Team

Mike Lewis is well known in Canada and internationally as a practitioner, author, educator, and leader in the field of CED and the social economy. His experience cuts across the full range of functions connected to community renewal and development. He has built and advised a wide range of businesses, organizations and governments all over Canada and internationally as well. An innovator, activist and thinker with a penchant for linking practice with policy and the micro and macro, Mike’s leadership in CCCR and elsewhere continues to help us connect the dots and stay ahead of the curve. Contact Mike. Read his resume.

A teacher by training and in spirit, Michelle Colussi has an extensive background in rural and small town revitalization and multi-stakeholder facilitation and leadership development in the nonprofit sector. She was team leader in the development of the Community Resilience Manual (2000), a tool that has been adapted for use around the world, and is now co-ordinating a revised edition that will make the process relevant to communities tested by peak oil and climate change. Michelle is a certified facilitator of the “Training for Transition” workshop and is very active in building the Transition Town network in Canada. Contact Michelle. Read her resume.

Ethel Côté is CCCR’s staff specialist in social enterprise. Over the last 30 years she has assisted the development of numerous co-operatives in a variety of sectors, including agricultural, agrifood, housing and childcare. She supported capacity building missions in Mali, Niger, Senegal and Morocco and is deeply involved in the International Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS). In addition to teaching college and university, Ethel has mentored hundreds of communities and social entrepreneurs, is a member of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network, and founding member of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada. Contact Ethel. Read her resume.

Suresh Fernando, a CCCR staff associate, is a systems thinker, social innovator, activist and philosopher with a diverse background including twelve years in finance where he both built a $30 million private client brokerage practice as well as a investment banking and strategic advisory firm focused on early stage technology companies. His breadth of experience provides a unique perspective on the application and development of social innovation and social finance models that utilize multi-stakeholder approaches. Suresh has authored a number of strategy papers on collaborative process, social finance innovation, technology infrastructure and movement building.

Dr. Stewart Perry is a CCCR staff associate, and long active in community economic development (CED) in the U.S. and Canada as both a policy adviser and a designer and manager of CED institutions. As head of the (U.S.) Center for Community Economic Development, he helped create the first finance institution for CED, the Massachusetts Community Development Finance Authority. He helped start Canada's first community development corporation, New Dawn Enterprises, and in the years 1988-1993 headed the Community Economic Development Center in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. A consultant, researcher, and author, Stewart currently specializes in community and development finance. Contact Stewart. Read his resume.