September 18, 2025 - This episode of Everything Co-op continues our tribute to the 2025 Cooperative Hall of Fame Inductees with a special conversation featuring Tom Webb. Tom shares insights from his lifelong work advancing cooperative education and global leadership and explores the enduring value and unique advantages of the cooperative business model.
Tom Webb’s career spans cooperative sectors in Canada and the United States, from grocery to IT, multistakeholder co-ops to credit unions. His most enduring legacy lies in education, a cornerstone of the Co-operative Identity. As Director of the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Webb recognized the need for a graduate program focused on cooperative management. After years of persistence and collaboration, he established the Master of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions (MMCCU) at Saint Mary’s University, now the world’s leading English-language graduate program in cooperative business, offered fully online.
The program’s success, built on Webb’s networking and support from co-op leaders in Canada, the U.S., and the UK, laid the foundation for the International Centre for Co-operative Management (ICCM). Today, ICCM offers degrees, certificates, executive training, study tours, and applied research, and is governed by the Co-operative Management Education Co-operative (CMEC), an international multistakeholder co-op with 80 members in 10 countries. Webb also founded the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Co-operatives (CEARC), advancing co-op specific financial and sustainability reporting.
Though officially retired, Webb continues teaching, consulting, and writing. His book, From Corporate Globalization to Global Cooperation, captures a lifetime devoted to advancing cooperation.
For his lifelong dedication and personification of cooperative values, Tom Webb will be inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame on October 9 in Washington, DC. For tickets visit Heroes.coop website.
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September 18, 2025 - This episode of Everything Co-op continues our tribute to the 2025 Cooperative Hall of Fame Inductees with a special conversation featuring Tom Webb. Tom shares insights from his lifelong work advancing cooperative education and global leadership and explores the enduring value and unique advantages of the cooperative business model.
Tom Webb’s career spans cooperative sectors in Canada and the United States, from grocery to IT, multistakeholder co-ops to credit unions. His most enduring legacy lies in education, a cornerstone of the Co-operative Identity. As Director of the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Webb recognized the need for a graduate program focused on cooperative management. After years of persistence and collaboration, he established the Master of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions (MMCCU) at Saint Mary’s University, now the world’s leading English-language graduate program in cooperative business, offered fully online.
The program’s success, built on Webb’s networking and support from co-op leaders in Canada, the U.S., and the UK, laid the foundation for the International Centre for Co-operative Management (ICCM). Today, ICCM offers degrees, certificates, executive training, study tours, and applied research, and is governed by the Co-operative Management Education Co-operative (CMEC), an international multistakeholder co-op with 80 members in 10 countries. Webb also founded the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Co-operatives (CEARC), advancing co-op specific financial and sustainability reporting.
Though officially retired, Webb continues teaching, consulting, and writing. His book, From Corporate Globalization to Global Cooperation, captures a lifetime devoted to advancing cooperation.
For his lifelong dedication and personification of cooperative values, Tom Webb will be inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame on October 9 in Washington, DC. For tickets visit Heroes.coop website.
Village of Leaders Thriving for Solidarity discuss its Co-op Ecosystem for Returning Citizens
Everything Co-op with Vernon Oakes
55 minutes 56 seconds
8 months ago
Village of Leaders Thriving for Solidarity discuss its Co-op Ecosystem for Returning Citizens
February 27, 2025 - This episode marks the conclusion of Everything Co-op's Black History Month series, focusing on the 2025 theme set by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH): "African Americans and Labor." This theme examines how different forms of labor—free and unfree, skilled and unskilled, vocational and voluntary—have shaped Black experiences throughout history.
Vernon Oakes continues this discussion alongside three leaders from VOLTS (Village of Leaders Thriving in Solidarity): Camille Kerr, co-founder of Upside-Down Consulting, Edrinna Bryant, co-owner of ChiFresh Kitchen and Jumpstart Housing Cooperative, and Sharon Hopkins, co-owner of 6ix-cess Foods.
VOLTS is a newly formed non-profit that builds on years of cooperative development work to create lasting economic justice for formerly incarcerated individuals, particularly Black women. By formalizing and expanding its model, VOLTS provides the structure and support needed to scale worker-owned businesses and cooperative housing initiatives. Through this ecosystem, it creates pathways for dignified employment, stable housing, and community wealth-building, ensuring that those most impacted by incarceration have ownership and decision-making power in the businesses and homes they create.
Its ecosystem includes: ChiFresh Kitchen, a worker cooperative offering institutional meal services, Jumpstart Housing Cooperative, which provides affordable homeownership opportunities, and 6ix-cess Foods, an emerging worker-owned food manufacturing business. Through these initiatives, VOLTS demonstrates how cooperative ownership can drive long-term economic security, self-determination, and systemic change in Chicago.
Everything Co-op with Vernon Oakes
September 18, 2025 - This episode of Everything Co-op continues our tribute to the 2025 Cooperative Hall of Fame Inductees with a special conversation featuring Tom Webb. Tom shares insights from his lifelong work advancing cooperative education and global leadership and explores the enduring value and unique advantages of the cooperative business model.
Tom Webb’s career spans cooperative sectors in Canada and the United States, from grocery to IT, multistakeholder co-ops to credit unions. His most enduring legacy lies in education, a cornerstone of the Co-operative Identity. As Director of the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Webb recognized the need for a graduate program focused on cooperative management. After years of persistence and collaboration, he established the Master of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions (MMCCU) at Saint Mary’s University, now the world’s leading English-language graduate program in cooperative business, offered fully online.
The program’s success, built on Webb’s networking and support from co-op leaders in Canada, the U.S., and the UK, laid the foundation for the International Centre for Co-operative Management (ICCM). Today, ICCM offers degrees, certificates, executive training, study tours, and applied research, and is governed by the Co-operative Management Education Co-operative (CMEC), an international multistakeholder co-op with 80 members in 10 countries. Webb also founded the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Co-operatives (CEARC), advancing co-op specific financial and sustainability reporting.
Though officially retired, Webb continues teaching, consulting, and writing. His book, From Corporate Globalization to Global Cooperation, captures a lifetime devoted to advancing cooperation.
For his lifelong dedication and personification of cooperative values, Tom Webb will be inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame on October 9 in Washington, DC. For tickets visit Heroes.coop website.
