We’re proud to share that Shannon Litton, CEO of 3LS Professional Services, is featured in the July/August 2026 issue of SUCCESS Magazine, where she shares lessons from 25+ years of entrepreneurship and her approach to building companies through strategic acquisitions and employee ownership.
The feature, The Power of Patience, highlights Litton’s leadership of the growing family of employee-owned companies serving organizations, united in their mission to drive growth for changemakers.
After a successful career building and leading marketing agencies, Litton was drawn to 3LS Professional Services by the opportunity to learn something entirely new.
“What drew me is that I knew nothing about it, and I was ready to learn something again,” she says. “When you’re an entrepreneur, I had the same kind of business for 25 years. At the end, I kind of would joke, like, ‘Every day is completely different, and they’re all exactly the same.’”
Today, Litton oversees a portfolio that includes marketing, digital strategy, technology and employee ownership advisory services, all connected by a shared mission of supporting what 3LS calls changemakers.
“We say changemakers are those who work where life change happens,” Litton explains.
“The definition of being a changemaker is that it’s hard…. It’s difficult work, but it’s worth it.”
Throughout the article, Litton emphasizes a people-first philosophy that shapes how 3LS Professional Services evaluates and integrates new companies.
“People matter most,” she says. “We have to have people [who] will come in there [who] are really smart, but also humble enough to say, ‘I can work with other people and learn from other people.’”
Rather than pursuing acquisitions solely for financial gain, 3LS Professional Services focuses on creating opportunities for companies to grow faster and create greater impact together.
“If we can bring a company in and they grow faster because they’re in this group, then that’s really a win for everybody,” she says.
The article also explores Litton’s belief that successful acquisitions require patience and respect for the strengths that made a company successful in the first place.
“The No. 1 mistake is just thinking: We have to integrate them right into us,” she says.
“There’s this arrogance of, ‘I’m going to buy a successful company, but then I really know what they should do.’ I think if we drop that, we’d be a lot better off.”
Instead, Litton advocates giving newly acquired companies the space to continue operating successfully while relationships and trust are built.
“Year one has to be, just leave the company as alone as you can leave it,” she says. “We’re here to help you, but nothing big has to change.”
That approach has helped create a culture where learning flows in both directions.
“Every acquisition, we learn something from them, and we take a piece of their culture and bring it into ours,” she says.
A central theme of the SUCCESS feature is employee ownership, which Litton describes as a powerful way to align long-term success with employee opportunity.
“You now own this place,” she tells newly acquired employees.
She also describes ESOPs as “a great get-rich-slow scheme,” providing an additional retirement benefit while giving employees a meaningful stake in the success of the business.
The article highlights how employee ownership influences decision-making during both prosperous and challenging times.
“It’s because we do value people over profit at the end of the day,” Litton notes.
The feature concludes with Litton’s perspective on transparency in mergers and acquisitions, an area where she believes openness creates stronger outcomes for everyone involved.
“We make things secretive that shouldn’t be secretive…. We can be a lot more open and honest throughout the process and get better outcomes for both sides of the table.”
The recognition from SUCCESS Magazine reflects the growing visibility of 3LS Professional Services and the broader 3LS family of employee-owned companies as leaders in strategic growth, employee ownership and purpose-driven business.
The full feature, The Power of Patience, appears in The Tech Issue, July/August 2026, of SUCCESS Magazine.