ESOP Association Leadership

From The ESOP Association’s national headquarters in Washington, DC, James Bonham serves as President and CEO, leading The Association and its 19 state and regional chapters throughout the nation. Bonham also serves as President of the Employee Ownership Foundation, whose mission is to educate and expand employee ownership throughout the United States.

Bonham is a recognized expert in public policy, government advocacy, and executive leadership. He brings more than 25 years of experience as a high level government official, advisor, and business leader with expertise in the fields of taxes, labor, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, and government contracting.

Before joining The Association, Bonham was Chairman for nearly eight years of the highly regarded Public Policy and Government Relations practice at Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips, LLP, a nationally recognized law and business consulting firm. In this role, Bonham led teams of lawyers, policy experts, and advocates representing clients as diverse as New York Life, The Recording Academy (Grammy’s), StarKist, and the American Land Title Association.

During a decade of public service, Bonham held multiple senior staff positions, including Chief of Staff in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, where he was frequently cited in the media as one of the 50 most influential aides of either political party.

His passion for shared capitalism springs from a family commitment to employee ownership: His grandfather had a personal and professional relationship with James Cash (J.C.) Penney, based partly on a shared business philosophy. One of their beliefs was granting a form of ownership to employees in the small mercantile businesses they ran. Bonham is proud to carry on today his family tradition of expanding employee ownership.

Derrick Vick, MBA, Licensed GC, is the President & CEO of Freedom Industries, Inc. He previously served as VP & CFO from 2009 -2020. He helped to lead the transition from a privately held corporation to 100% Employee-Owned (ESOP) in 2014 and was instrumental in Freedom being chosen as the MidAtlantic ESOP Company of the Year in both 2017 and 2024. Derrick also transitioned Freedom into both a business insurance and health insurance captive. He is also an expert at the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and has helped several organizations and ESOP’s transition of their operating systems to EOS. He has authored several articles for business journals and was recently featured in the book ‘Crisis-Ready Leadership’ for his work in turning Freedom Industries around from the brink of bankruptcy to a formidable leader in their industry, and from $5 Million in Annual Revenues to over $110 Million. Vick has used his leadership and expertise to support other businesses and has served on (7) Companies Board of Directors, assisting in strategy development, compensation, sales and marketing, etc.

Before joining Freedom Industries, Vick functioned as a Senior Financial Analyst for the Fortune Global 100 organization Siemens, of which he was hired full time during his Jr. Year at North Carolina State University after completing a 2-year co-op program.

Vick finished his MBA in 2015 at the top of his class (3.95 GPA) and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from North Carolina State University where he was also a student athlete in the rarest of forms as the mascot “Mr. Wuf”. That's right, he prowled the sidelines in a furry suit, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "Wolf of Wall Street."

Vick has been part of C12 for over 14 years, spending 10 years as a Key Player and the more recent 4 years in an Owners Group. He has contributed both video segments and written materials which were used in the monthly C12 curriculum.

Vick is also incredibly involved in the ESOP community, having previously served as the President of The MACC Chapter for 4 years. Vick also continues to serve on the National BOD for The ESOP Association as Vice Chair and incoming Chair in 2025-2027, as well as the Employee Ownership Foundation. Vick also serves on the Public Policy Committee (PPC) and is a member of the Employee Ownership Action Network (EOAN). In the nominating committees’ words, “Derrick is a leader among
leaders”. He is a regular attendee and speaker at state, regional, and national events. Vick is passionate about the concepts of ESOPs, so much so that he even has a dog named “ESOP”.

Derrick has been happily married to his best friend Tabatha for 17 years and they have three amazing children (Paxton 15, Meadow 13, Thatcher 11). He also has an identical twin brother who uniquely enough is also the President of a large manufacturing organization. When he is not studying leadership and communicating ESOP best practices, you can find him just outside the fairway, often yelling ‘fore!’