Russ Christianson

For forty years, I have been working with communities, co-operative enterprises, unions, environmental organizations and private businesses to meet their strategic goals and develop good governance practices. I have helped launch over three hundred co-operatives, with a seventy percent success rate (for which I give the founders credit). 

I am the lead instructor for the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation’s online Academy, and I am an instructor and mentor for CoopZone’s Co-op Developer online training programme. I created the Co-operative Sustainability Scorecard in 2008, and I have been volunteering with the Ontario Co-operative Association’s Co-op Development Committee since the 1990s. I am the co-chair of the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation’s Business Succession Committee, and the Treasurer of CoopZone.

As a volunteer in my community, I was the founding President of the Aron Theatre Co-op and the Campbellford Seymour Community Foundation.  I am also the Chair of the Northumberland County Food Policy Council.

I graduated from Queen’s Commerce (Kingston, Ontario) in 1981 and received a Masters of Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto in 1983.