Mar 13, 2026
Five patterns that stood out in our Steward-Ownership Gathering in New York City in March 2026
What a day. We are still buzzing from all the love, excitement, curiosity, and support at our Steward-Ownership Gathering in New York City last Wednesday.
Having so many diverse people in one room, including founders, investors, researchers, lawyers, and ecosystem builders from across the U.S., was a real testimony to steward-ownership and the momentum of its global movement.
We came to New York City because the signals were impossible to ignore. Over the past months, our inboxes have been filling up with emails from US-based entrepreneurs, investors, and other ecosystem actors asking questions, sharing stories, and looking for connection. Something is clearly stirring. So when we travelled to Austin for the inaugural PTON conference, we decided to make a stop in New York City on our way back to Europe, to share our perspective on steward-ownership and where it stands globally, and to bring a question that had been sitting with: Is there enough fertile ground, and the right local allies, for someone to pick up the steward-ownership torch and help build and strengthen the field in the U.S.? We wanted to understand what steward-ownership already looks and feels like on the ground here, and how deeply embedded it already is. Is our sense of the moment right? Is the time ripe?
To us, the involvement and excitement in the room (and many, many emails afterwards) clearly indicate that it is.
What follows now is our attempt to make sense of and sort what we heard and learned together – an overview of the possibilities, tensions and contradictions that surfaced across table conversations, dozens of sticky notes, and one remarkably candid fireside chat.
Thank you to all our wonderful participants for shaping the day and being part of this journey.
We have come to affectionately call participants attending our gatherings around steward-ownership, the unlikely alliance – and this room was no exception. Where else do founders and long-time owners, legal experts, ecosystem shapers and scholars meet? People who have spent years working on steward-ownership alongside those fairly new to it and curious to learn more. We were moved by how many of you made the trip, from nearby and from far across the country, from Portland and Seattle on the West Coast, from Ann Arbour, Kansas, Philly, Boston or New York itself.
We opened with a story that is close to our hearts. When one of our co-founders first shared the ideas behind steward-ownership with a professor during his studies at Columbia University, a little more than 10 years ago, the response was: "Well, that's a very nice European romantic idea. – but it's not going to work in reality. It’s not going to work here, in the U.S.”
The remark stayed with us. When we sat with it, we realised the professor was not entirely wrong – just not right in the way they intended. Is there something inherently romantic about steward-ownership? Perhaps. Romantic in the sense of being driven by ideals, by emotion, by a belief that things could be different. We think there is, and we don't say that apologetically. But the professor also said it wouldn't work. And that is where we part ways – because we see it working, in companies new and old, small and big, across cultures and even across centuries.
Data backs this up. Steward-owned companies reduce wealth concentration. They outperform on sustainability and, maybe through more R&D allotment, innovation. And perhaps most strikingly: they have a higher survival rate than conventionally owned companies.
But, we would like to be clear about something: we did not invent this idea. It is far older than we are. We coined the term steward-ownership. We have made it our mission to give it words, to flesh it out, and to hold its voice globally. An idea cannot speak for itself; it needs a narrative, it needs voices. There are many people who have thought about this before us and currently are, alongside us.
Steward-ownership – the idea that companies can be structured so that power rests with those most aligned, not with whoever has the most money or the right bloodline – is not a European idea. It is a human idea. It appears across cultures and centuries, in forms as varied as the Bosch Corporation, Patagonia, a community-focused housing trust in Kansas, an artisan bakery in Oakland, or the way Paul Newman structured Newman’s Own.
So it is across cultures, sectors, and generations that the unlikely alliance of people carries steward-ownership forward, bringing its ideals into reality.
But for now, let’s discover the patterns around opportunities, challenges and narratives that the room uncovered.
The deepest pattern across every conversation was striking: although it has deep implications for the quality and purpose of capital, steward-ownership is not primarily a financial model. It is a proposal about how power can be distributed – in companies, and ultimately, in society.
