Joanne Lechasseur and Zuraidah Hoffman discuss the Global Innovation Summit

Everything Co-op with Vernon Oakes

August 24, 2023 Joanne Lechasseur, Co-founder, Program Director of the Global Innovation Cooperative Summit, and Zuraidah Hoffman, Communications Director for the Global Innovation Cooperative Summit, discuss the upcoming Global Innovation Cooperative Summit, which will occur in Montreal, September 27 – 29, 2023. Zuraidah Hoffman is an Independent International Cooperative Communications consultant, with more than 20 years of experience in communications. Her cooperative journey began with NRECA International, a US-based global rural electrification NGO that takes its roots from the American electric cooperative movement. She continues to support their communications needs and travels the world to produce stories on the impact rural electric cooperatives have on improving lives. Zuraidah is currently the Communications Director for the Global Innovation Cooperative Summit. In 2021, Zuraidah was the MC for International Cooperative Alliance’s (ICA) 33rd World Cooperative Congress in Seoul and led the Congress communications team from her home office in Washington DC. She also served as ICA’s interim communications director in 2019. Zuraidah is an alumnus of The George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Joanne Lechasseur, holds a master’s degree in industrial relations from Université Laval, Quebec and she’s a content expert for events on the cooperative business model. She served as the ICA Seoul 2021 World Cooperative Congress Event Manager. Prior to that she was the Director of Programming and Scientific Activities for the International Summit of Cooperatives in 2012, 2014 and 2016, where she worked for 28 years for the Desjardins Group in various sectors of activity to include work organization, regional development, strategic planning, business development, and much more.