Tom Webb
Founder, Master of Management, Co-operatives and Credit Unions Program, International Centre for Co-operative Management at Saint Mary’s University
Tom Webb is among four outstanding cooperative leaders who will receive the cooperative community’s most prestigious honor on October 9, 2025, when they are inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
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Tom Webb’s career has spanned cooperative industries and sectors in Canada and the United States ranging from grocery to IT, multistakeholder co-ops to credit unions, and beyond. Arguably, his most impactful contributions are to education. He established the Master of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions (MMCCU) Program at Saint Mary’s University. This program has since evolved into the International Centre for Co-operative Management (ICCM), offering a suite of education, training and research programs elevating the cross-sector cooperative movement globally.
Having begun credit union membership at the age of four days old, cooperatives and cooperation are deeply rooted in Tom’s identity. Growing up in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, the home of the Antigonish Movement, Tom considers Moses Coady, a driving force behind the movement, one of his co-op heroes. The other is Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, the founder of the Mondragon worker cooperative network.
His co-op heroes lived in different countries that faced similar problems, but their actions were motivated by the same values. They both inspired the creation of cooperative networks that benefited the lives of tens of thousands of people and continue to offer an alternative way of organizing economies and societies. This mindset has guided Tom for over 45 years as a cooperative movement builder, manager, educator, convener, author, speaker, board director and volunteer.
For six years, Tom served as the Director of the Extension Department at St. Francis Xavier University, Moses Coady’s old position. He led a team that educated and organized people around cooperatives and community development. It was there that the Master of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions program began. Later, it found a welcoming home in the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University and blossomed as the International Centre for Co-operative Management (ICCM). The program is now the most internationally renowned, English-language master’s level university program in the field of cooperative business and offered online to cooperators around the world.
In developing the Master of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions program, Tom and the team were determined that it be fundamentally different from an MBA. Every course should reflect the core difference of purpose between a cooperative and an investor-owned business. Marketing became Marketing our Co-operative Advantage and Human Resources became Leadership Development. A cooperative’s purpose to meet member and community needs was at the forefront of the curriculum.
Central to the success of the MMCCU program at ICCM was Tom’s vision for the Co-operative Management Education Co-operative (CMEC), which engages co-ops and educational institutions in the development of education, training and oversight of programming. Among the first organizations from the U.S. to join the cooperative were America’s Credit Unions, NCBA CLUSA, National Cooperative Bank, Brattleboro Food Co-op and Hanover Co-op Food Stores. Today, CMEC also includes the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Neighboring Food Co-op Association.
Recognizing the need for both financial and non-financial performance analysis specific to the cooperative business model, Tom also founded the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Co-operatives (CEARC) at Saint Mary’s University, which develops Statements of Recommended Practice (SORPs) for co-ops, Sustainable Development Goals reporting for cooperatives, and other projects.
As a part of the centre’s work, Tom continues to serve as a professor and mentor and has led cooperative study tours to Italy and Spain as a course in the master’s program. The study tours engaged some of the top cooperative researchers and leaders in the world, building relationships across sectors and borders. His work has led to more than 500 cooperative and credit union leaders engaging in education to build their careers and the successes of their organizations.
Retirement, or as Tom sometimes calls it, “re-exhaustion,” includes gardening; looking after a small orchard; cutting, sawing and splitting firewood; boating and fishing; volunteering on a housing cooperative board and with a refugee sponsorship group; and writing. He is currently working on his second book.
But even in retirement, Tom is consistently called upon and without hesitation answers every email and phone call and strives to continue building the cooperative movement. His ongoing contributions include service on co-op and credit union boards, the work of his consultancy, Global Cooperation, and countless articles. His book, From Corporate Globalization to Global Cooperation: We Owe It to Our Grandchildren, brings together the insights of a lifetime of researching, organizing, teaching and practicing cooperation.
Tom’s servant leadership and commitment to the Principle of Education, Training and Information has left an indelible mark on the cooperative movement and he will be honored with induction into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. Join us in Washington, DC on October 9 as we celebrate Tom and his contributions to the cooperative community.