Governance

Giuseppe GUERINI

President

Giuseppe Guerini has been a member and worker in Italian cooperatives since March 1988, when he started working as a grassroots operator in a social cooperative. He has been a manager and administrator in many social cooperatives and Consortia. Since June 2016, he has been President of CECOP-CICOPA Europe. Member of the Board of Directors of ICA. Member of the Board of Confcooperative. Since September 2010, he has represented Confcooperative in the EESC where he was rapporteur for more than 30 opinions. He has (had) multiple other mandates at the local, national and EU level. 

Iñigo ALBIZURI

Iñigo Albizuri is an industrial engineer of business management (6-year degree) from the Basque Country University. He has spent his entire career in multiple cooperatives of Mondragon Corporation around the world, including Spain, Italy, Mexico, the United States, and China. He owns numerous patents as a result of his work. He is also the president of MUNDUKIDE, the NGO of Mondragon Corporation that works on setting up new cooperatives in developing countries such as Mozambique, Colombia, Brazil, or Ethiopia. He has been honoured with the prize <Fair Saturday= for his work and capacity for innovation and social impact in the cultural field. He is president of CICOPA, the International Organization of Industrial and Service Cooperatives, and a member of ICA Board for Spain. In 2025, he was elected as Director of ASETT (Arizmendiarrieta Social Economy Think Tank), a hub for social transformation.

Jacques DEBRY

Mr Debry has a rich career as a member of the Board of Belgium’s national apex Febecoop since 1986. He is member of the Board of Cooperatives Europe since 2018. Besides these mandates he is also member of the Board in cooperative CIRIEC Belgium and CIRIEC International since 2017, and he is co-founder of the platform coop “Pwiic” that promotes and enables the sharing economy. Furthermore, Mr Debry seated in the Management Committee of cooperative Multipharma for over 30 years, the leading organisation in drugs supply and pharmaceutical care in Belgium.

Mariam GABRIELYAN

She began her cooperative journey 17 years ago, inspired by her father’s work founding Armenia’s only credit cooperative, Farm Credit Armenia. Growing up alongside this mission, she took part in Cooperatives Europe’s general meetings and became active in cooperative networks early on.

Today, she is Head of Strategic Planning and External Relations at Farm Credit Armenia and Executive Director of the RuralCoop Support Foundation, focusing on cooperative finance, rural development, and innovation. She recently completed the CIBP LINK Leadership Program, deepening her leadership in the global cooperative movement.

She holds a Master’s degree in Marketing and Commerce from the University of Sheffield and a Bachelor’s from the French University in Armenia.

Stephen GILL

Stephen is a dual British and Maltese citizen with over 30 years of experience in coops, focusing on technology, including blockchain and AI. He began his career in 1995 in Scotland’s largest consumer co-op before joining VME in 1999, a software provider to the coop sector. He led a management buyout of VME in 2004 and later converted it into a worker coop in 2020. To address the funding challenges coops face, Stephen founded Coop Exchange in 2018—creating a new way for coops to raise capital without compromising their values, by connecting them with investors who believe in shared ownership and long-term impact, and empowering coops to grow without losing who they are. He holds a Master’s in Cooperative Management from Saint Mary’s University (Canada), where he earned the prestigious Pobihuschy Medal, peer-selected as the student who best exemplified coop values. In 2025, he was invited to join the inaugural CM50 network, recognising his groundbreaking work in cooperative finance.

Illia GOROKHOVSKY

Dr. Gorokhovsky is chairman of consumer cooperatives association and national apex COOP Ukraine since 2014. He has also a mandate as Vice-President of Euro Coop and is member of the executive committee of the World Consumer Cooperatives (CCW).

Mieczyslaw GRODZKI

Dr. Mieczyslaw Grodzki obtained a PhD in Engineering. He is now President of the Board of the Polish apex the National Cooperative Council and is member of the Board of Directors of Cooperatives Europe since 2017. Dr. Grodzki has been involved in the cooperative movement for many years in the banking, housing, and handcraft sectors. He also has several mandates at the international level such as the International Cooperative Banking Association. He has also been active in other cooperative, employer’s and business chambers.

Andreas KAPPES

Mr Kappes joined the German cooperative movement in 1994 in the Deutscher Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisenverband e. V. (DGRV). Where he now is member of the executive committee since 2014. He represents DGRV in the Strategic Consultative Group of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany. At the European level he has been member of the Board of Cooperatives Europe since 2017 and member of the Cooperatives Europe development platform since 2012. At the international level Mr Kappes is Secretary-General of the International Raiffeisen Union.

Teodora KUZMANOVA

She is the Director General of the Legal Department at CCU-Bulgaria, where she has worked since 2012 in various legal roles. A registered mediator since 2010, she specialises in out-of-court dispute resolution and has contributed to national and regional cooperative legal analyses, including under the ICA–EU Partnership.

