Harvest Partners Backs Ownership Works as a Founding Partner
New Nonprofit Supports the Development of Employee Ownership Programs to Drive Wealth Creation
Harvest Partners, LP (“Harvest” or “the Firm”), an established private equity firm with an over 40-year history of investing in middle-market companies, announced today that the Firm is a founding member of the newly created nonprofit Ownership Works, whose mission is to increase prosperity through shared ownership at work. Ownership Works, which officially launched today, develops and helps implement broad-based employee ownership programs to create better work environments and financial opportunities for employees. By 2030, the nonprofit anticipates that the shared ownership movement in America will create hundreds of thousands of new employee-owners and generate at least $20 billion of wealth for working families.
The nonprofit was launched with the support of 60 partners across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Harvest is one of 19 investors among that group, each of which has committed to providing financial support, implementing new models of shared ownership within their portfolio companies, and supplying detailed data and reporting that will inform improvements and best practices as the programs evolve.
Jay Wilkins, President of Harvest, said, “Harvest Partners is honored to be a founding member of Ownership Works and fully endorses its mission, which strongly aligns with our firm’s core values and practices. Harvest has long taken the view that facilitating economic participation for our employees is essential to establishing, building and maintaining a culture of inclusion, drive and shared focus to help achieve our goals.”
Initially, Harvest will build on the employee ownership efforts of its portfolio companies Insight Global, an IT-enabled talent management company, and Integrity Marketing Group, a leading distributor of life and health insurance and provider of wealth management and retirement planning solutions.
“By working with Ownership Works and our portfolio companies to implement a similar approach, we hope to not only help build better companies but also to ensure a stronger foundation to power innovation, collaboration and results,” Mr. Wilkins added.
About Harvest Partners
Founded in 1981, Harvest Partners, LP is an established New York-based private equity investment firm that focuses on investments in middle-market companies in the business services & industrial services, consumer, healthcare, industrials and software industries. Harvest’s control strategy leverages the firm’s over 40 years of experience in financing organic and acquisition-oriented growth. For more information, please visit www.harvestpartners.com.
About Ownership Works
Founded in 2021, Ownership Works is a nonprofit organization on a mission to increase prosperity through shared ownership at work. We partner with business leaders and investors to provide all employees with the opportunity to participate in the success they help create. Our shared ownership approach improves employees’ financial security, helps them build wealth and increases their on-the-job engagement. By creating stronger workplace cultures, our model also sets the stage for businesses to enhance performance and competitiveness. To learn more, please visit ownershipworks.org.