We are a 100% employee-owned company.

Why?  Our founders asked this question: How do you create a company that lasts 100 years?

As Pariveda’s founders, we posed that question prior to launching the company.  In a day when the world seems increasingly internally focused on the big payoff and many consultancies are “lifestyle companies,” that exist for the lifestyle of a few owners, or behemoths where understanding a career path and developing an individual’s skills is difficult, this was a question worth spending a lifetime to answer.  Reaching this goal and fulfilling our mission to grow requires us to stay focused on the long term; we are typically thinking in 5 to 10 year increments to make sure we don’t handicap the future for short term gains. 

We knew that the ownership structure of the company would be important in allowing us to reach this goal and to fulfill our mission of growing talent; obviously we didn’t think in terms of some type of massive liquidity event or a sale of the firm to a larger company.  Instead, we have made all employees owners of the company. 

In 2007, we created an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and today this plan owns 30% of the company’s common stock.  The two founders now own less than 50% of the company.  We have also created an internal market for the sale and distribution of stock upon departure of any employee.  These mechanisms exist to create a private “market” for Pariveda stock which provides ownership to employees and a way to create liquidity for sellers until such time that the company is 100% owned by the ESOP trust.

We also have an elaborate Profit Sharing plan that distributes a portion of the annual profits of the company to all of the employees, paying out the lower ranks of the company first before the executive ranks.  We think this mechanism balances the long term view with paying out dollars in the short term.  It also treats employees like owners in that profit sharing is not a bonus in the traditional sense, but is paid from profits.

Why have we created opportunities for our employees to own the firm and participate in profit sharing?  How do these benefits create value for our clients?  The answer is simple: We believe employees who are real owners take better care of clients, the firm’s assets, and each other because their focus is on the long run.