Speakers & Materials

Cooperatives: Meeting Development Challenges of
the 21st Century
Thursday, May 20, 2010
8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Reception to follow
Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill
400 New Jersey Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C.

For event highlights, please download the conference flyer (pdf, 125K).

Check out our outstanding line up of conference speakers and their bios and attendees list or download the overview news release from the event.

For available Powerpoint and PDF files for the presentations, please go to this page.

Headline Speakers

Dame Pauline Green
President, International Co-operative Alliance

Dame Pauline Green has had a diverse career, including police officer, university lecturer, politician and dedicated advocate of the cooperative movement.  In 2009, she was elected president of the International Co-operative Alliance.  She is the first female to hold that position.

Green has been part of the cooperative movement for the past 35 years — as a member of its youth movement, and as an advocate on European affairs to the European Parliament as a cooperative member of Parliament, She served as chief executive and general secretary of Co-operatives UK, co-president of Cooperatives Europe and ICA vice-president for Europe.  Green has played an active role in the international cooperative movement, particularly in Co-operatives Europe, and strongly supported the restructuring process of ICA.

In recognition of her work on behalf of cooperatives, Green has received numerous prestigious awards.  In 2003, she was made Dame Commander of the British Empire.  Green received degrees from Open University and the London School of Economics.

Dr. John W. Mellor
Former Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute

A graduate of both Cornell and Oxford universities, Dr. John W. Mellor has had a distinguished academic, economic-development and consulting career. He was director of the Program on Comparative Economic Development and the Center for International Studies at Cornell University. 

Mellor has served as director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, chief economist and associate assistant administrator for Policy Development and Analysis at USAID, and vice president and senior agriculture economist with Abt Associates, where he headed the Environmental, Trade and Agriculture Division’s work in Afghanistan. Mellor also is the author of numerous papers and books on development and agriculture.

For his contributions to international development, Mellor received the Presidential Award from Ronald Reagan and the Wihuri prize from Finland for his work in reducing hunger in the world. In 1987, he was presented an Outstanding Alumni Award from Cornell. The American Agricultural Economics Association recognized him for “outstanding published research” and “publication of enduring quality.”

Pete Kappelman
Chair of the Board, Land O’Lakes, Inc.

Pete Kappelman and his wife, Shellie, own and operate Meadow Brook Farms in Manitowoc County, Wis.  Their operation includes 420 Holsteins and 1,200 acres of crops. Pete has been a member of the Land O'Lakes board since 1995 and served as board secretary and first vice chairman before being elected chair in 2004.

Kappelman also serves on the National Dairy Board, National Milk Producers Federation Board and the board of the U.S. Dairy Export Council. He is a member of Country Horizons Cooperative. Kappelman has a bachelor's degree in Dairy Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Sean Carroll
Chief of Staff, USAID

Sean Carroll was sworn in as USAID chief of staff on March 1. Previously he was director of programs at the Club of Madrid for Democratic Transition and Consolidation, a Spain-based NGO whose 75 members are former heads of state and government from 55 countries around the world. At the Club of Madrid he led, and remains an advisor to, the Shared Societies Project, among other global, regional and country-level projects. Prior to his work at the Club of Madrid, Carroll was senior fellow and director for legislative programs at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. He also served as a consultant to the United Nations World Food Program, a staigiare at the European Commission, and as professional staff member and minority subcommittee staff director on the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee. From 1986 to 1999, Carroll worked in multiple roles at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, including executive officer and chief of mission, West Bank and Gaza.
 
Carroll has a Master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University/SAIS and a Bachelor’s in foreign service from Georgetown University. He is fluent in Spanish, speaks Catalan and French and has studied German, Portuguese, Italian and Arabic.