Delivered on behalf of Scottish Enterprise by Workplace Innovation Europe.

Workplace Innovation Webinar

Leveraging Ownership

How employee ownership, co-operative models and workplace innovation enhance productivity and employee engagement

Ed Stubbs will describe Gripple’s journey towards employee ownership and how it has transformed the company’s culture and working practices. Self-management at individual and team level accompanied by two-way accountability have become embedded in Gripple’s way of working, whilst high involvement innovation and improvement are central to the company’s competitive success.

Gripple Ltd is 100% employee owned and a global manufacturer of wire joining and suspension systems. Founded in 1989, turnover is now £90m, exporting to over 80 countries and with 850 employees. Ed Stubbs, Managing Director of Gripple Ltd has worked with employee owned GLIDE group for 19 years, working in Sales and Marketing for Gripple start-ups in the USA, and sister company Loadhog Ltd (UK) before moving into General Management as MD of Loadhog Ltd for 6 years and re-joining Gripple in 2015. Ed is proud to have led two employee owned businesses to recognition in two IMECH People Effectiveness and UK Best Factory awards and the British Chamber Employer of the Year award.

Juan Angel Garcia will tell the remarkable story of the Mondragon Corporation’s growth from its origins in the Basque Country during the 1950s to becoming the tenth largest company in Spain and the largest co-operative in the world. He will explain how co-operative principles work in practice and how they have been central to Mondragon’s global success. Juan is currently Vice President of the Mondragón Corporation, and is currently also the President of the Lortek Technology Center. His professional experience is in the industrial and consumer area, with an international presence in promoting various business development and innovation projects.

Jon Prado will demonstrate how Lortek Technology Centre, a co-operative forming part of the Mondragon Corporation, helps other co-operatives to build “a new model of people management”,  enhancing competitiveness “through the innovation and creativity of all working people”. Jon is a senior Engineer at Lortek with more than five years’ experience. He specialises in business organisation and innovation management, and has expertise in lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0.

Peter is a Founding Director of Workplace Innovation Europe. Peter’s career focuses on building bridges between academic knowledge and practice. He co-created the concept of workplace innovation, now being adopted by companies and policymakers across Europe and beyond.

Peter has led successful innovation and change initiatives in private and public sector organisations. He has also worked closely with policymakers at national and European levels. His Board-level experience includes seven years as a Non-Executive Director at Nottingham City Hospital NHS Trust, and in several charities.

Rosemary is a Founding Director of Workplace Innovation Europe CLG. Her experience of workplace innovation builds on many years’ experience as a clinician, manager and trade unionist in the UK’s National Health Service where she instigated, drove and delivered many complex change and improvement initiatives. Rosemary has played key roles in several international research and development projects, delivered leadership development programmes and facilitated organisational change in companies and public sector organisations across Europe.