One sticky note said it plainly: "Making companies work for people again, using capitalism to lift communities." Another: "Change in the heart of capitalism." A third was the most direct of all: "Steward-ownership is pro-democracy."
The structural argument, which we laid out in our opening presentation, runs like this. When you legally enshrine steward-ownership (be it in a trust, a foundation, a purpose trust, a dedicated legal form, or through a golden share model you inherently break a pattern in how power in our society gets allocated. Right now, there are essentially two ways people come to hold power over companies. You are born into the right family (the sperm lottery, as we sometimes call it), or you have enough money to buy control. Those are the dominant mechanisms. Steward-ownership adds a third: It creates room to ask who is most capable of taking responsibility for the mission of the company. Who is the right steward? That is a different question entirely, and it has the power to change the DNA of the company.
Because the implications are radical, and no one in the room seemed to shy away from them. As one participant put it in the closing reflection: "The current corporate structures are not well aligned with the health and preservation of the ecosystems that support life on Earth, societies, and businesses. This isn't a nicety. This is a necessity."
The table discussions also surfaced the geopolitical dimension. "US foreign policy grows capitalism. Shift capitalism domestically, shift geopolitics." And from the same table, the challenge and the aspiration were compressed into one line: "Largest economy – if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere."
If power is the deepest theme, capital is where ideals meet reality, shaping everyday choices. We see this often in our work, and so it came as no big surprise when capital was inevitably the most contradictory topic in the room – we heard the tension in almost every table conversation.
The scepticism about steward-ownership’s feasibility was honest, and we welcomed it. Table 7 produced some of the gathering's most unvarnished sticky notes: "Capital doesn't like constraints." "Money won't want to separate money and power." And table 4 named the structural bind precisely: "So much capital available if you create a high-value company at the start. No capital if you add the veto." And one participant noted the extractive baseline: the U.S. investment system, as currently designed, actively punishes founders who try to opt out of the wealth-maximisation logic at the outset.
The hurdles and contradictions capital presents aren’t abstract. Our fireside guest Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, described from personal experience what happens when mission and capital misalign: without the legal infrastructure to prevent a sale, the company’s mission came under pressure. "If we had been a steward-owned company, this wouldn't have happened." The case is now in litigation – and it is exactly the kind of cautionary tale we hope our work helps others avoid.
But the same conversations that named capital as a barrier also identified and named it as the key. Table 4 asked: "Transition biggest opportunity?" The room's answer was cautiously yes, particularly if the movement can crack open new capital structures. We pointed to Novo Nordisk, a company worth hundreds of billions of euros that keeps 75% of its voting rights permanently locked in a foundation while still trading publicly on open markets. "The best-kept secret of capitalism – to combine the two." Capped returns, revenue-based structures, innovative deal terms: the toolkit exists. The mechanisms are already there and have been proven in concrete examples, but wider adoption requires more aligned capital, more investors daring to lead, and more cases that show mainstream investors how it works.
The closing discussion named the most promising capital providers: family offices and pension funds. Others pushed further: public storytelling about who is already saying yes, and what it looks like in practice, is as important as any structural innovation. We heard a clear ask: more case studies, more deal terms published, more proof that this is not a concession to idealism but a competitive choice.
Across the room, a common practical challenge emerged: the language around steward-ownership is inconsistent and often confusing.
One participant named it precisely: "We use around 30 terminologies to describe this work in the U.S". Steward-ownership, purpose company, self-owned company, (some forms of) employee ownership, perpetual purpose trust, foundation model, stakeholder capitalism – each points to something real, yet none travels reliably. Some of these actually shift the balance of power and money in line with steward-ownership principles, while others describe related approaches without fundamentally changing ownership structures. If you can't name something consistently, you can't find it, fund it, teach it, or build a movement around it. This challenge is visible across all the geographies we work in – and it is particularly visible in the U.S.
