance, culture
• (37:04) Informed, consult, consent in practice
• (40:31) Day, year, extremis: stress-testing your structure
• (42:27) Fast round: leaders, resources, advice
• (45:00) Where to find Ewan

Key takeaways

• 💡 Ownership succession and leadership succession run on different timelines — don't conflate them.
• ✅ The conversation about "enough" unlocks every other decision a founder needs to make.
• 🎯 Profit multiple + 25% = roughly the years it'll take to fund a 100% disposal at flat profits.
• 🌟 The four pillars of a healthy transition: the deal, ownership, governance, and culture.
• 💷 EOT tax relief at 50% still saves around 12% — no other UK exit comes close.
• ⚖️ Stress-test your structure across three scenarios: a day, a year, and an emergency.

Notable quotes

• "You don't just stick shares in a trust and call it a day."
• "Once people get past the concept of enough, they unclench a bit."
• "I want to be able to drive past this workplace and feel all right about it."

Links

• 🔗 Ewan Hall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewan-hall-3a7b902a/
• 🔗 Baxendale Employee Ownership: https://baxendaleownership.co.uk
• 🔗 Employee Ownership Association: https://employeeownership.co.uk
• 🔗 Host Andy Farquharson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyfarquharson/
• 🔗 a better monday: https://abettermonday.me