Melissa Hoover

Melissa Hoover is Director of Ownership Culture Training at Apis & Heritage Capital Partners and a senior director/fellow at the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. She is a longtime worker-ownership leader and former founding executive director of the Democracy at Work Institute, focused on employee ownership, ownership culture, job quality, and equitable economic development.

Employee Ownership Requires Workplace Practices, Not Just Equity Grants

At the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, Adria Scharf moderated a panel arguing that employee ownership does not produce better jobs or stronger companies simply because workers receive shares or an ownership plan is created. Evan Edwards, Melissa Hoover, Chris Mackin and Anna-Lisa Miller made the case that ownership has to be built into workplace culture through information sharing, job quality, management practice, governance and accountability. Their shared contention was that the field’s business case depends on making ownership credible in daily operations, not treating it as a transaction or communications campaign.

The Aspen InstituteJun 9, 202621 min read