EOA Conference 2010

Gordon Aitken

Director, RCU

Gordon has been managing director of RCU since 1991, transforming it from a local authority support unit into a co-owned company, initially using an Employee Benefits Trust model and latterly moving to full and equal individual share ownership for all staff. RCU is an influential specialist research and consultancy company working mainly in the public sector. Gordon is its lead consultant and is a member of the Institute of Directors and the Market Research Society.

Bob Baker

Senior Fellow, Leadership and Management Development

Bob specialises in personal, team and organisational development. After working with British Gas, the NHS and a university, Bob is now using this experience at OPM to deliver innovative leadership programmes to a variety of clients. Bob is passionate about giving space to leaders to reflect and understand their leadership and organisational dilemmas. Bob also sits on the OPM Employee Share Ownership Trust as an elected trustee. He is researching the different demands employee ownership places on organisational leaders.

Keith Ballantyne

Group HR Director, Eaga plc

Keith joined Eaga in September 2007 as Group HR Director. In this role Keith is responsible for the HR function and liaises with the Eaga Partners Council, the Eaga Partnership Trust and has presided over several company restructures. Over the last three years, Keith has also been responsible for internal communications, partner engagement and risk management functions.

Keith has previously worked in a series of HR roles in automotive, FMCG, engineering and oil and gas sectors.

Fred Bowden

Managing Director, Woollard and Henry

Fred Bowden joined Woollard and Henry, as managing director in 2002 to lead an employee buy-out. After starting his working career in engineering, Fred joined the paper industry and held middle and senior management positions with Arjo Wiggins and Tullis Russell. Having been a customer of Woollard and Henry, Fred understood that they had a highly skilled workforce and produced a world class product, albeit in a declining market. Since the buy-out they have diversified into new products and markets, seen their turnover climb four-fold, and last year they received the Queens Award for international trade.

Will Brydon

HR Director, Martin Currie

Will joined Martin Currie in 2005 and was appointed director of human resources in 2007, reporting to CEO Willie Watt. Will is a member of Martin Currie’s executive board and is responsible for HR strategy, recruitment, development, employee relations and reward. Previously, Will has held a number of senior in-house HR roles in the financial services sector and worked independently as a consultant.

Patrick Burns

Executive Director, Employee Ownership Association

Patrick has been executive director of the Employee Ownership Association since 2004. He was previously policy director with The Work Foundation while other roles have included economic adviser to the TUC, editor of a management journal and communications director for training body the Industrial Society.

Barry Cooke

Finance Director

Barry joined Ken Shuttleworth to establish employee owned Make in 2004. As finance director he has been responsible for setting up all Make's management and financial systems, and oversees all commercial aspects of the practice. Previous roles include finance director at Foster and Partners, where he oversaw the general financial, operational and administrative management of the practice, with wide-ranging responsibility for change management and the improvement of business performance and profitability.

Edward Davey

MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Consumer and Postal Affairs, Department for Business Innovation and Skills

Edward Davey attended Nottingham High School and went on to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Jesus College, Oxford and to gain an MSc in Economics from Birkbeck College, London University.

From 1989 to 1993 he worked in the Commons as an economics researcher for the Liberal Democrats, becoming the party's senior economics adviser. In 1993 he left Parliament to work for Omega Partners, specialising in consultancy in the postal services sector.

Edward became Liberal Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton in 1997 and was appointed the party’s economics affairs spokesman in 1997. After the 2001 election he joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the first of a number of shadow roles, including shadowing the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for local government and the regions (2002-2005), Shadow Education and Skills Secretary (2005-2006) and Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary (2006).

After serving as Chief of Staff to party leader Menzies Campbell, and Chair of Campaigns and Communications for the Liberal Democrats, he was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs after Nick Clegg was elected party leader in 2007.

Sarah Deas

Chief Executive, Co-operative Development Scotland

Sarah leads the strategic and operational development of CDS. She proactively promotes co-operative business models by engaging with key stakeholders and the media. Before joining the enterprise network, Sarah held senior management and board positions in strategy, marketing and business development with international companies including Carnaud MetalBox, LinPac Plastics International, Fort Sterling, RBM Europa and Airport Advertising (Europe).

