Turning Your Team into Owners: The HPH Employee Ownership Model with Nick Bordi

In this episode of The Trusted Adviser, I sit down with our Chief Operating Officer, Nick Bordi, to unpack one of the most talked-about topics in financial planning businesses: employee ownership.

At HPH Solutions, what started as a simple idea to reward and retain great people has evolved into something far more powerful. Our Team Equity Trust now plays a central role in ownership transition, long-term incentives, and what we’ve come to think of as an “internal private equity” model.

Nick and I go deep into how the structure actually works – from eligibility and valuation through to funding mechanisms for younger team members and the governance required when you have dozens of employee owners. We also share the lessons we’ve learned along the way, including mistakes, structural changes, and the thinking behind key decisions like not discounting equity.

If you’re a business owner thinking about succession, culture, or how to align your team to long-term growth, this conversation offers a practical and transparent look at what’s worked for us – and what we’d do differently.