Judging Panel

Europe - Iain Macdonald

Iain Macdonald is currently a Consultant for the 2012 ICA Expo. Iain was Director General of the ICA from 2002 until 2010 and travelled the world meeting co-operative leaders and raising the profile of international co-operation, particularly in its ability to provide fair globalisation through co-operative enterprise. He is currently working on the 2012 ICA Expo as a consultant to continue to support the success of this program established while he was at the ICA.

Iain became involved with cooperatives when he joined the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society in London in the 1970's. He began working for the Co-operative Union in Glasgow, Scotland in 1979, and was an elected member of the Strathclyde Regional Council as well as the Credit Union Development Agency. After beginning work for the Co-operative Wholesale Society in 1996 as the Scottish Member Development Officer, he later became Head of Co-operative Strategy for the enlarged Co-operative Group and supported the Co-operative Commission in 2001.

He was co-author of the International Joint Project for Co-operative Democracy publication "Making Membership Meaningful" presented to the ICA Centennial Congress in Manchester in 1995.

While ICA DG, Iain worked with many international groups including the International Labour Office Governing Body and the UN Economic and Social Council. He was chair of the Committee for the Advancement and Promotion of Co-operatives (COPAC) as well as a member of the co-operative think tank, Mutuo. In 2008 he was appointed a GlobalScot by the Scottish Government.

North America - Barry W. Silver

Barry W. Silver is an Executive Vice President with the National Cooperative Bank (NCB), a Virginia-based, cooperatively owned, federally insured bank serving 2,500 Business, Consumer, Housing, and Purchasing cooperatives throughout the U.S. Barry has had a number of roles at NCB for the past thirty years, including Chief Credit Officer, Managing Director of Corporate Lending, and Chief Marketing Officer.

He serves on the board of various cooperative organizations, including the International Cooperative Alliance - Americas, representing all cooperatives based in the U.S., and the Cooperative Innovation Fund, an organization providing financial assistance and advice to U.S. cooperatives.

He is also part of an Advisory Council providing advice to the board of the National Grocers Association. Barry serves on a Special Task Force of the National Grocers Association, representing independent grocers and distributors in their efforts to partner with the Government in their Fresh Foods Financing Initiatives to eliminate Food Deserts in the United States.

He served for over ten years as the board treasurer for the National Multicultural Institute, a training and advocacy group providing assistance to public and private institutions in assimilating multicultural programs within their institutions.

For the last five years, Barry has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank in the development of farmer cooperatives in China, working in five distinct Provinces. Barry has also done international cooperative development work in Romania and Panama and served in the U.S. Peace Corps working with credit and agricultural cooperatives in Peru.

Asia - Zhang Wangshu

Zhang Wangshu started his career in the Cooperative Movement of China in the early 1980's with more than ten year's work as a lecturer at the National Cooperative Training Center of China, and later worked as a project officer for an International Labor Organization project through 1993.

He has been involved in international exchange with cooperatives around the world since the middle of the 1990's.  He got his Master of Economics in Economics and Finance from Anhui University and has attended a series of training and research programs in the field of cooperative management, computer applications, business management and cooperative law at the ILO Turin Center, University of Philippines, University of Edinburgh and many other cooperative institutions.

At present, he is working as a deputy director in the international cooperation department of All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, which is the apex organization of China's cooperatives. With nearly 25 years work for cooperatives, he is fully dedicated to cooperatives and will do whatever he can to help promote sound and sustainable development of cooperatives in China and the world.

Africa - Prof. Faustine Karrani Bee

Faustine Karrani Bee is an Associate Professor and Principal of the Moshi University College of Cooperative and Business Studies (MUCCoBS) in Tanzania since April, 2010. MUCCoBS was established through a Government Declaration of 2004 that transformed the former Cooperative College Moshi into a University College. Bee holds a Bachelors degree in Economics and a Masters degree and a Doctorate degree in Development Studies. His areas of competencies include Development Economics, Rural Finance, Rural Development, Agricultural Marketing, and Project Management and Cooperative Studies. He was a Visiting Research Fellow of the Institute of Developing Economies in Tokyo in 1995-96.

Professor Bee has published papers based on his research in the areas of marketing, co-operative studies and microfinance. These include "Microeconomics: A Simplified Students' Handbook", "Fair Trade - Fair Futures: The Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union Scholarship Programme for Children made Vulnerable by AIDS", "An Emerging Development Cooperation Initiative: The Experiences of Fredskorpset South - South Exchange Programme", "Empowering Farmers' Cooperatives through Fair Trade: The Case of Three-Coffee Co-operatives in Tanzania", "An Assessment of Challenges to Traditional Livelihoods and Newly Emerging Employment Patterns of Pastoralists in Tanzania", "Job Creation and Enterprise Development/Co-operatives - Indigenous People" and "The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Agricultural Marketing Co-operatives in the Developing Countries: The Study of Tanzania".

He has held various administrative positions at the then Cooperative College Moshi and now MUCCoBS that include Head of Academic Departments, Director, Deputy Principal (Academic), and now Principal. He is a member of various Governing Boards including the Council of the Sokoine University Agriculture, the Governing Board of the Mwenge University College of Education, Governing Board of the Moshi University College, and Board of the Moshi Urban Water Supply and Sewerages Authority. In addition, he is a Chairperson of a regional Cooperative Microfinance Network (Micronet Network) coordinated by the International Cooperative Alliance Regional Office for Africa in Nairobi.

South America - Joana Laura Marinho Nogueira

As the daughter of a member and president of an agricultural cooperative, Joana Nogueira grew up living the cooperative values and principles, fell in love with cooperatives and chose to major in cooperative law while at school. She also devoted time to the study of International Relations.

Joana has been with the Organization of Brazilian Cooperatives (OCB) since 2000 when she worked as an intern at the legal office of OCB in Ceará, Brazil.  Currently she is an International Advisor for OCB and participates in many of the meetings that OCB hosts to welcome cooperators and business leaders to Brazil as well as the events that they attend around the world.    

Joana received a degree in law focusing on labor cooperatives.  She has a master's degree in International Relations, and is beginning work on a new master's degree in Business Management of Cooperatives.