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Fieldfisher partner Graeme Nuttall has won the prestigious Innovative Individual category at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyer Awards 2013. The award is in recognition of Graeme Nuttall's work to drive employee ownership into the mainstream of the UK economy.
Graeme was nominated as one of this year’s ten Innovative Individuals. The ten Innovative Lawyers are drawn from research across all categories of the Innovative Lawyers Report, which this year included over 600 submissions from over 100 law firms across Europe. The report was launched at last night's award ceremony which took place at the Natural History Museum, and is published in today's edition of the Financial Times.
Graeme's authorship of 'Sharing Success: The Nuttall Review of Employee Ownership' in July 2012 and his subsequent work in the field has continued to raise awareness of the employee ownership business model. Graeme was heavily involved in the UK's first Employee Ownership Day on 4th July 2013, which celebrated the success of employee owned businesses. On the day, the UK Government underlined its support for the employee ownership model by announcing two new tax exemptions to support employee ownership. This followed on from implementing changes in company law on 30 April 2013 as recommended in the Nuttall Review.
Graeme said: "It is a great honour to win the Financial Times Innovative Individual Award. This is another major step towards employee ownership's acceptance into the economic mainstream. It has been another tremendous year with the UK's first Employee Ownership Day and the announcement of two new tax exemptions to support employee ownership. This award is fantastic recognition of the benefits of employee ownership for businesses and their employees."
Employee Ownership Association CEO Iain Hasdell added: "Congratulations to Graeme on receiving this prestigious award from the FT. As the representative body for UK employee ownership, we have seen a huge rise in interest in employee ownership and its benefits, with Graeme’s tireless work raising awareness of the model instrumental in securing wide-ranging support. Employee owned businesses contribute around 3% of GDP to the UK economy each year and we firmly believe that this can rise to 10% of UK GDP by 2020 with the help of powerful advocates like Graeme."
On 8th February 2012 Graeme was appointed the Government's independent adviser on employee ownership, a part-time voluntary role. The Nuttall Report was published on 4 July 2012. The UK Government’s 2013 Budget Report confirmed support for employee ownership as a business model and welcomed work by the Implementation Group on Employee Ownership to take forward the recommendations of the Nuttall Review.