Chris Dunlop

Partner, Baxendale

Chris works closely with EO companies to ensure that they get the most out of ownership by having a productive partnership culture. This can be achieved by a range of strategies including developing ownership surveys, focused facilitative sessions on communication, values and performance through to accredited management development training courses. Chris has worked closely with the National Center for Employee Ownership in the United States in introducing their benchmarked survey to a UK audience.

Alan Gibson

Group HR Director, Tullis Russell

Alan has been HR Director for Tullis Russell Coaters and Tullis Russell Papermakers since August 2009. He is responsible for developing and delivering the Company's People Strategy. Prior to joining the Company, Alan worked in a series of HR roles in the aerospace and utilities sectors before spending the last 10 years in regional HR Director roles with Freescale Semiconductor and NCR and as Group HR Director for Alexander Dennis Ltd.

Jerry Gilbert

Managing Director, Abacus Design Associates Ltd

Jerry graduated in 1974 from Loughborough University and during his career has worked for contractors, a local authority and three firms of consulting engineers in a wide spectrum of roles ranging from setting-out engineer to company executive. In 1997 he established Abacus Design Associates Ltd and over the past years has been responsible for the growth of the company. The company is currently in the process of becoming 100% owned by an employees’ trust.

Anne Marie Hearne

Training Manager, Customer Service & Customer Service Systems,
Learning and Development, Waitrose

Anne Marie and her team of trainers are responsible for the Welcome that all new Partners to Waitrose receive. Their programme makes the link between co-ownership and the responsibility every Partner has to deliver great customer service. The work the team does, supports Waitrose branches achieving mystery shopper results of 90%. She is currently working on embedding Partner Commitments into the Induction programme.
Anne Marie is a member of the CIPD and her team were recently named Customer Service Training team of the Year.

Ian Henderson

Savant

Ian Henderson a former RAF pilot and military avionics systems expert, now project director for Savant Enterprises, a software development and consultancy company based in North Lancashire who became employee owned in 2001.

Peter Johnson

Chairman, UBH International

Peter Johnson, CIL/CIPD, has been chairman of employee owned storage tank makers UBH International, based in Burscough, Lancashire, since 2003. A former consultant and business mentor, Peter was previously managing director with the Baxi heating company. Peter has also been a non-executive director within the NHS, a board director with Simon Engineering and distribution director with Bass Brewers.

Sarah Johnson

Manager, Partner Survey, John Lewis Partnership

Sarah manages the Partner Survey for the John Lewis Partnership which includes Waitrose supermarkets, John Lewis department stores, Partner hotels and their farm in Leckford. The annual paper survey measures how well the Partnership delivers its Partner Strategy and was externally benchmarked for the first time this year. In 2010 they achieved an 89% response rate with over 63,000 Partners taking part.

Herman Kok

Group Finance Director, Lindum Group

As group finance director Herman is responsible for accounting, treasury and finance, dealing with strategic planning for the group, its acquisitions, venture management, development deals and special projects. Prior to joining Lindum he was a director at Helpflow, a marketing consultancy firm providing consultancy in accounting and finance, management and marketing.

Carole Leslie

Managing Partner, Baxendale

Carole was commercial director of an employee-owned IT company before joining Baxendale. Her expertise lies in working with employees at all levels to ensure the structures and channels are in place in order for their companies to become strong successful businesses.

Carole has held a number of senior level management and board positions, has an MA, MBA, and MSc. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Joe Lynam

BBC Business News Correspondent

Joe is Correspondent for Business News across all the main BBC programmes and website. He has frequently been the face and voice of financial and economic news during the recession, reporting on TV’s Ten O’clock News and Radio 4’s Today programme among others. Formerly the BBC’s Business Correspondent in Brussels, Joe also reports business news on Breakfast TV, BBC News’s 24-hour rolling news channel as well as Radio Five Live.

Malcolm Lynch

Partner, Wrigleys Solicitors LLP

Malcolm cut his teeth on employee ownership with advice to many of the bus company privatisations of the early 1990's. Since then he has assisted companies with transition to employee ownership both on succession, and through the long term development of an employee ownership culture with share incentive plans for all employees. He has been a director of an employee owned company. Wrigleys are specialist private client and trust solicitors and Malcolm leads the Social Economy Team who advise on employee ownership

Nigel Mason

Policy Director, Employee Ownership Association

Nigel is responsible for representing EOA to politicians, officials and policy-makers. He was previously a director at Lloyds TSB Registrars (now called Equiniti), the UK's leading administrator of share registers and employee share plans for public companies. Before that, he co-founded and ran Capital Strategies, which provided financial and legal advice to employee buyouts, and Myshares, a software and services business for employee share plans. He advised HMRC on the introduction of the SIP and EMI schemes in 2000.