She holds a Master’s degree in Law from New Bulgarian University and is currently a doctoral candidate at the Higher School of Insurance and Finance in Sofia, researching competitiveness in cooperatives and the cooperative business model.

She has also participated in the Youth Cooperative Leadership Forums and various European and global cooperative events.

Catiuscia MARINI

Ms Marini has been active in the cooperative movement since 2007, with experience at both regional and national level (as Regional Director of Legacoop Umbria) and at European level as Head of the European Policies Office at Legacoop National. In this role, she promotes the cooperative model, engages with EU institutions, and follows key European dossiers relevant to Italian cooperatives, including Cohesion Policy reform, the Clean Industrial Deal, and the Public Procurement Directive.

She has built a strong network among political decision-makers in Italy and at EU level, and maintains close ties with European sectoral networks and cooperative organisations.

Previously, she served as Mayor of Todi, President of the Umbria Region, Member of the European Parliament, and member of the European Committee of the Regions, gaining deep expertise in EU policies and programming.

Thomas MEYER

Mr Meyer is General Manager of SOCAPS, a cooperative group specialising in industrial technical assistance: engineering, assembly, installation, maintenance and connected services. He is also Vice-President of the French Federation of crafts cooperatives (FFCGA) and member of the Board of Coop-Fr. In 2021 he was elected as Board Member of Cooperatives Europe.

Ünal ÖRNEK

Mr Örnek is coordinator of The Central Union of Turkish Forestry Cooperatives (ORKOOP). He has engaged in strategic planning and policymaking for rural areas and agricultural development and as such made enormous contributions to agricultural organisations and co­operative development in Turkey. In ORKOOP, he is currently occupied with the supervision of training, research, foreign relations coordination. Besides these activities there he is also an agriculture and cooperative journalist. Mr Örnek has been member of the Cooperatives Europe Board since 2017.

Anu PUUSA

Prof. Dr. Puusa is Member of the Board of Finnish national apex Pellervo since 2015. She is currently active as a professor of Management at the University of Eastern Finland and docent of Management and Cooperatives at the LUT School of Business Management and Lappeenranta University of Technology. Dr. Puusa has taken upon herself a wide range of cooperative mandates she is currently part of the Board of Pohjois-Karjalan Osuuskauppa a regional consumer cooperative and other local cooperatives. Furthermore since 2016 she is active as member of the OP-Banking group stakeholder forum and the Management Group.

Since 2017 she has been active as a Board Member at Cooperatives Europe. You might have seen Anu Puusa in the official TED talk.

Vivian WOODELL

Mr Woodell is CEO of the Phone Co-op foundation for Co-operative Innovation that he co-founded in 1998. He seats in the Board the Midcounties Co-operative, as well as several other cooperative organisations such as Student co-operative Homes. Mr Woodell became member of the Cooperatives Europe Board in 2021.

Mathias FIEDLER

Mr Fiedler works in the Central Association of German Consumer Cooperatives e.V. since 2002 where he is spokesperson of the Board of Directors since 2011. He is also active as President of Euro Coop, the association for the promotion of the interests of consumer co-operatives and their consumer-members in Europe and many other cooperative organisations such as: the Heinrich Kauffmann Foundation that runs the Hamburg Co-operative Museum, the Society for the Promotion of Co-operative research Halle-Wittenberg e.V. and the Federal Association for the Promotion of the Cooperative Idea e.V..

Leonardo POFFERI

Mr Pofferi is the official representative of European agri-cooperatives organisation Cogeca. He is member of the Italian Cooperative Alliance where he is Director for European Affairs. He is also head of the Brussels office of confcooperative, Vice-president of Cogeca, and member of the Cogeca Presidency.

Priscille SZERADZKI

Priscille Szeradzki is the current deputy CEO of the Confederation Nationale du Credit Mutuel, central body of the group Crédit Mutuel as well as President of the European Association of Cooperative Banks (EACB). Before joining the group Crédit Mutuel, she worked in the field of international relations, for the French agency in charge of granting asylum and as a diplomat for the Ministry of foreign affairs. She then joined the Ministry of Economy and Finances where she led various projects and negotiations at the International, European and National levels. During the covid-19 crisis, Priscille Szeradzki was in charge of elaborating restructuration plans for major companies facing difficulties.

Dirk VANSINTJAN

Dirk Vansintjan is the co-founder and member of many organisations, such as the renewable energy coop Ecopower and the European umbrella organisation REScoop.eu. After serving the maximum time as a Board Member of Ecopower and President of REScoop.eu, he now is head of partnerships for REScoop.eu.Apart from this, Dirk is a volunteer miller and a board member of the Flemish umbrella organisation for the preservation of old wind and watermills, as well as one of the pioneers in Belgium of co-housing.