On 22nd October 2026, we celebrated a day we’ve been working towards for more than seven years: I-COM’s Financial Freedom Day.
With our Employee Ownership Trust debt fully repaid, we had plenty to reflect on, even more to look forward to, and a very good reason to get the whole team together. It was an occasion that called for balloons, cake, and an excuse to shoulder-barge each other into giant touchscreen walls (more on that later).
What financial freedom means for I-COM
For anyone less familiar with employee ownership, an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) holds shares in a business on behalf of its employees. The cost of buying those shares is often repaid over several years, funded by the business’s profits. Financial Freedom Day marks the point when that purchase has been fully paid off, and the debt from our transition to employee ownership is now completely cleared.
What does that mean for us? It means the money previously committed to those repayments can now support other priorities, including reinvestment in I-COM and sharing more rewards of our success with the team. We always knew that reaching this day would represent a decisive step into the next phase of our evolution as a business, and now that we’re here, we couldn’t be more excited about it.
After all, this is a topic we’ve spent a lot of time discussing, both within I-COM and with other employee-owned businesses. In March 2026, we brought 70 members of the EO community together for an event exploring Financial Freedom Day. On that day, we heard from businesses on both sides of the milestone about balancing repayments with investment, keeping people engaged and preparing for what comes afterwards: namely, having the ability to make decisions together about how much to reinvest, how to share profits and how to protect the business’s long-term health.
Having helped create space for those conversations among the EO community, it feels particularly good to finally be reaching this stage ourselves!
“Every month is a step closer…”
Our original five-year target took longer to reach than we’d planned. The challenges of the pandemic were a significant part of that, and the business still needed investment and attention while we worked towards clearing the debt.
That’s why reaching this point means so much. It represents years of work by the people delivering for our clients, supporting their colleagues and helping keep I-COM moving forward.
The anticipation came through clearly in our Q1 2026 employee ownership survey. One colleague put it simply: “Every month is a step closer!” Alongside that excitement, people wanted a clearer picture of what life after Financial Freedom Day would look like.
So, when it came to planning the celebrations, we wanted to give everyone time to enjoy the achievement - and paint a picture of what happens next.
Big questions and little cakes
With banners and balloons up around the office, we started with a company workshop to take stock of where we’d come from and where we wanted to go.
That included electing Cleo Chaisty, our wonderful head of PR, as our newest EOT trustee. Cleo has some big shoes to fill after the amazing Chloe Richards moved on to new pastures this summer, but we all have full faith in Cleo to step up! We also stretched our minds with an exercise to workshop a new mission statement for the agency that captures what we have to offer, without leaning in on buzzwords and cliche.
After years of working towards a shared financial goal, it felt like the right time to step back and think together about what should guide the next stage of I-COM’s development. Company workshops aren’t always the most thrilling way to mark an occasion, but this time, the vibes were good and the energy levels were high. Being employee-owned means giving everyone a say in how things are run, and being generous in sharing the rewards when things go well - so it was exciting for us to be able to paint a clear picture of how we’re going to do this now that financial freedom is here.
There was plenty to discuss, so we relied on trays of Pret sandwiches to keep us going, alongside snacks, drinks and some amazing baked goods from Candy’s Cupcakes. We felt seven years of repayments justified a fairly generous catering order, and we tackled the mountain of food with the same passion, fervour and results-driven focus that characterises our agency.
Settling scores at Immersive Gamebox
Once we’d wrapped up at the office, we headed over to Immersive Gamebox in Manchester’s Arndale Centre. Dashing desperately around a digital void, slamming our body parts into targets to drive our numbers upwards… it was something of a busman’s holiday in that sense, but a great time was had by all.
Points were scored, old grudges were settled (and new ones created), and more elbows were thrown than was really necessary. We all came away with a much better sense of which of us would die first if we ever found ourselves trapped in Squid Game, which is the really important thing.
We rounded off the day with drinks and pizza, giving everyone a chance to catch up and offer their own entirely unbiased account of how the games had gone.
What comes next?
For a long time, Financial Freedom Day has been something we could point towards: a shared goal, a measure of progress and a regular topic of conversation about I-COM’s future.
Now we’re here, we get to put those conversations into practice. The workshop gave us a chance to start doing that together, with the people who helped us reach this point involved in shaping what follows.
Thank you to everyone who helped organise the day, and to everyone whose work has brought us here. It’s taken a little longer than we expected back in July 2019, but being able to celebrate this achievement together was well worth the wait!
Learn more
Financial Freedom Day is the latest milestone in a journey that’s taught us plenty since 2019. If you’d like to explore more of our experience, these are good places to start:
- Our approach to employee ownership and what it means for our team and clients.
- The story of our EO journey, with insights from our trustees on the benefits we’ve seen from this transition
We’ve benefited hugely from other employee-owned businesses sharing their experiences, and we’re always happy to return the favour. To talk about our journey or share your own, call 0161 402 3170, or get in touch through our website.
