In this episode of The Purposeful Strategist, Belden Menkus speaks with Jeroen Douglas, Director General of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), about what it takes to hold together a global movement of around a billion members, and why the cooperative model may be better suited to the coming decades than its low profile suggests.

Founded in 1895, the ICA is the global voice of the cooperative movement, representing roughly three million cooperatives across more than a hundred countries. In their conversation, they discuss:

• Why Jeroen sees cooperatives as the largest enduring alternative to shareholder capitalism and attributes their resilience to the practice of distributing wealth to the community before profits.

• The ICA’s new Practice, Promote and Protect strategy, including the challenge of raising capital without compromising cooperative identity, and building a sovereign cooperative cloud as an alternative to big tech.

• How worker-owned models for app-based companies are emerging as a credible answer to the gig economy.

• How Jeroen keeps a movement spanning rival nations and rival politics united, and why he believes cooperatives are "builders of peace," able to disagree and still collaborate.

ICA: https://www.ica.coop/

Menkus & Associates: https://www.menkus.com/

Supported by Norman Broadbent: https://www.normanbroadbent.com/

Belden Menkus is the Managing Director of Menkus & Associates, a senior strategic advisory practice that provides strategic clarity for businesses with a public remit, where scrutiny is high, governance is complex, and the answers aren’t obvious. His McKinsey training combined with more than 30 years working at Board and ExCo level gives him both the analytical rigour and the relational experience that complex, high-stakes leadership situations demand.

Belden hosts The Purposeful Strategist, a weekly podcast. It explores how senior leaders bring purpose to life through strategy and reflects the same questions that drive the consulting work.