• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, August 15, 2022

Syracuse-based marketing agency Mower is now employee owned.

The agency announced last week that Chairman and CEO Eric Mower has transferred 100% ownership of the company to employees via an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).

Mower, who founded the agency in Syracuse in 1968, will remain in his current position as will other senior Mower executives, including president and COO Stephanie Crockett. Mower now has about 150 employee owners who have both equity in the business and an additional retirement benefit.

CEO Mower said the ESOP would allow the agency to remain independent and to maintain its “professional standards and practices and for our employees to know that their future is in their hands.”

Mower praised the agency team for its commitment and dedication to “collaboration, creativity and problem solving,” and added that those efforts “will prove a powerful force for growth, as well as a powerful tool to attract and retain talent. I look forward to seeing our new employee owners maintain their fierce friendships while doing great work that supports the success of our clients.”

Crockett added that ESOPs incentivize longer employee tenures. “Just as many of us at Mower have made this business a home for our careers — I'm celebrating 18 years — we want to inspire others to invest their time and talent into the agency, and reap the rewards for that investment, too.”

Agency clients include National Grid, FirstEnergy, 84.51°, FedEx, ABB, Prysmian Group, Northwest Bank, Turning Stone Resort Casino, Pebble Beach Resorts and Ford Dealers.

The company’s staff are based across the U.S., including New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Miami, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Albany, Rochester and Syracuse.

Eric Mower was inducted into the ANA’s B2B Marketers Hall of Fame in 2019. His alma mater, The Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University established a speaker series, the Eric Mower Advertising Forum, in 2009.