As the cooperative workplaces organizer, Bogdan (they/he) supports the formation of new cooperative businesses through education, coaching, and non-extractive lending.
They got into this work in 2022 after a pivot from a previous career as a software engineer. While working at investor-funded tech startups from San Francisco to New York City, they observed up close how the profit-maximizing model of investment inevitably leads to extraction from workers, communities, and our planet -- all to make a few rich capitalists even richer.
Their co-op journey kicked off when they became a member-owner of a food co-op in Brooklyn, NY. There they learned that co-ops can transform transactional spaces into ones in which community can flourish. They became hooked. Soon they realized that co-ops can serve as a model for any business to address the inequities of our economic system.
Raised in Romania and South Carolina, Bogdan grew up witnessing people on the "periphery" of the world economic order resisting its extraction. Their struggle helped inspire Bogdan to dream bigger than the realities of our current system: of a world in which people have a real say in the decisions that affect their lives, because economic democracy is everyday.
Since moving to Cleveland to pursue this work, they've fallen in love with the city. You can find them dancing salsa or taking walks in the metroparks.