Why I Do What I Do

Employee share plans are often seen as a legal or tax exercise.

In my experience, they're much more than that.

A well designed share plan can help attract great people, retain key talent and give employees a genuine stake in the future of the business.

But I've also seen businesses invest time and money into a share plan, only to wonder later why employees haven't engaged with it.

More often than not, it isn't because the plan is wrong.

It's because people don't understand it.

That's been a constant throughout my career.

I've spent more than 25 years working in employee share plans, supporting founders, leadership teams, HR professionals and Company Secretaries, while working alongside legal, tax and payroll advisers.

Early in my career, I was part of the team that helped launch SMG plc's (now STV plc) "Buy and Match (BAM)" employee share plan, which later received industry recognition at the ProShare Awards. I also helped come up with the name "Buy and Match (BAM)", and it taught me an important lesson that has stayed with me ever since: if you make something easier to understand, people are far more likely to engage with it.

Since then, I've helped launch employee share plans for numerous companies, supported provider migrations, worked on corporate transactions, introduced a new share plan service into the UK market and spent many hours answering employees' questions.

Those conversations have shaped how I work today.

I don't design share plans or provide legal or tax advice.

Instead, I help businesses make employee share plans work in practice.

That might mean helping founders think about what they want a share plan to achieve before it's launched.

It might mean helping managers feel confident answering employees' questions.

Or it might simply mean explaining complex concepts in plain English, so employees understand what they've been given and why it matters.

Because I've found that when people understand something, they're much more likely to value it.

And when they value it, that's when a share plan has the greatest chance of achieving what it was designed to do.