Wednesday: Opening Ceremony Speakers

The Opening Ceremony of Co-operatives United will have several key figureheads from across the Co-operative Movement to welcome co-operators to the conference.

The Opening Ceremony of Co-operatives United will have several key figureheads from across the Co-operative Movement to welcome co-operators to the conference.

Dame Pauline Green is the first female President of the International Co-operative Alliance; she started her co-operative career as a local leader of the Woodcraft Folk and has led the ICA through the 2012 International Year of Cooperatives.

She was previously a Co-operative Member of the European Parliament (1989–2000) and Chief Executive of Co-operatives UK (2000–2009). Pauline was elected as President of the ICA on an agenda of change and her tenure has focused globally on three key elements – offering business synergy opportunities for co-operatives; enhancing representation in institutions;
and developing a centre of excellence for co-operative knowledge and information.

José Graziano da Silva is the Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for the UN. During the International Year of Cooperatives, he has appointed two Special Advisors for co-operatives and helped bring co-operatives into the spotlight by making the theme of World Food Day: Agricultural Co-operatives Key to Feeding the World.

As Brazil’s Extraordinary Minister of Food Security and Fight Against Hunger, he was responsible for implementing the country’s highly-successful “Zero Hunger” (“Fome Zero”) programme. The programme helped lift 24 million people out of extreme poverty in five years and helped to reduce undernourishment in Brazil by 25 percent.

David Button is the Chair of Co-operatives UK, he was the chair of the Plunkett Foundation for six years and made a Fellow in 2009. As Financial Controller of Food from Britain he had responsibility for co-operative development within the UK Agricultural and Horticultural sector.

Charles Gould is the Director-General of the International Co-operative Alliance, prior to his appointment to the ICA in 2010, he was the CEO of Volunteers of America, a health care, housing and human services organisation. He was recognised as one of the fifty most influential leaders in the United States non-profit sector
in each of his last five years there.

Len Wardle is Chair of the The Co-operative Group, the UK’s largest co-operative business. It is owned by over seven million consumers, who have a democratic say in the way its businesses are run. Len has a background in management and latterly he was a Fellow in the School of Management at Surrey University.

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