2-Day Employee Ownership Learning Journey to Edinburgh and Lothians, 30-31 October 2024 

This year’s Employee Ownership Learning Journey took us to Edinburgh and Lothians, visiting and hearing from a number of employee-owned companies from a variety of sectors.

The group comprised a number of individuals from companies currently considering whether an employee ownership model would fit with their business, those currently in transition, existing employee-owned companies, and advisers.

Day 1 kicked off in Livingston with an introductory session for the group delivered by Glen Dott, Scottish Enterprise. View the Scottish Enterprise presentation.

We travelled to North Berwick for our first visit to Jerba Campervans where Simon Poole and the team shared their employee ownership story as well as giving us a tour of their facility. View the Jerba Campervans presentation.

We spent the rest of the day at Jerba where we heard from Ken Naismith from Computer Application Services. View the Computer Application Services presentation. 

Ewan Hall from Baxendale Employee Ownership ended the day with an interactive workshop on governance. View the Baxendale EO Governance Workshop presentation.

Day 1 concluded with an after dinner chat with Simon Fowler, Chair, Director and Non-Executive Director.

Day 2 commenced with an inspirational workshop on employee engagement from John Housego, Aquascot. View the Employee Engagement Workshop presentation.

We then heard from two employee-owned businesses.  Douglas Rogers from Edinburgh Designs shared the story from university spin-out to the employee-owned business it is now.  View the Edinburgh Designs presentation.

Next we heard from Chris Wilson, chartered accountant who has advised on many employee ownership transitions as well as moving 2 of his firms into employee ownership; Glen Drummond and Sharles CA. 

In the afternoon, we travelled to Tepnel Pharma Services in Livingston where David Scott and the team shared their employee ownership story as well as giving us a tour of their facility. View Tepnel Pharma Services presentation.

The final company to share their experience of moving to employee ownership was Tristan Elliot from i4 Product Design.  View the i4 Product Design presentation.

The learning journey ended with a wrap up session.

For those interested in attending a future event on employee ownership. view the future events programme: Employee Ownership Events – Co-operative Development Scotland