William Castellano
William Castellano is a Rutgers University professor of strategic human resource management and director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, where his work focuses on employee ownership, equity compensation, employee engagement, and human capital strategy.
States Test Financing and Training Models to Expand Employee Ownership
At the Aspen Institute’s 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, Iowa state Rep. Shannon Lundgren, New Jersey state Sen. Andrew Zwicker and the Department of Labor’s Hilary Abell argued that states are becoming the main testing ground for expanding employee ownership. Their case was practical rather than theoretical: states can help owners and workers navigate outreach, feasibility studies, financing and post-transition education, while Washington funds, convenes and learns from those experiments without imposing a single model.
Employee Ownership Advocates Urged to Reject the Niche Label
Paula D’Ambrosa, Prudential Financial’s director of inclusive wealth-building, opened the second day of the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum by arguing that employee ownership should be understood as a longstanding American answer to who shares in economic growth. Drawing on a Revolutionary-era profit-sharing requirement for cod-fishing subsidies, she said the field should stop describing itself as niche and instead present employee ownership as a mainstream way for workers to share in the value they create, including as artificial intelligence reshapes the economy.
Employee Ownership Is Framed as a Mechanism for Sharing AI Productivity Gains
Aspen Institute’s Maureen Conway and Rutgers University’s William Castellano opened the 2026 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum by arguing that employee ownership should be treated as a practical response to economic insecurity and technological disruption, not just a fairness principle. Conway framed broad-based ownership as a way to give workers voice, wealth-building opportunities, and a stake in the value they help create, while Castellano tied it to AI-era management challenges, arguing that productivity gains from new technologies should be shared with employees through ownership, incentives, and workforce investment.