Another table – devoted entirely to narrative – produced one of the gathering's most useful tensions. One sticky note said: "No: Don't frame it as anti-capitalism." Another: "Capture capitalism back from technofeudalism – create ethical companies that are not about extraction and maximalism." The table's working conclusion was that the narratives that work build bridges rather than draw lines and feed into polarization. From our perspective, we couldn’t agree more.
A clear wish: to highlight the impact steward-owned companies generate, inside and outside and one sticky note put it directly: "Steward-owned companies outcompete on products of services for customers!" They create quality, lasting work. They reintroduce competition by reinvesting what extractive models siphon off. They are pro-democracy, not anti-market. "The current ownership isn't working for the many in the US – only for the few." That is a story that consumers, employees, journalists, and politicians can all enter from different doors. And: "Make it 'cool' again to fight for purpose not $$$."
What to avoid, the table also seemed to agree on: narratives about "lines go up" with no end, narratives that frame purpose as sacrifice, and narratives that make steward-ownership feel like an import. One sticky note flagged something the movement sometimes overlooks: the "no recognition – particularly if introduced as 'originated in Europe'" of cooperatives and the long history of Black cooperative ownership in the U.S. Whose history gets centred, and which door someone enters through – for us, these are not branding questions. They are questions about who this movement is for. We take that seriously.
Perhaps the most practically urgent pattern was one that appeared across multiple tables without being an official discussion topic: the succession crisis.
One table conversation returned to the same point again and again: "Millions of companies over 60 years old will need to find a way to transition their company." Baby boomer founders are ageing out of their businesses at scale. The conventional exits – private equity acquisition, strategic sale, IPO – are well-understood, but not often or always desired. And steward-ownershipis not yet part of the conversation at scale. Making it a visible option in these transitions could open a powerful new path for protecting companies and the legacies behind them.
Table 1 named this as one of the clearest entry points: "Pockets of the economy where there's already a driving interest ... part of that being around the silver tsunami and the generational wealth transfer." The food sector came up specifically – "long-term horizon to allow for growth that doesn't lead to be quarter-to-quarter driven" – as a space where the case for steward-ownership is practically obvious.
One participant made the civic connection explicit: "How do we get cities, local leaders, local representatives interested and informed? They have access to owners looking at succession, needing to retire. How do we become a new doorway for them – one that isn't private equity?" Small Business Administration loan guarantees, chamber of commerce networks, city-level technical assistance programmes – the infrastructure already exists. What's missing is steward-ownership as a visible and credible option within it.
New York City's experience with worker cooperatives offers both an inspiration and a reality check. Twenty years ago, there was one worker-owned cooperative in the city. A coalition of organisations pushed for city funding through community-based organisations. Today, there are 130, with similar efforts now in Austin and Madison. "It takes a long time – about 20 years. But you can get there in one city."
The implication is clear: if steward-ownership doesn't show up in succession conversations now, the window the demographic change is quietly opening will be missed. At a time when millions of businesses face succession, steward-ownership offers a practical and values-aligned pathway as part of the response to this structural challenge.
The U.S. context was the source of the gathering's central tension. When planning this event, we had many questions ourselves. Opening and ultimately stepping into this room full of people with diverse stakes and deep roots in the alternative ownership landscape, gave us (and hopefully everyone there) an opportunity to engage directly, test and challenge assumptions. We feel much more confident and believe that we left with a clearer picture of both sides of it.
Here is a glimpse of what was said. First of all, the affirmation was clear: the barriers are real and specific. One of them: "(The) mindset of valuation in the US is financially driven." Unlike Germany or the Netherlands – where steward-ownership may have deeper roots and where governments are actively developing dedicated legal forms – the U.S. presents a context with far fewer structural safetey nets around founders and ownership transitions. So the "lack of a social safety net in the United States" was a recurring note and the connceted notion that in such an environment, ownership decisions carry heavy personal financial consequences, which can make alternative models feel riskier to pursue, was clear. Another theme that surfaced repeatedly was the "Cultural education of the capitalist system and control".. And Table 7 named the bluntest obstacle of all: "Greed."
