LONDON — B2B technology specialist With has become an employee-owned trust (EOT), as part of long-term succession planning for the business.

Founder and CEO Debbie Zaman (pictured, left) previously owned 100% of the business along with her husband Karim Zaman, the agency’s operations director, and they have sold all shares to the EOT. Zaman remains at the helm of the 24-strong agency – which grew fee income by 54% last year – along with managing director Elizabeth Jones (right).

Agency employees who have been at With for six months post-probation will benefit from the EOT’s tax-free annual bonus allowance, and team members will also be able to join the With Partnership Council, which will contribute to plans for the business.

Zaman founded With, which works with clients across areas including fintech, cleantech, marketing technology, HR technology, AI, blockchain, cloud computing, cybersecurity and space, in 2010. She told PRovoke Media: “We have a fantastic, strong team and it made sense to look at creating a legacy that benefitted every single team member.

“The management team remains the same, and we’re still committed to the business. We’re part-way through an ambitious three-year plan around growth, innovation, purpose and corporate reputation; we’re continuing that, and the partnership model means we can bring a slightly different emphasis to how that’s achieved, by bringing more diverse representation from employees to high-level business planning."

The first EOT in the UK PR industry, Cirkle, was last year bought by Huntsworth (now known as Accordience). At With, Zaman said there were no immediate plans to sell the business: “We’re not looking at a sale at the moment, that’s not part of a firm plan, but the EOT can benefit employees significantly without a sale, financially, in terms of having a voice within the business, and that genuine feeling of partnership.”

Jones added: “Building more opportunities for our team to input into the future of the company is exciting. We have always been a diverse group of people and now we get to bring an even more diverse range of ideas to some of our biggest decisions. Evidence shows that companies who commit to EOTs have better business performance, employee commitment and engagement, and greater innovation. We see these as huge benefits to our team, our clients and our partners.”

The senior team at With now includes Theresa Meredith-Hardy, who joins the agency this month as head of international growth from another tech specialist, MikeWorldWide where she was an SVP; she was previously at UK B2B agency Chameleon, which MWW bought in 2021.

In terms of international ambitions, With has a network of 10 independent communications agencies specialising in tech, the With Global Alliance, but Zaman, who is global president of the network, said although the agency was carrying out an increasingly amount of international work, there were currently no plans to open offices in other countries.

Current clients in With’s portfolio include shadow payroll platform Certino, global martech business and YouTube brand suitability partner Channel Factory, and Emmy-award-winning video streaming technology Bitmovin.