Once you get past the bylaws, plan documents, and governance structures, storytelling is the engine that powers employee ownership. Business owners, looking at their succession options, hear the stories of happy founders who chose employee ownership. Job applicants hear the stories of how employee-owned businesses are often better employers. And you and your colleagues share stories that demonstrate everyday the power of employee ownership and how employee-owners can build an ownership culture to develop a life changing stake in the outcome.
But storytelling isn't always something that comes naturally. Even though it's one of humanity's oldest practices, it requires practice, techniques require refinement. How can you make sure that the stories you tell are the stories you want heard? How can you make sure that your stories have the biggest possible impact with each of your audiences? And how can you tell your stories in a variety of ways, making sure they continue to stay fresh?
Join the NCEO for this conversation about how to identify, frame, and capture your various employee ownership stories, and how to get them out in the world for maximum impact.
Learning Objectives:
1. Examine the types of stories that EO companies tell to each other, their employees, their customers, and more
2. Learn techniques to make those stories resonate with your audience
3. Explore different formats and how to leverage each one for your EO storytelling needs.
Kevin Burns is the Executive Director of the Alabama Center for Employee Ownership (ALCEO), the state's central hub for information, education, and resources on employee ownership. ALCEO promotes employee ownership as a strategy to preserve business legacies, build community wealth, and expand economic opportunity. Kevin provides outreach, free consultations to business owners exploring transitions, and referrals to financing and technical experts.
Rachel Merfalen is the Executive Director of the Tennessee Center for Employee Ownership and founder of Good Future, a storytelling studio advancing employee ownership and good jobs through the power of film. A 2025–26 Aspen Institute Job Quality Fellow and former Director of Business Workforce Programs, Rachel works at the intersection of culture, strategy, and systems change, helping grow employee ownership by making its impact visible, relatable, and human. Through Good Future, she centers the stories of founders and selling owners, workers, and the companies and brands they have built and stewarded, using storytelling to help more people understand what ownership can mean for business legacy, worker opportunity, and the future of local economies.
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