Jim McAuslan

General Secretary, British Airline Pilots’ Association

Jim McAuslan has lead the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) since 2003 following careers in the Inland Revenue and civil service trade unions. As General Secretary he is responsible for strategic leadership, representing members’ hopes in negotiations with employers and operational management. BALPA represent over 9,000 members (80% of the UK’s commercial pilots) and is the world’s second largest pilot association. Jim serves on various charities and is a member of the Good Work Commission.

Ed McCann

Trustee of the Useful Simple Trust

Large, loud and born on top of a West London fish and chip shop, Ed is a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Innovation, a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. More recently, the story-telling blarney of his Irish roots has given him a feature role in television documentaries on everything engineering from the Industrial Revolution to the Pyramids.

Whilst engineering projects including the London 2012 Velodrome and the multi-award winning Infinity Bridge, Ed, with his Partners Chris Wise and Sean Walsh, conceived and developed the Useful Simple Trust….as a trail blazing employee owned organisation…..with the trail blazing obligation written into the trust deed in blood. Then in a spirit of true adventure, they gave the employees their multi-million pound engineering business.

Tricia McGregor

Joint Managing Director, Central Surrey Health

Tricia is the joint managing director of Central Surrey Health (CSH), the first of a new kind of not-for-profit organisation providing therapy and community nursing.

Launched in 2006, CSH is co-owned equally by all its employees. Together they combine the values and principles of the NHS with the ‘can do’ culture of a successfully run business. This means the people who are most in touch with the patients’ needs are now in charge of providing the services.

Derek Muir

Technical Director, Clansman Dynamics

Derek joined Clansman Dynamics in 2000 after working in both the Offshore Oil Industry and the Defence sector. In his role as Technical Director he is responsible for all design output, including component design, modelling, FEA Analysis (fatigue), Draughting and Manufacture. Clansman Dynamics designs are 95% export and penetrate all major continents. He is a supporter of a buoyant Manufacturing / Engineering sector and the benefits is brings to the UK economy.

Graeme Nuttall

Partner, Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP

Graeme is dual qualified as a solicitor and chartered tax adviser, heading the Equity Incentives and Charities teams at FFW.

Graeme deals with a broad range of equity incentives arrangements including advising on employee trusts, employee buy-outs and employee and trust owned companies. Graeme belonged to the HM Treasury group that developed the share incentive plan and the enterprise management incentives’ arrangement in conjunction with HM Revenue and Customs. Graeme is legal adviser to the Employee Ownership Association.

Steve Parfett

Managing Director, Parfetts Cash & Carry

Parfetts Cash & Carry has been an employee owned company since 2008 which has grown to achieve sales of £287m in the last year, selling food, drink and tobacco to independent retailers and caterers from its six depots in Aintree, Anfield, Halifax, Sheffield, Somercotes and Stockport.

Parfetts is a member of Landmark Wholesale where Steve has been Chairman of the Group since 1995. Steve also sits on the Federation of Wholesale Distributors Council.

Dr Ali Parsa

Partner and Chief Executive, Circle

‘Circle’ is a partnership of almost 2,000 clinicians which is creating multi-specialty health campuses for secondary care purposes. It is the largest partnership of healthcare professionals in Europe - co-owned and run by all of those who contribute to its work.

Ali is also the Chairman of Health Properties which is currently committed to a programme of over £1 billion of healthcare infrastructure. He is a former executive director of Goldman Sachs and Mergers & Acquisitions investment banker with Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston.

Robert Postlethwaite

Fonder, Postlethwaite & Co

Robert has over twenty years experience of helping companies design and implement successful employee ownership arrangements. He spent his first years as a corporate lawyer before becoming an employee ownership specialist. Postlethwaite, which Robert founded in 2003, is a niche solicitors firm, specialising in employee ownership and employee share schemes. Most of its clients are in the UK, although it also works for companies in continental Europe, the USA and other countries.

