Building an economy that shares prosperity among the many, not just the few.
Our Approach
Our mission is to cultivate the next generation of cooperative businesses at scale:
We're here to jump start the next generation of cooperative businesses: we grow the entrepreneur pipeline and strengthen the cooperative ecosystem, we equip cooperative entrepreneurs with skills and tools for success, and we connect cooperative businesses with the capital they need to thrive.
Our Team
Greg Brodsky
Greg is the Founder and Executive Director of Start.coop. Greg brings a powerful background of financial strategy, tech, and entrepreneurship to growing the cooperative landscape. Greg's work has ranged from business development to strategic planning for multiple cooperatives.
Prior to launching Start.coop, Greg founded and led the Bike Cooperative, a division of CCA Global Partners, and also helped to launch the nation's only purchasing co-op for craft breweries. Greg also previously served on the board of the Cooperative Development Institute for 10 years and was board chair for 3 years.
Greg also convenes the Equitable Economy Fund, a $2 million pilot fund convening angel investors to scale shared ownership. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
Shantae J. Edwards
Shantae J. is Director of Community and Training at Start.coop. She is passionate about organizational culture, sustainability, equity, and leadership development. At Start.coop Shantae J. is responsible for and oversees the day-to-day management of the Start.coop Grad/Alumni Community, facilitates our education initiatives, including incubators and accelerator programs.
In addition to her role at Start.coop, Shantae J. is an adjunct professor at New York University.
Based in New York and Chicago, Shantae J. enjoys spending time with her family, reading, traveling, and discovering her next favorite coffee roaster.
Mica Fisher
Clark Arrington
Stephen Bediako, OBE
Howard Brodsky
Joseph Cureton
Jen Horonjeff
Hélène Lesterlin
Martin Lowery
Nathan Schneider
Jermeen Sherman
Mica is Director of Finance & Operations at Start.coop. She is an organizer and advocate for economic democracy. At Start.coop she leads our fiscal sponsorship program and oversees the processes and systems that allow Start.coop to grow beyond the startup phase.
Mica has deep experience with cooperative development, having previously been Managing Director of the National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3) and having managed NYC’s Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative.
Based in NYC, Mica originally hails from Southern California and is learning to love seasons on the East Coast. Outside of work, you can find her gardening, reading, going to see a movie at a local theater, or listening to one of her favorite podcasts.
Our Board
Clark Arrington, Clark R. Arrington is an experienced attorney and educator who has supported socially responsible businesses worldwide. Before joining Seed Commons and The Working World, Clark taught and practiced Business Law in Tanzania and Tunisia. Clark served as Chair, General Counsel, and Capital Coordinator of Equal Exchange and has served on the boards of the ICA Group, the Social Venture Network, and the Cooperative Fund of New England. He is a 2021 inductee into the Cooperative Hall of Fame.
Stephen Bediako OBE, (Start.coop 2021 cohort) Stephen Bediako, the founder of Turning Basin Labs, is a social entrepreneur, innovator, impact investor, and design expert. Hailing from the heart of East London, Stephen was awarded an Order of the British Empire in the 2021 New Year’s Queen’s Honors for innovation in charity and social enterprise. The legacy of Stephen’s work spans some of the biggest and brightest names in social innovation, including Bloomberg Philanthropies, UNICEF, the Greater London Authority, the Irvine Foundation, Nesta, JP Morgan, Santander Bank, and Google.
Howard Brodsky, Howard Brodsky is a prolific entrepreneur and a recognized world leader in cooperative business models. As the Co-founder, Chairman, and co-CEO of CCA Global Partners, the cooperative expanded into 15 companies serving over 1 million family businesses with $12 billion in annual revenue. CCA Global ranks as the fourteenth largest retail cooperative in the world. In 2019, Howard was the first American. Rochdale Pioneers Award, known as the "Nobel Prize of Cooperative Business”. Howard is the chairperson of the Co-op 20, a new G20 working group.
Joseph Cureton, (Start.coop 2019 cohort)Joseph Cureton is the Chief Coordinating Officer and co-founder of Obran Cooperative, the first worker-owned conglomerate corporation. His work focuses on corporate strategy, capital formation, and transactional support for the Cooperative's mergers and acquisitions practice. His work focuses on bringing new worker-directed enterprises to life. He is a serial entrepreneur, a software engineer, and a classically trained chef.
Jen Horonjeff, (Start.coop 2019 cohort) Jen Horonjeff, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Savvy, the first and only patient-owned public benefit company that helps healthcare companies connect directly with diverse patients to get the insights they need to build better and more inclusive innovations. Savvy has been featured in Fast Company and the Boston Globe. Jen strives to give patients a platform to be heard, included, and equitably valued and was named one of the 50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur Magazine.
Hélène Lesterlin, Hélène Lesterlin is a Worker Trustee & Co-Executive Director at the Good Work Institute. She fosters connection, social impact, and access to aligned capital, working with community leaders, entrepreneurs, and activists to help build healthier economic and social ecosystems in the Hudson Valley. She is a co-founder of CO, a co-working co-op and community center, and enjoys acting as a mentor and coach to mission-led entrepreneurs. She also serves on the board of Co-op HV, a loan fund that is a project of Seed Commons.
Martin Lowery, Martin Lowery is currently the U.S. representative to the board of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA); he chairs the ICA Principles Committee and serves on the ICA Membership Committee. He has previously been Chair of the National Cooperative Bank (NCB) and Executive Vice President, Emeritus, of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). He is also the NRECA representative to the board of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. In 2014, Martin was inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame, the highest honor in the U.S. cooperative community.
Nathan Schneider, Nathan Schneider is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he leads the Media Economies Design Lab. He is the author of four books, most recently Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life, and Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy. He edited Vitalik Buterin’s book Proof of Stake: The Making of Ethereum and the Philosophy of Blockchains and co-edited Ours to Hack and Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism. He also serves on the boards of the Metagovernance Project, and Zebras Unite.
Jermeen Sherman, Jermeen Sherman is the Managing Director at Black Ambition. Jermeen brings strategic and analytical thinking from the business world with an unrelenting commitment to equity-focused systems change. Jermeen has vast experience helping organizations better serve under-resourced and minority communities to advance equity. Before joining Black Ambition, Jermeen founded Community Up, a social impact consultancy; worked as a Director at Third Sector Capital Partners; served as a Chief of Staff at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services; and led business development and continuing education program design at several universities.
Meet our Entrepreneurs & Alumni
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice
Co-ops have a long history as vehicles for economic development in Black communities. Indeed, co-ops -- particularly in sectors where we have high participation from Black and other workers of color -- can help these workers build economic stability and resiliency to better weather social and economic upheaval and help them build wealth for themselves and their families. However, only a tiny fraction of the 30,000 co-ops in the United States are Black-owned.
At Start.coop we believe we need to actively work to dismantle the white supremacy that is so pervasive in business culture and the economy at-large. We have an obligation to advocate for and pursue structural changes to make business ownership more accessible to Black and Brown entrepreneurs, workers, and communities and we must center Black and Brown entrepreneurs as we work together to build a new, anti-racist economy. Ending systemic oppression requires a long-term commitment and we are committed to continuously reexamining our organizational culture and internal policies to address the ways that racism and oppression show up in our work.
Ours is a diverse community that values the unique perspectives and experiences each member brings to the table. We endeavor to create a community and space in which everyone, and particularly our BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ community members, can show up as their true selves, and in which we can have brave, tough conversations in addition to the fun ones. Together, we engage in critical dialogue through conscious questioning and active listening, and we work to address systemic racism and the root causes of inequality.