EP344 Canada's Largest Employee Ownership Trust (Inside Taproot's Transition from ESOP to EOT)

About this episode

The episode discusses Taproot's transition from an ESOP to Canada's largest Employee Ownership Trust.

What happens when a company that is already employee-owned realizes its ownership model is not built for the next chapter? In this episode, host Colleen O'Connell-Campbell sits down with Michael (Mike) Fotheringham, CEO of Taproot, and Robert MacDougall, Board Trustee. Taproot is a 42-year-old national social enterprise with 775 employees and over $65 million in annual revenue. They unpack how and why the organization became Canada's largest Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). Taproot's journey runs from its founding by a laid-off public servant in British Columbia, through a management buyout that created an ESOP with seven shareholders, to the realization that the next succession needed a cleaner, broader, and more scalable structure. Mike and Robert walk through the real story: how a LinkedIn podcast discovery sparked the conversation, why the EOT legislation provided a template that other structures could not, what governance looks like four months into the new model, and why transparency with employees started years before the transaction - not after. Key Takeaways: Taproot was founded 42 years ago by Bill Stelmachek, a former British Columbia public servant, and operates in two…

People in this episode

Host: Colleen O'Connell-Campbell

Guests: Michael (Mike) Fotheringham, Robert MacDougall

Topics covered

• employee ownership
• business transition
• social enterprise
• governance
• EOT legislation

Keywords

• employee ownership trust
• Taproot
• ESOP
• business transition
• governance
• social enterprise
• Canada

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Taproot, RBC Dominion Securities

Places: British Columbia, Alberta, Northern Ontario

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