The concern about bad actors was also voiced directly. The same structures that protect a mission can be used as tax shelters. "Weaponize legal structures" appeared on a sticky note, yet, without editorial comment.
But the other side of the American paradox is equally real. And, from our perspective, the limited structural safety nets and structural social supports in the U.S. may help explain why certain ownership models and narratives gain traction. Narratives around employee ownership and shared ownership were strongly present in the room – approaches that resonate in a landscape where broad participation and economic security are central concerns, and where such models are often more established and easier to implement. As one participant noted, "Income inequality is most pronounced in the US – need structures that distribute wealth as company grows." The problems steward-ownership is designed to address – wealth concentration, mission drift, short-termism, extractive succession – are nowhere more acute than in the United States. And the potential for impact is nowhere larger.
"Opportunity: help everyone to see this is an up-down problem. Not a left-right one." That sticky from Table 4 may be one of the most strategically important insights of the whole day. In a time, and possibly country, where nearly every conversation risks becoming partisan, steward-ownership has something rare to offer: it is not a left or right idea. It is a structural idea. A human idea. It has deeper roots, it is not bound to a particular party, sector, or company size; it goes deeper, addressing systemic issues like wealth concentration, mission drift, and short-termism. With the right infrastructure, language, and champions, structural ideas like this can create unlikely alliances, crossing lines that otherwise seem impossible — just as we glimpsed in the room.
One participant in the closing circle offered the simplest version of the argument: "We will get there sooner or later. So why not sooner? How do we fill a stadium not in ten years, but in two and a half?"
The gathering did not end with a plan. It ended with energy – and a deliberately open question that we brought with us and one that the room answered more clearly than we expected.
We learned more from Kensington Corridor Trust, a Philadelphia-based community land trust that blends a 501(c) with a perpetual purpose trust, governed entirely by the community it serves: if you don't live in the neighbourhood, you cannot sit on the governing board – including funders. Seven years in, they are preserving affordable housing and supporting small business entrepreneurship. "The community tells us what we can do. If they say they don't like something, we can't proceed."
We heard a venture capitalist describe reimagining what it means to be a "steward of capital." We heard from researchers at Harvard and NYU signalling that the academic infrastructure is starting to catch up. We heard from a legal expert who noted that somewhere between 60,000 SBA loan guarantees and 6,000 business transitions a year, levers are waiting to be pulled.
The blank canvas shown in our presentation at the beginning of the gathering, attempting to visualize the lack of steward-ownership thought leadership in the U.S., was not merely a sign of absence. It was an honest starting point.
We call you, the participants, the "unlikely alliance" for a reason. Because building steward-ownership anywhere, and here in the U.S., needs founders who want to protect what they've built. It needs investors willing to deploy a different quality of capital. It needs lawyers who can build the legal infrastructure. It needs academics who can research and document what works (and what doesn’t). It needs civic leaders who can connect it to communities. It needs storytellers who can make it feel not European, not just romantic, but simply – the next thing.
As Ryan Gellert said: "This is not woke capitalism. This is the future of business."
We came to New York with a question: Is the time ripe? And we believe that the room answered it. Now we need someone to pick up the torch. Someone to finance the next steps for steward-ownership and for the people carrying it forward to have a real shot at it gaining traction, forming roots. Hearing the many positive voices and people coming forward, these people might have already been present in the room. If someone else should be involved, this hopefully gets passed on to them. In any case, we are extremely grateful to the many folks already working on paving the path, and look forward to collaborating with this incredible crowd to move the field forward – together.
Thank you to everyone participanting in the event, paving the way and advocated for steward-ownership in the U.S.
This piece draws on our Steward-Ownership Gathering in New York City in March 2026, convened by The Purpose Foundation. Participants included founders, investors, researchers, lawyers, and civic leaders from across the U.S. and beyond. Quotes are drawn from spoken contributions, table summaries, and workshop sticky notes.
Photos: Allison Gregory