Summer Strategy Group

Make real impact this summer, while building unique expertise. Apply for a Strategy & Growth, People Operations, Information Strategy or operations, or people internship at Obran Cooperative, the US’ first worker-owned cooperative conglomerate.

In today’s new Gilded Age, we see incredible prosperity and technological growth, and simultaneously see stagnating wages, increasing income inequality, and deep-seated anxiety about the future of work in our economy. To address the unique challenges of today, we need a unique corporate model, which can compete in markets, honors workers' full humanity, and equitably distribute the wealth it creates. We need large-scale worker-owned cooperatives.

Obran Cooperative is a leader in the 21st century cooperative movement. We are building smart and at-scale to compete with the best. Built by entrepreneurs we exist to sew the infrastructure that makes a new economy possible. Our worker-owned corporation returns humanity to the workplace and shared-prosperity to our worker-owners. 

Join some of the world’s most cutting edge social entrepreneurs this summer to become leaders of the next economy. All interns will get broad exposure to leaders in the cooperative sector and hands-on experience building core infrastructure that helps us deliver impact at scale. This is an opportunity to join a rapidly growing social enterprise start-up where your contributions will drive real impact.

Specific roles include:

Strategy & Growth - We expand worker ownership through M&A, acquiring small businesses and folding them into our worker-owned holding company. Partner with our corporate development team and industry leads to identify, acquire and convert businesses within our M&A model. Gain experience in sales, negotiations, and M&A.

People Operations - People Operations - Obran is working to further build out robust people operations that includes recruiting & onboarding, performance evaluation systems, learning & development programs, tools & practices that support our culture, and uniquely to our worker-owned cooperative, democratic governance practices. An intern would help to stand up these structures and assist with developing and implementing software-supported systems that make this work as efficient as possible.

Brand/Design - What does it mean to design a singular brand identity for a large and diverse cooperative? How do we build a standardized branding system that helps workers with widely varying skills exercise their rights as individual owners of a democratically run business? An intern would help establish branding standards across the cooperative in a way that is easy to understand & use, open to a degree of personalization & customization in keeping with our values, and flexible enough to evolve with a range of growing businesses. 

Financial Operations - As we grow our company, we look to build a more robust reporting and forecasting system. An intern would help develop a forecasting model to be utilized at both the Obran-wide consolidated level, as well as at the individual business unit level. They would design a process that can be used in conjunction with our reporting software, and that can be easily accessible to management at each Business Unit without our company. This would be an opportunity to build something tailored to our unique structure that empowers workers and supports our growth as a company.

Requirements

Obran Cooperative internships are eligible for social impact summer stipends from numerous MBA programs. Supplemental funding may be considered on an ad hoc basis. This summer program is a fully virtual program. Program participants will need to provide their own computer and phone.

Benefits

Supplemental funding may be considered on an ad hoc basis.

This summer program is a fully virtual program. Program participants will need to provide their own computer and phone.