October is Employee Ownership Month, a time to recognize the people that are building businesses around a shared stake in their future. At Lightspeed, employee ownership is more than just our company’s structure. It’s part of our culture—how we approach our work, engage with our customers, and sustain our responsibility to one another.

In 2021, Lightspeed officially became 100% employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), completing a transition that had been years in the making. With an ESOP, employees receive an ownership interest in the company as a retirement benefit. At Lightspeed, employee ownership is also reflected in our everyday approach: the idea that each of us has a role in the company’s success and in the experience we create for the educators and students we serve.

Ownership changes the way we think about the work

Lightspeed was founded on five core values: integrity, respect, innovation, stewardship and humility. Becoming an employee-owned company only made those values stronger and inspired us to find new ways to put them into practice.

When employees are also owners, they develop a personal connection between everyday work and the long-term wellbeing of the company. Professional wins are amplified by shared ownership; from product improvements, smarter processes, or everyday problem-solving, everything we do contributes to something we all share and value.

Of course, that doesn’t mean everyone makes every company decision, but it does mean we all have a stake in what happens next and a reason to care about how we get there.

Our customers are part of the ownership story

For the educators and students we serve, Lightspeed’s 100% employee ownership exemplifies our commitment to our mission. Having ownership of the company where we put our efforts every day emphasizes what truly motivates our individual work and our ongoing strategy as a company.

Employee ownership helps keep us focused on long term goals like building relationships, creating products schools can depend on, and providing the service and support educators expect from us. We take pride in ownership, which starts with ensuring educators are satisfied with our products and service. 

That idea fits naturally with our mission to help every student hear every word. The people researching, designing, building, selling and supporting Lightspeed solutions have a personal stake in the company behind those solutions. Taking care of our customers and taking care of our business go hand in hand.

Shared ownership reaches beyond our walls

One of the clearest examples of how our shared ownership builds shared value is Lightspeed’s Employee Donation Program. Through the program, employees can donate instructional audio systems to schools that are personally meaningful to them, with delivery, installation and training included.

This program gives employee-owners a direct way to connect the work we do every day with the teachers and students who need it most. It also reflects something important about ownership at Lightspeed: our success creates opportunities to give back and invest in our communities.

Shaping the future of classroom audio technology together

Employee Ownership Month gives us a reason to celebrate being 100% employee-owned, but the real story is what happens during the other 11 months of the year.

It’s in the way we solve a customer’s problem. It’s in the care that goes into a product. It’s in helping our team succeed, finding a better way to do something and remembering that the decisions we make today help shape the company we’ll share tomorrow.

That’s what employee ownership means at Lightspeed: taking pride in what we’ve built together and cultivating a shared vision of where we go next.