The Search for a Good Exit: Introduction to Ownership Succession Planning

Date and Time

Tuesday Jun 10, 2025
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM EDT

Location

National Bank of Middlebury
32 Main Street
Middlebury, VT 05753

Fees/Admission

Free and open exclusively to members of the Chamber & ACEDC.
Lunch provided

Contact Information

Maria Benoit
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The Search for a Good Exit: Introduct...

Description

This in-person event at National Bank of Middlebury is for business owners exploring their options for selling their business when the time is right. Expect to learn about a variety of succession paths, including a sale to employees, to key managers, to family members, or to an outside buyer.

Matt Cropp, Executive Director of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center, will cover the basics of a sale to the employees and introduce the ownership structures, such as worker-owned cooperatives or Employee Stock Ownership Plans, that support an employee-owned business. Lynne Silva, owner of The Silva Group, will provide an overview of the fundamentals of ownership succession as well as considerations for other succession paths.

OUR SPEAKERS

Matt Cropp
Vermont Employee Ownership Center
Matt has been with the organization since 2014, where he has developed deep expertise in employee ownership while serving in a variety of roles before becoming Executive Director. Matt received his MA in History from UVM in 2011, where he studied economic history and the origins of cooperative finance. He's involved on a volunteer basis with a number of co-op projects, including as a board member of two real estate co-ops, as chair of an investment club, and as a member of a credit union supervisory committee. Matt lives in the New North End of Burlington with his partner and their son, and in his free time enjoys gardening, tinkering with electronics and sustainable energy tech, and spending nice days rolling around town on his bike at a leisurely pace.

Lynne Silva
The Silva Group

Lynne is a certified business intermediary and the principal of The Silva Group LLC, a professional mergers and acquisitions/business brokerage firm located in Burlington. For 20 years she has advised business owners on planning for and in successfully executing the sales of their companies.

She has lengthy experience working with each type of ownership exit pathway, whether advising on a straightforward sale of a small company to a key employee or managing a complex multi-million dollar transaction with a national acquirer. Her focus is on crafting an exit that is balanced to align with an owner’s values and needs while also positioning the new owners and the company itself for continued success.

This members-only webinar series is co-sponsored by the Addison County Chamber of Commerce and Addison County Economic Development Corporation. Seminars are open exclusively to members of the Chamber and the ACEDC. Guests of members will be considered based upon availability and individual non-member guests may only attend (1) one webinar per calendar year.