Steward ownership is gaining momentum as a transformative alternative to traditional business models. In this episode of Beyond the B, host Ryan Honeyman sits down with Achim Hensen, co-founder of the Purpose Foundation, which helps companies design ownership structures that align mission and values, and Luis Duarte, co-founder and CEO of Amoofy, an AI-guided storytelling platform that helps organizations capture and learn from personal narratives. The conversation explores how ownership structures can safeguard purpose and protect companies from extractive forces.
Achim shares how his pivotal experience of watching a beloved company shift hands to outside investors led him to champion steward ownership; an approach where control remains with mission-aligned stewards and profits are treated as a means to an end, not the end itself. Luis, drawing on his background in philanthropy, impact investing, and service on the B Lab board, highlights why storytelling and values-aligned capital are essential to shaping a more humane and sustainable economy.
Together, they unpack what steward ownership looks like in practice, the cultural contexts that shape its adoption, and why it may represent the “gold standard” for B Corps seeking to deepen their impact. From case studies like Patagonia to emerging ventures like Amoofy, this conversation reveals both the challenges and possibilities of embedding purpose into the foundation of your business.
Key Points From This Episode:
- Introduction to steward ownership and its potential for B Corps.
- Achim’s pivotal story of losing a company to outside investors.
- Founding the Purpose Foundation and defining steward ownership.
- Luis’s early exposure to rural wealth inequality and his path to discovering B Lab.
- Why B Corp status alone isn’t enough to safeguard a company’s mission and values.
- Core principles of steward ownership: self-determination and purpose.
- How historical pioneers like Bosch show steward ownership is not a new idea.
- Cultural differences in ownership: US shareholder primacy vs. Europe.
- First steps toward steward ownership: redefining ownership, mapping stakeholders, and drafting a future ownership memo.
- Amoofy’s origin story: capturing human stories after a health scare.
- Challenges of steward ownership for early-stage startups.
- Calls for legal forms to standardize steward ownership worldwide.
- Patagonia and others as proof of concept for long-term impact.
- Financing tools for steward ownership: capped returns, buybacks, and revenue-based models.
- The need for aligned investors, legal structures, and broader awareness.
Quotations:
“By putting money on the table, people got into the position of power, and that felt strange to me.” — Achim Hensen [0:05:54]
“[With B Lab] I fell in love with the possibility of ‘Wow, you can actually be intentional about all your stakeholders and not only your shareholders.’” — Luis Duarte [0:10:32]
“Why should people be excited about steward ownership? — If you enshrine steward ownership in a legally binding way, what you actually do is that you break with two of the most powerful distribution mechanisms of power in our society, within companies.” — Achim Hensen [0:16:22]
“What steward ownership does [is] it adds a new principle of power allocation, which is more a question [of] who is the most able one to take over the voting shares to further the mission into the next generation and into the future.” — Achim Hensen [0:17:14]
“It's been difficult because when you are a technology, AI, leveraging startup in the US, the conversations that are coming your way are very traditional venture capitalist.” — Luis Duarte [0:36:13]
“A beautiful quote from one of the B Lab leaders that came to me — was somewhat like ‘Luis. The gold standard for any B Corporation is to go all the way to steward ownership.’” — Luis Duarte [0:52:02]
“Over the last 10 years, we have [seen] a growing investors network of various kinds of investors and wealth holders who are interested [in investing] in those steward companies, even though it's new to them, even though it's it's a very different kind of investment relationship.” — Achim Hensen [0:59:31]
“Where can we find the right partners to help us think through the process of, ‘How do we move towards a steward ownership structure?’, and ‘Where can we find those wealth holders or capital allocators that are willing to engage in that dialog?’” — Luis Duarte [01:04:12]
Longer Quotations:
“Normally, there are two allocation mechanisms [of] how people get into power within companies. First one is, you are Elon Musk, and you just buy power in companies. You just put so much money on the table that the power goes to you. — The second one is what Warren Buffett calls the lottery of births. [By simply] being born into the right family, [you] become an owner of one or many companies. Those have been very powerful, very well used in the last decades. And what steward ownership does, if you enshrine those two principles, it adds a new principle of power allocation” — Achim Hensen [0:16:44]
“[I] look at [these] super wealthy serial entrepreneurs, they just build. At some point, the stories that need to also [be] told is ‘What is enough? — Why do you want to keep extracting and building, amassing wealth in a way where your profits are not continuing to pursue the benefit of your organization?” — Luis Duarte [0:44:27]
Links and Resources:
- Achim Hensen: https://purpose-economy.org/en/who-we-are/achim-hensen/
- Achim Hensen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/achim-hensen-54664758/
- Luis Duarte: https://www.amoofy.com/team-and-advisors
- Luis Duarte on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisduarte01/
- Amoofy: https://www.amoofy.com/
- Purpose: https://purpose-economy.org/
- Purpose | Open Content: https://purpose-economy.org/en/open-content/
- Purpose | Steward Ownership: purpose.ag/book
- OpenAI Structure Analysis Introduction: https://medium.com/@purpose_network/money-power-and-stewardship-decoding-the-openai-saga-of-2023-ac884bbd4d40
- OpenAI Structure Analysis Part One: https://medium.com/@purpose_network/openai-in-the-context-of-steward-ownership-blog-post-1-on-the-openai-saga-dd07fea9eecd
- OpenAI Structure Analysis Part Two: https://medium.com/@purpose_network/bringing-steward-ownership-to-life-while-playing-on-the-field-of-capitalism-blog-post-2-on-the-81eb973948af
- Patagonia Case Study: youtu.be/Wiru8uhZaqg?si=-8VYX-Byu8tyWXtH
- Transforming Ownership to Create a Better Economy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Uy_ODDiZo
- ‘Can Companies Force Themselves to Do Good?’: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/can-companies-force-themselves-to-do-good
- Whitepaper on Effects of Steward-Ownership: https://purpose-economy.org/content/uploads/purpose_white-paper_effects-of-s-o-in-denmark.pdf
Steward Ownership Events: so-events.org/
- Vyld: purpose.ag/vyld
- Stapelstein: purpose.ag/stapelstein
- Alkemio https://purpose-economy.org/content/uploads/purpose-alkemio-casestudyen-31032024.pdf
- Wildplastic: purpose.ag/wildplastic
- Sharetribe: purpose.ag/sharetribe
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