Barry Spence

Chairman and CEO, Cubiks Group Limited

Barry has broad-based experience of commercial and human resources management developed over 30 years. He was appointed CEO of Cubiks in 2000 and has transformed the business from a small operation within the PA Consulting Group to a leading international online assessment provider. Barry spearheaded the Group’s employee driven buy-out which was completed in 2007.

Jason Smith

Tullis Russell Coaters

Jason has been with Tullis Russell Coaters for three years now, but prior to this, held senior positions internationally with Ericsson Mobile Communications, MFI Manufacturing and EXIDE Technologies.

Tullis Russell Coaters is wholly employee owned and is part of the Tullis Russell Group. An international organisation, the company supply "speciality" coated papers. The company has its sights firmly set on growth, keen to maximise the benefits of employee ownership in order to achieve long term job security and prosperity for its workforce.

Kim Steward

Chair, Eaga Partners Council

Kim joined Eaga in June 2004, after 25 years in the utility industry. He began his career with Norweb and included electrical engineering, design & development and operational management roles. Kim has held various senior management roles within Eaga and for three years has chaired Eaga’s partners council.

Judith Sykes

Director of MustRD, the research and development arm of the Useful Simple Trust

Judith has been described as an entrepreneurial polymath. She gained her R&D spurs in engineering practice where her work was usually subject to real life tests as soon as it was complete on projects including Heathrow Terminal 5. As an officer of the board of Trustees, Judith has helped grow the Trust companies and establish ways of working across the group to meet the Trust aims. She has also embraced the opportunities presented by the UST model through the start up company MustRD.

Dr Hilary Thompson

Chief Executive, OPM

Hilary is OPM’s chief executive. She has led the organisation since its move to full employee-owned status in 2006. She has wide experience of organisational development and leadership and management particularly in public services. She previously worked at a senior level in a local education authority, as a consultant to central government and as a senior manager in the civil service.

Mike Thompson

CEO, Childbase

Mike Thompson is the CEO of Childbase - a children’s daycare company he started 21 years ago. Mike is committed to delivering outstanding child care to the children and parents his business serves and he is passionate that his teams receive the best possible career opportunities and environment in which to thrive.

To effect this, Mike has ensured that today, Childbase is now over 65% owned by its 1200 employees and his goal is to ensure that within the next decade the entire business will be owned by its staff.

David Williams

Manager, Branch Growth, Waitrose

David has 12 years retail experience. He joined Waitrose in 2002 spending 2 years in Branch management and then moved into the Personnel Directorate. David has experience in training design and delivery and project and programme management. From 2006 - 2008 David led the roll out of the National Training Award winning customer service programme 'Fresh on Service' across Waitrose. In his current role as Manager, Branch Growth David is responsible for the personnel programme management of all new branch openings and acquisitions.

Barry Wise

Managing Director, Aber Instruments

Barry is an engineer and accountant and is the Managing Director of Aber Instruments Ltd, a company he co-founded over 20 years ago. He has championed employee ownership within the company and has pioneered the introduction of an Employee Benefit Trust and Share Incentive Plan. These mechanisms are ensuring a smooth succession process and a stable future for the company.

Andy Woodcock

Branch Manager, Waitrose

Andy started in retail with International Stores in Sheffield in 1985. In 1988 he moved to Safeway stores as an Assistant manager progressing through to Branch manager in 1995. Since 2004 he has worked in 5 Waitrose branches; for the past 14 months "Twinning" Lichfield and Four Oaks branches.

Mark Wooding

Learning and Development Manager, John Lewis

Mark has worked in learning and development for the Partnership for the past three years, focusing on talent management projects. Over the past two years he has been heavily involved in setting up a new leadership team development centre for senior management in Head Office. In addition, he has worked on creating a development programme which is now available to 150 leadership team members which will potentially be rolled-out further in 2011 to incorporate the Waitrose leadership team.

Byron Woodmansee

Head of Partner Support, Circle

Byron has been a partner at Circle since shortly after it was founded. Now responsible for Partner Support activities (a combination of cultural engagement and HR), he originally set up and built the property business for Circle. Prior to Circle, Byron’s experience straddled both corporate and entrepreneurial environments. He founded, built up and sold two of his own businesses, and held senior corporate roles at WH Smith, Centrica and Accenture.