OUR JOURNEY TO BEING AN EMPLOYEE-OWNED TRUST

It all started in 2008 when Chris Lawrenson set up an agency specialising in outsourced communications for the industrial sector. Chris grew the business profitably over 15 years to a team of more than 20 staff and six-figure turnover, and in 2023, he started to consider how he would exit the business while ensuring it would continue and grow.

Today the company is run by its employees and headed up by CEO Jen Swain.

It was back in 2020 that Chris first met Jen, who had been an operations director with a background in B2B marketing, to deliver a STEM event for local young people. Three years later, Jen reconnected with Chris, and they discovered a shared vision and plan for Chris’s agency. In July 2023, Jen joined Coda as Head of Growth, taking over from Chris as CEO in January 2024.

Chris and Jen explored options for the future business model, agreeing that an EOT model matched their personal business ethics, the company vision of ‘creating a world made better’ and their sustainability aspirations for Coda.

Jen said: “Becoming employee-owned is already having a fantastic impact on our agency, and I believe it helped us achieve 105% of our 2024 turnover target and deliver our best year ever. Although several elements contributed to that performance, the overall culture, the sense of shared initiative and ownership mentality cultivated by the EOT process has led to increased motivation and drive to do continued great work for our clients, and to drive our future continued success.”

An employee-owned business means the founder or owners can exit the business by selling their shares to a trust run by employees and can leave immediately or over time. With Coda, Chris was able to to take a step back during 2024 and has now fully exited the company he founded on a day-to-day basis while being part of the Employee Trust Board as a Director along with Andy Brown, our Independent Trustee, and Jayne Witheyman, our Team Voice Lead.

2025 and beyond will see the Coda team further expand and grow. Watch this space for the next steps in our journey!