Award-winning digital growth agency The SEO Works has announced that it is now an employee-owned business.
Through an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) structure, the Sheffield-based business has transitioned ownership from its two founders to the staff, a step aimed at enhancing the brand and the organisation’s future.
Founded in 2009 by Neil Palmer and Simon Margetts, the digital growth agency has since expanded to a team of more than 80 employees offering SEO, PPC, Digital PR, Social Media and Web services.
Alongside impressive growth and a variety of prestigious award wins, the agency has always prioritised its people and its roots - remaining firmly headquartered in Sheffield, focusing on ‘responsible growth’, and investing in its culture.
Moving to being ‘owned by its people’ is the latest evolution of this mission - allowing the business to retain complete independence, reward employees for the business’s success, and create an ownership culture that properly reflects the ethos of the agency.
CEO, Ben Foster, said, “I’m incredibly excited by this development. Our transition to being employee-owned is the perfect evolution, reflecting who we’ve always been - a business driven by its people.
Across the last 16 years, we’ve grown from an exciting local start-up to one of the leading digital growth agencies in the North - all thanks to our team of experts. Our future as an agency has always been in their hands, but now it’s official.”
“For us, an Employee Ownership Trust was the obvious choice”, says Managing Director James Corry. “We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built here as a team, and of the brilliant service we deliver to our clients. This transition allows us to retain that, whilst bolstering the very thing that makes us so great - our culture.”
