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About Us: Principals

Ownership Associates operates with five principals and a network of associates.

CHRISTOPHER MACKIN is the founder and President of Ownership Associates. He has worked professionally in the field of employee ownership for twenty-eight years. Chris is a frequent speaker in both the United States and Europe to groups interested in issues of corporate governance and organizational change and is also a regular contributor to newspapers and periodicals on the topic of employee ownership. After graduating from Georgetown University in 1974, Chris served as a Sidney Harman Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from 1978 to 1980 researching leading models of American industrial relations. He later completed a Doctorate in Human Development from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His Doctoral thesis was entitled The Social Psychology of Ownership. In addition to his work in the field of employee ownership, Chris is active in the field of ethical commerce and with efforts to promote alternatives to sweatshop working conditions (see www.ethixventures.com). He also serves as a member of the core faculty of the Harvard Trade Union Program, a mid-career training program for union officials.

EDWARD CARBERRY serves as a senior trainer and organizational development specialist at Ownership Associates. Ed is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Cornell University, where he specializes in the sociology of organizations and work, and conducts ongoing research about employee ownership and participative management. Prior to Cornell, he was Senior Project Director at the National Center for Employee Ownership in Oakland, California, where he conducted surveys on the design of broad-based stock option programs, employee reactions to these programs, and employee involvement practices in employee ownership companies. In addition, he has authored and coauthored numerous books and magazine articles about the causes, characteristics, and consequences of employee ownership and employee participation, including Ownership Management: Building a Culture of Lasting Innovation, with Corey Rosen. Ed has led trainings on employee ownership and creating ownership cultures in a number of companies and spoken extensively on the topic. He holds an M.A. in Sociology from Cornell University and a B.A. from Bates College.

FREDERICK FREUNDLICH is a senior principal of Ownership Associates. He coordinates Ownership Associates' activities in Europe from our European Office in Bilbao, Spain. After completing his Masters at Cornell University in 1986, Fred started his employee-ownership work in the training department of a large group of cooperative firms in Mondragon, Spain. In June, 1987, as the Sidney Harman Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, he did research on organizational development practices of two Fortune 500 companies and unions and began his consulting practice with Ownership Associates, focusing on ownership education, training, and organizational change. Fred holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Williams College, in Williamstown, MA, and is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, where his dissertation research is exploring a program called "Humanities-Enterprise," a new university initiative affiliated with the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation.

NOEMI GISZPENC graduated from MIT with degrees in economics and journalism, then worked as a research assistant at the World Bank in the office of the chief economist. Since then she has been working to help managers expand employee participation, first as an editor at the Nonprofit Quarterly and now as a consultant at Ownership Associates. Noémi works with data from the Ownership Culture Survey to provide clients analysis and recommendations to best strengthen their organizational cultures. She frequently contributes as a writer or speaker to employee-ownership publications and events.

DEMIR YENER is a senior financial economist, trainer, policy advisor, professor of finance and consultant with 29 years of global experience in private sector development, financial sector development and corporate governance issues; 23 years of experience in academic teaching, research and consulting; and 10 years of experience in global economic development. Demir worked with USAID (2000- current) and the World Bank Institute since 1993 on privatization and private and financial sector development and regulation. He is a former professor of Finance at Babson College, and has published over 40 articles in leading journals, web sites, and books on business valuation, entrepreneurship, corporate governance, international finance.

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