Manuel Mariño

Manuel Mariño has held management positions since 1985 when he served as Director of the Department for Latin America of the Swedish Co-operative Center, in Stockholm. He was promoted to Regional Director when the organization established its Office for the Latin American region in San José, Costa Rica.

From 2001 to 2017 he served as Regional Director for the Americas of the International Cooperative Alliance. Manuel has extensive experience in the area of cooperation for development in Africa and Latin America, is an international lecturer, and has participated in the development of multiple studies, articles and books.

With more than 30 years of experience in the cooperative movement, Manuel represented the sector in numerous regional and international organizations and contributed with his influence and reasoning to the generation of policies for the sustainability of cooperatives.

Manuel Mariño is an Economist from the University of UPSALA in Sweden, a Certified Public Accountant from the University of Buenos Aires, and a graduate from the Uppsala School of Higher Studies. He is currently an international consultant with an emphasis on sustainable development of cooperatives and social economy organizations.

Rodrigo Gouveia

Rodrigo Gouveia is an international consultant on cooperatives and sustainable development. Previously he was Director of Policy for the International Cooperative Alliance (2014-2018) where he was responsible for the organization’s strategy on policy and advocacy. Before that, he was Secretary-General of the European Community of Consumer Co-operatives - Euro Coop (2006-2014) where he also managed Consumer Cooperatives Worldwide (CCW), one of the world cooperative sectoral organizations.

He has been working with the cooperative movement since 1998, having been legal and policy advisor in the consumer cooperative sector in Portugal (1998-2006).

He also has experience as a lawyer (1998-2001) and as a lecturer in a business school (2002-2006). He graduated in Law from the Law School of the University of Lisbon and holds master’s degrees in Consumer Law, and Public Law and Economic Regulation, both from the Law School of the University of Coimbra.

Jorge Cabrera

Jorge Cabrera has worked with the cooperative movement since the mid-1980s, occupying different positions in the Uruguayan Cooperative Center (CCU), the Uruguayan Confederation of Cooperatives (Cudecoop) and in cooperative integration organizations at regional and global level, such as the Specialized Meeting of Mercosur Cooperatives (RECM), CICOPA and ICA-Americas.

He has extensive experience in the elaboration and execution of international cooperation projects focused on the advocacy, promotion and development of cooperatives. In the last 20 years he has specialized in the area of ICT applied to development, providing advisory services, consulting, and development of websites and applications for various cooperative organizations and the social economy in more than a dozen countries. He is also a freelance translator specialized in cooperative and development issues, having translated several publications for the ILO and the ICA.

Jorge has an academic background in economy and public accounting.