January 15, 2019

Why Dansko Is Employee-Owned

Executive Director

Writing in Forbes, Susan Adams describes the day in August 2005 when Mandy Cabot decided not to sell her company, which sells wooden clogs, to a much larger company. When Word leaked out that Cabot was considering a sale to Timberland, "our retailers were in an uproar, our phones at Dansko were flooded and the company was in total meltdown."

She realized that for Dansko employee, "[f]or me to even consider selling the company was appalling to them." Despite having spent ten months negotiating the sale, she had a realization: "I saw the impact the deal was going to have on everyone whose lives our business had touched, and I couldn't go through with it." In 2012, Cabot sold 100% of the company to employees through an ESOP.