Chris Michael is a financial advisor, economist, author, founder of EOT Advisors, and professor at Rutgers University.
Chris Michael founded the first financial services firm in the country dedicated to assisting business owners sell their company to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) and has facilitated the transfer of roughly $750m in capital assets to over 3,000 workers in the course of more than 30 transactions. Chris is responsible for introducing the EOT as a new financial, tax, and legal mechanism to the United States and has published articles on the concept in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Tax Notes and Probate & Property. He is also a professor at Rutgers University, where he is a director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.
EOT Advisors
2015 – Current
Founded the first financial services firm in the country dedicated to assisting business owners in selling to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). EOT Advisors works in all 50 states and internationally. They assist with company structuring, transaction design, valuation, debt financing, capital raising, fiduciary services, and documentation, as well as with creditors and commercial real estate. They also advise and assist on other forms of employee ownership, including Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), employee-owned cooperatives, and broad-based equity compensation, in addition to broad-based profit and gain sharing.
Rutgers University
2017 – Current
Teaches courses on U.S. economic history. (Has previously taught undergraduate and graduate courses on Entrepreneurship Management, Social Entrepreneurship, Trusts and Estates, and American Politics.) Organizes and chairs the major academic and practitioner conferences of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing which comprises the leading body of academics and thought leaders in the field of employee ownership.
Invest Newark
2017–2019
Developed and deployed a comprehensive private equity strategy through the city’s economic development agency and in partnership with outside limited partners towards the goal of transitioning local private employers to employee ownership.
ICA Group
2014–2017
Workers Development
2009-2014
Led a strategic overhaul of the 40-year-old organization – the oldest U.S. nonprofit dedicated to employee ownership – in addition to establishing new revenue sources and raising its national profile.
Conducted a multistate direct public offering of stock to finance the launch of a chain of employee-owned restaurants.