Strengthening Co-ops from the Inside: presenters & Workshops
ana martina
Co-op Coach – seed commons
Ana Martina (she/ella/they/elle) is a Chilenga Community trainer and facilitator. She has been deeply involved in the worker cooperative ecosystem for the last decade, through her years serving as the Membership Director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives and as a former worker owner of Colmenar Cooperative Consulting.
In 2026 she joined Seed Commons as Coop Coach. She is dedicated to advising communities on best practices to shape democratic governance, organizational accountability and collective sustainability. Her approaches are rooted in principles of Racial and Economic Justice, Feminist Economics and el Buen Vivir.
matt feinstein
Co-op Clinic Technical Assistance Manager – USFWC
Matt Feinstein is the Co-op Clinic Technical Assistance Manager with the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives and Program Coordinator at Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust / Global Village Farms, a center for land-based education, farming and co-op development in Grafton, MA (Nipmuc territory). He is co-founder and board member of Launch.coop, a producer co-op building tools for worker co-op formation. For over ten years he was a worker member of Future Focus Media Co-op and the co-director of Worcester Roots, a grassroots co-op organizing group that focuses on urban worker cooperatives with a social justice lens. Matt is passionate about social and environmental justice organizing, worker cooperatives and supporting youth to become agents of change.
Ryan demers
Cooperative Business Developer – Cooperative Development Institute
Ryan Demers is a Cooperative Development Specialist and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) in CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) Program. In this role, Ryan works with business owners to assess the feasibility of selling to their workers, and guides workers through a program of cooperative, business, and financial education as they plan a worker cooperative buyout. Ryan focuses on financial education, board training, management training, and designs customized workshops for clients based on their needs.
Jeanie Wells
Cooperative Leadership Consultant and Founder of Mighty Community Markets
Jeanie has been working in cooperatives for 30 years. She was a GM/CEO leading The Merc Food Co-op in Lawrence, Kansas through a decade of exponential growth before becoming a national consultant in 2009. Jeanie has directly supported hundreds of community grocers across the US and Canada, working directly at their stores, at workshops and through her online retail training programs. Jeanie is a trusted adviser, collaborator, and presenter to national industry leaders and associations, and the founder of Mighty Community Markets, which is designed to teach critical skills to managing locally controlled independent grocery stores of all kinds, locations and sizes.
addy schuetz
education manager & cooperative developer – CDI
Addy Schuetz is the Education Manager and Cooperative Business Developer in CDI’s Cooperative Business Solutions (CBS) program. Addy comes to CDI with a diverse background in nonprofit management, youth development, popular and political education, and community organizing work. In 2019, they received a fellowship to study governance models within worker co-ops and democratic organizations across the U.S. Northeast and South. They are passionate about cultivating people’s ability to work collectively and gain skills for democratic- and self-governance, especially across differences of lived experience.
katherine bessey
Director of cooperative business services – cdi
Katherine Bessey is the Director of Cooperative Business Services (CBS). She has over 6 years of experience developing cooperative enterprises with a special focus in cooperative food systems and childcare. She is passionate about problem solving, research, and people, positioning her well as a technical support for complex cooperative start-up and transformation projects at CDI. She holds a MA in Sustainable Development and a BA in Mathematics and brings over 10 years of prior experience as a Data and Research Analyst in international development consulting to CDI. Outside of her work with CDI, Katherine loves the outdoors and spending time farming and gardening with her family in Sumner, Maine.
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