Elizabeth Salazar is an international development practitioner and gender advisor. She is a Technical Specialist for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International (NCBA CLUSA). Her work focuses on international development programs in the areas of economic growth and livelihoods, cooperative business development, and food security and agriculture.
Marc has been working in the cooperative movement since 2004. He started working in coffee and cacao cooperatives in Nicaragua for a year, before joining the European Confederation Cooperatives Europe in 2006. He currently acts as ICA’s International Development Director, coordinating the #coops4dev Partnership with the European Commission.
Louis Cousin is a researcher and consultant in cooperative digital innovation.
He is a fellow researcher at the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy. He has designed and delivered projects, training and consultancy services for cooperative start-ups and associations, higher education institutions, as well as governmental and inter-governmental organizations.
Bitange Ndemo is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Nairobi’s Business School. His research centres on the link between ICTs and small and medium enterprises with emphasis on how ICTs influence economic development in Africa. Professor Ndemo chaired the Kenya Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce that developed the country’s road map for digital transformation.
Balasubramanian (Balu) Iyer, is ICA’s Asia-Pacific’s Regional Director based in New Delhi, India. ICA, a member-based organization, advances the cooperative social enterprise model and provides a global voice and forum for cooperatives. The ICA Asia-Pacific’s 110 members from 32 countries are national apex organizations, sector federations and government departments.
Ander Etxeberria-Otadui has been the head of Mondragon’s cooperative outreach program for the last five years. Annually, he serves approximately two thousand people who want to become acquainted with the Mondragon Cooperative Experience. He also lectures in universities and other fora around the world.
Jose Pérez has been working on the promotion of health cooperatives since 2000. Currently, he is Deputy Director of Fundación Espriu, Spanish organisation gathering health cooperatives in Spain, and Secretary-General of the International Health Cooperative Organisation. He also serves as a Board Member and Treasurer of the Alliance for Health Promotion. Mr. Pérez has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management from the University of Barcelona.
Julie LaPalme is Secretary General for Cooperative Housing International, one of the International Cooperative Alliance’s eight sectors. Since 2014, Julie has been raising awareness about housing cooperatives at a global level, facilitating peer-to-peer exchanges, and sharing good practices through a comprehensive communications program.
At the Congress, Mendia will be speaking alongside Iñigo Albizuri – Mondragon’s Global Head of Public Affairs at Mondragon Corporation on ‘Strengthening Our Cooperative Identity’.
At the Congress, Mr. Albizuri will be speaking alongside Idoia Mendia, Deputy President and Regional Minister for Labour and Employment in the Basque Government, on ‘Strengthening Our Cooperative Identity’.
