Esop Sofa: John Hoffmire — Transatlantic Perspectives On Employee Share Ownership
Webinar
Background: John Hoffmire is one of the leading international voices on employee ownership, who with David Craddock, will explore the contrasting trajectories of the United States and the United Kingdom in developing employee share ownership. Drawing on a career that spans investment banking, private equity, consulting, and academia, John brings a uniquely rounded perspective. Before entering academia, he spent two decades in equity investing, venture capital, and advisory roles, including founding and selling his own investment banking firm and working at institutions such as Bain & Company and American Capital.
Now a Research Associate at the Centre for Mutual and Co-owned Business at the University of Oxford and Chair of the Centre on Business and Poverty, Hoffmire helps shape thinking globally on participatory capitalism and employee ownership. His work has spanned nearly 100 countries and includes pioneering Esop transactions and policy influence across multiple jurisdictions.
David Craddock is a leading adviser on share plans and share valuation and an Esop Centre Steering Committee member. He led one of the first Esops in the UK and has also followed US developments closely and is therefore ideally placed to interview John.
In conversation, John and David will reflect on:
- The structural and cultural differences between US and UK approaches to employee ownership
- The evolution of Esops in the US versus EOTs and share plans in the UK
- What the UK can learn from decades of US experience, and where it may already be ahead
- The role of capital markets, policy frameworks, and advisory ecosystems in scaling employee ownership
- Why employee ownership is increasingly central to debates around productivity, inequality, and long-term growth
With his rare combination of practitioner experience and academic insight, John offers a thoughtful and often provocative perspective on how employee share ownership can develop to become more widespread, and what it will take for the UK to realise its full potential.
Speakers:
John Hoffmire’s main areas of expertise are employee ownership, impact investing, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, crowdfunding, ownership, and wealth. He is probably best known, presently, for helping to curate the Oxford Employee Ownership Symposium, in cooperation with The ESOP Association.
John’s achievements in both the academic and business worlds are extensive and – having participated in work, research and speaking tours in 98 countries – John is regarded as one of the leading experts in his field. His pioneering approach has led to achievements such as: leading the first sale of shares for a microfinance bank to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan at K-REP in Kenya; helping create and currently chairing an effective non-profit organisation – the three office Center on Business and Poverty, which assists low-income people in many areas of the world through market-driven approaches and initiating and helping lead the process of setting up more than 50 businesses for and with low-income people.
Throughout his for-profit and non-profit career, John has been referenced in numerous journals and publications including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Washington Post. Before becoming an academic, John had a twenty-year career in equity investing, venture capital, consulting and investment banking. His work has had a particular focus on Employee Stock Ownership Plans. As founder and CEO of an investment-banking firm, he helped employees buy and manage approximately $2.2 billion worth of Esop stock. He sold his firm to American Capital, which then went public. Prior to that, John was Vice President at Ampersand Ventures, formerly Paine Webber’s private equity group, and was a consultant at Bain & Company.
David Craddock is an independent consultant specialising in employee share ownership and reward management. A recognised authority on the subject, he is the author of The Tolley’s Guide to Employee Share Schemes , along with many other essential books and courses. David’s clients range from major public limited companies with international considerations to smaller private companies where the requirements are for Enterprise Management Incentives, tax-unapproved share scheme arrangements and market-making employee share trust structures. David has successfully established employee share schemes and employee benefit arrangements worldwide and to date has travelled to over 30 countries to personally facilitate their introduction. He enhances his service through a long experience in share reconstructions and share valuation.
Speaker(s):
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John Hoffmire
Research Associate, Centre for Mutual and Co-owned Business
University of Oxford’s Kellogg College
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David Craddock
Founder Director
David Craddock Consultancy Services
Chairman:
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Robert Pay
Chairman
Esop Centre