As it looks to reward staff for weathering the storm of the coronavirus economy, change consultancy Curium Solutions has announced it will shift to a new model of employee ownership. Moving forward, the firm will be majority owned by its new Employee-Owned Trust.
Companies that are employee-owned, or that have large and significant employee ownership stakes, contribute £30 billion to the national GDP of the UK. Employee ownership is the fastest growing form of business ownership in the UK – with companies in multiple sectors working to join famous examples like John Lewis in the practice, or recently, British home entertainment retailer Richer Sounds. In recent years, a number of consulting firms are making moves to take up the structure too.
The most recent of these is Birmingham based change consultancy Curium Solutions, which has published plans to become a majority employee-owned company. Formed in 2008 by Co-Founders Adam Farrow, James Farrow and Andy Dawson, Curium has now set up an Employee-Owned Trust (EOT), which will have a majority stake in the business.
Adam Farrow commented, “We are delighted to announce that we are setting up an Employee-Owned Trust, which will own a majority stake in the business. Our team has always been central to the success of Curium. After such a successful year against such a challenging market backdrop, we decided that now was the right time to move to this new model, recognising the immense contribution that every employee makes to our success. Apart from setting up the trust, nothing else will change. The team and board remain the same, backed by our ambition to grow, develop new services and support many more customers for years to come.”
According to a release from the firm, the move aligns with the culture of the organisation. James Farrow explained that the interests of the team, the co-founders, and the firm’s customers remain “perfectly aligned, and that “we’ve always believed that looking after your team is the best way of ensuring that you will deliver the best outcomes for your customers.”
The existing board and team at Curium will remain in place. This includes Chair Tracy Westall, who also agreed that the firm’s culture is perfect for the new model. She added that, “my first impression of Curium was that its culture is a superpower with a just cause of empowering potential for customers, so the decision to become an EOT is an obvious evolution to the story.”
Curium was advised by professionals from RSM during its move to an EOT. Mark Taylor, Central England Regional Managing Partner at RSM, commented, “We are absolutely delighted to have supported the Curium management team with this project. Our specialist team are seeing an increased amount of work on EOT projects as more and more businesses are attracted to this model of ownership. It was great to put in place a structure that supports the growth plan of such an exciting local business.”
