Employee Owners Talk About What an ESOP Brings to Their Beer, Their Business, and Why It’s Essential to Staying Independent With more craft breweries in the United States than ever before, many of which are over a generation old, some have had to decide on a succession plan when one or more of their founders wants to move on. Creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, is one way to ensure that a founder’s equity goes toward keeping their company independent, giving back to the employees who helped build it, and contributing in meaningful, sustainable ways to those employees’ job satisfaction and retirement accounts. Led by Alex Moss, who brings decades of experience working with employee owned companies to this panel, employee owners from 5 craft breweries talk about their ESOP journeys so far: the unique benefits, the (unforeseen) challenges, and why we believe it is important to independent craft brewing.

Learning Objectives:

• Spread awareness of employee ownership
• Explain why employee ownership is important to independent craft brewing
• Discuss the advantages of an ESOP as a succession plan and business strategy
• Discuss common challenges employee owned craft brewers face
• Help breweries considering a succession plan decide whether an ESOP might be a good fit