Participatory Management Certificate Program Faculty

Kyla Alterman is a community organizer and a teacher with a longstanding interest in workplace democracy.  She presently works in Revere, MA as the Community Engagement Manager for The Neighborhood Developers where she organizes residents around affordable housing, neighbor-to-neighbor connections, and neighborhood leadership. Beginning in the summer of 2018, Kyla began an internship at Ownership Associates (OA). She has focused on updating OA training products including adaptations for digital users.

Rebecca Bauen directs The Democracy at Work Institute’s training program aimed at supporting worker cooperative members, managers and developers learn tools and frames for business sustainability and growth.  The program offers intensives, fellowships, workshops, webinars, and offerings through the School for Democratic Management. She has long-standing experience in worker cooperative development and adult education.

As Executive Director of WAGES in Oakland, California from l999-2003, Rebecca directed the organization toward scaling green cleaning cooperatives. Prior to this, she supported the start-up of an interpreting coop and led a workplace conversion project of a union cabinet making company in Washington State. Working for the Northwest Cooperative Federation, she organized the first four years of the annual Western Worker Cooperative Conference, and taught courses on worker cooperatives and popular education at UC Berkeley and The Evergreen State College.

She has published multiple articles and reports on community development and cooperatives for GEO, the ICA Group and Dollars & Sense. She is a member of the Cooperative Charitable Trust, participating in study trips of Argentine recuperated factories, Cuba, Emilia Romagna, and Mondragon.

Rebecca holds a M.P.A. with a focus on regional economic development and environmental sustainability.

Jennifer Briggs brings over two decades of practice in human resources, organizational development, and executive leadership from a variety of industries. She served as VP of Human Resources with New Belgium Brewing for over 12 years, creating a winning 'best of' workplace and now serves as an educator and advisor to companies who want to redefine value in a more holistic manner. Building healthy, profitable, democratically-managed companies with shared capital ownership is her passion. A mentor once taught her to never let a rule get in the way of making a good decision and she strives to make critical thinking, intention and agile action guiding principles. She brings a non-traditional HR viewpoint of relying primarily on values, communication and community.

Jennifer is now an independent advisor to purpose driven or employee owned companies and a partner with GRITT Business Coaching. She is a Rutgers University Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing fellow and contributor to the Beyster Institute with the University of California San Diego. She serves on corporate boards for PFSbrands, GISinc., and Engineering Economics, Inc. She is on the advisory boards for The Moxie Exchange and participates with the Democracy at Work Institute. She holds a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership, graduate studies in Enterprise Project Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Community Health Education.

Dr. Bill Castellano is Professor of Strategic HR Management at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.  He is also the Executive Director for the Center for Employee Ownership and an Executive Committee member of Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. Bill also serves as a board member of the Global Equity Organization. Bill is the former Chair of the HR Department and Associate Dean of External Engagement and Executive and Professional Education and former Director of the Center for HR Strategy.  His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on understanding the impact of employee ownership and equity compensation strategies on individual and organizational outcomes, the strategic management of human capital, employee engagement, and developing leaders for the challenges of the 21st century.  Bill has over forty years of experience working in corporate Fortune 50, entrepreneurial and research environments. Before joining Rutgers University, he held senior HR management positions at Merrill Lynch and Manufactures Hanover Trust where he was involved with human resource strategies and practices that supported both individual business groups and the global enterprise.  Bill is an accomplished researcher publishing his work in practitioner and academic journals and is a frequent speaker at national HR and business conferences.

Linshuang (pronounced “Lin-Shang”) Lu, MSOD, is a Principal at Praxis Consulting Group. She currently provides organization development, strategic planning, leadership development and culture change services to nonprofits and employee-owned companies. She is passionate about helping organizations develop their leaders and foster deeper staff engagement in order to create better workplaces and achieve greater impact. She has served on the Board of the ESOP Association and the National Center for Employee Ownership. 

Chris Mackin is the founder and President of Ownership Associates, Inc. of Cambridge, MA.  Chris was one of the founding members of the Industrial Cooperative Association, now the ICA Group, that provides technical assistance to cooperatives. At Ownership Associates, he provides “after the transaction” training services to companies broadly owned by their employees using both cooperative and Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) structures. He serves as a Lecturer at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations where he teaches an undergraduate course on employee ownership.  He earned a Doctorate in Human Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1984 with a thesis called, “The Social Psychology of Ownership: A Case Study of a Democratically Owned Firm."

Jamila Medley is executive director of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA) and is a passionate advocate and educator for the advancement and growth of the cooperative economy. In her work with existing and start-up co-ops, Jamila provides support for leadership development, cooperative economics education, navigating group dynamics, and creating adaptive systems to support group process and learning.  She holds a M.S. degree in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania and earned her B.A. degree in Urban Studies from Connecticut College.  Jamila was the the Philadelphia Community Fellow for the 2018 Shared Economics in Equitable Development Fellowship, serves on the board of directors for Media Mobilizing Project, and also works as a consultant with CDS Consulting Co-op.