How Board Members Should Approach ESOP Valuations:  Reading Between the Lines

Overview: 

The required annual ESOP business valuation is one of the key differences in sitting on an ESOP Company Board. Our goal is to have a rich, interactive conversation of the issues surrounding the annual valuation of the ESOP’s stock and the Company. These can include: why these valuations are required; the implications for the duties of the Board; what is the Board’s role in the process itself; how to read the report in order to fulfill your responsibilities; and other issues that arise. 

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$00 Member Registration Fee
$30 Non-Member Registration Fee

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Panelists

Diane F. Adams Independent Board Member

Diane is an Independent Board Director and has worked closely with private, private equity owned and family boards over the years. She currently serves on several private company and family boards including, Lodge Cast Iron (compensation committee), Thrall Enterprises (Chair of the nominating and governance committee), and Valco Industries, an ESOP Company (Chair, compensation committee). She is recognized as a valued business partner known for her collaborative and coaching style. She has been instrumental in developing processes to improve board composition and initiate generational transitions to meet the future needs of the business and the family. 

Diane has extensive corporate experience developing long term sustainable growth strategies for branded manufacturing companies in both consumer products and industrial goods. She is an expert in digital marketing, consumer insights and market driven innovation. She is a professional speaker and has authored several publications on various topics including digital innovation, branding, leadership and diversity. 

Alexander P. Moss Independent Board Member President, Praxis Consulting Group

Alex Moss is a founder and president of Praxis Consulting Group, Inc., where he advises employee-owned, nonprofit, and mission-driven corporate clients in fully engaging employees to drive organizational performance. His expertise includes ownership culture, strategy, governance, leadership, and workforce education and engagement, and he is a frequent speaker and author on these matters.

He is a Trustee of the Employee Ownership Foundation and a past member of the Board of Directors of the National Center for Employee Ownership, and of both the Board of Directors and the Board of Governors of The ESOP Association. He has chaired The ESOP Association's professional advisory committees on Fiduciary Issues and on Ownership Culture, and he has served the employee ownership community in numerous other capacities.

Alex currently / has recently served as a Board member of three ESOP companies, and he chairs two of these. He has served on the boards of a number of cooperative and nonprofit organizations, and he previously managed the social enterprise initiatives of a nonprofit community organization. He holds a Master’s degree in Public and Private Management (MPPM) from the Yale School of Management and an AB from Brown University.

Jade Palermo Senior Manager, Empire Advisory Practice

Jade is a Director in Empire Valuation Consultant’s ESOP Advisory Practice. She is an experienced valuation analyst with a proven track record of providing trustworthy valuation advisory services and credible, defensible valuations across multiple industries since 2011. 

As a leader in Empire’s ESOP Advisory Practice, Jade provides valuation advisory services to trustees, covering both transactional matters and ongoing annual updates. Jade also assists business owners in exploring ESOP feasibility and executing ESOP transactions. 

Jade is an active member of the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO), and The ESOP Association, where she serves as a Member of the Valuation Advisory Committee. Jade has spoken at many ESOP events and conferences on a variety of topics impacting employee-owned companies and is a co-chair of the annual ESOP Conference hosted by the American Society of Appraisers (ASA). Jade is a member of the Private Director Association’s (PDA) ESOP Committee.

Moderator

Michael A Golden SES ESOP Strategies & Member PDA ESOP Committee

Michael Golden is Senior Vice President of SES ESOP Strategies. With 20 years of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) structuring and capital raising he has been involved in more than $1 Billion in transactions resulting in employee ownership of privately held middle market companies.

Michael has chaired and served on boards across the Public, Private, and Non-Profit Sectors. Professionally he has managed and directed strategic, financial, marketing and operational issues as: CFO of an SAAS technology and public policy company; Director of Finance for a private foundation; Marketing Officer for a national community development bank, as well as managing strategic, financial, and operational projects for the bank’s Holding Company, including a stint leading a turn-around restructuring of its national IT area by designing and implementing a platform for multi-state growth.

Michael is accredited in Private Company Governance from the Private Directors Association and serves on the group’s national ESOP Committee. He has won various awards, including The ESOP Association’s Professional Member of the Year. He has earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management as a Patricia Roberts Harris Public Service Fellow awarded by the U.S. Department of Education, an MSc from the London School of Economics & Political Science, and a BA from Wesleyan University.

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