The Philip Baxendale Fellowship Award remains one of the most prestigious honours in the UK’s Employee Ownership sector. It recognises an individual who has in the past made, or is currently making, an outstanding contribution to the growth of employee ownership in the UK – someone who has an indisputable commitment to employee ownership and whose influence and impact within the sector is clear and widely recognised.

The awards began in 2007 as the Philip Baxendale Awards, originally created to celebrate the achievements of businesses that the Baxi Partnership had supported in transitioning to employee ownership.

As momentum in employee ownership grew nationally, the awards rapidly expanded to showcase excellence across the wider sector. By the early 2010s, multiple categories recognised emerging leaders, exceptional governance, strong business performance and individuals making extraordinary contributions to a more democratic and fairer economy.

It was during this period that the awards also became a highlight of the Employee Ownership Association (EOA) Annual Conference – a tradition that continues to this day.

In 2015, the awards were formally transferred to the EOA and renamed the UK Employee Ownership Awards. But one special element has continued: the Philip Baxendale Fellowship Award, created to honour the values, vision and stewardship of Philip Baxendale himself.

Previous Philip Baxendale Fellowship Award winners have included Julian Richer (Richer Sounds), Steve Parfett (Parfetts Cash and Carry), Hugh Facey OBE (Gripple) and Graeme Nuttall OBE (FieldFisher).

On Tuesday 25th November 2025, the Fellowship was awarded to Ann Tyler, in recognition of her extraordinary four decades of service and leadership within the sector.

Below is the full speech from Ewan Hall, who presented the award:

Good afternoon everyone.

As we all participate in this incredible two days of sharing experiences and knowledge with hundreds of like-minded individuals from hundreds of different organisations, it can be difficult to imagine that there was a time when Employee Ownership was a lonelier path. At my first Employee Ownership conferences there were generally a few dozen people in one room who mostly all knew each other and the composition of the attendees did not change much year to year.

In these darker times, if we had not had a dedicated group of experts and trailblazers who kept the EO torch burning, we would probably not be here today.

I am here to celebrate and give thanks to one of those torchbearers. Someone who has spent almost four decades building the knowledge and capability that now drives our sector.

Her achievements are too many to list in full, but some particular highlights include:

• Working with Robert Oakeshott in the founding of Job Ownership Limited in the 1970s – the organisation that ultimately became the Employee Ownership Association. She was also crucial to the EOA in the 2000s, serving as a board member and interim Executive Director, and representing the EOA in steering employee ownership legislation through parliament during the same period.
• As a qualified lawyer, she played a major role in the expansion of employee ownership during the privatisations of the 1990s – establishing employee trusts and designing Employee Share Ownership Plans for both public and private organisations.
• She has shaped national policy in many other ways – serving on the Government’s national Stakeholder Advisory Group on employee ownership, contributing to the 2012 Nuttall Review, helping establish Oxford University’s Centre for Mutual and Co-Owned Business, and working across many committees and consultations to advance best practice.
• She founded the Robert Oakeshott Lecture and was instrumental in re-establishing Ownership at Work, the charity that delivers the Employee Ownership Knowledge Programme and much of the research that underpins our understanding of EO in the UK today – where she still serves as Chair.
• On a personal note, she was also instrumental to the Baxi Partnership – the business that Philip Baxendale transitioned to employee ownership in the 1980s and from which Baxendale Employee Ownership grew. She supported Philip and acted as a trustee of the Baxi Partnership Employee Trust for nearly ten years.

It was in this capacity that I first met her around 20 years ago. At the time I was a young legal adviser who had worked for several years with Baxi Partnership. I had only dealt with the employees and board, but I knew that the board was ultimately accountable to a mysterious group of trustees that I had never met.

One day I was asked to present to the trustees on some of the new employee-ownership structures Baxi Partnership was helping to establish. Given her achievements, you can imagine my nervousness – I was about to be questioned by someone who had helped create some of the very legislation I was discussing.

But she quickly put me at ease with the attributes that have benefitted this sector so profoundly: attention to detail, a passionate belief in fairness, and a deep understanding of the power of employee ownership to build a more resilient and equitable world.

Philip Baxendale was also one of the torchbearers during those lonelier years, and so it is fitting that we recognise the lifelong achievements of this remarkable individual today.

I am proud to present the Philip Baxendale Fellowship Award to… Ann Tyler.