Nina Johnson

Nina’s passion for co-ops comes from her belief that empowered people working together can meet the needs of their community and help create a better world. She is dedicated to helping co-op boards serve their cooperatives with care and excellence. Nina has experience in board leadership and group facilitation in co-op, church and educational settings. She likes to use experiential exercises in which people have fun while they learn about group dynamics and overcoming obstacles. Nina is particularly interested in assisting boards through store expansions and helping boards improve efficiency and process so they can get to high-level questions of governance.

Her experience as a board member at Mississippi Market in St. Paul, Minn. while the co-op was going through major development challenges has given her a lot of skill and insight regarding what is possible for food co-ops when the board functions at a high level of efficiency. “This is the help I can offer to boards—to provide guidance and reassurance to embolden boards to do the important work of governance and to help the membership understand and be involved in their decisions,” she said.

Nina’s services include:

• Board leadership training and support
• Group process and facilitation
• Policy Governance
• Retreat planning and facilitation
• Ongoing consulting support to boards

“Nina has helped our board make tremendous progress in two retreats since we’ve been working together. Her experience, ability to listen and gentle guidance has been invaluable to our board.”

— Rick Schubert, Board President, Cook County Whole Foods Co-op, Grand Marais, Minn.

“Nina has been working with our Board for over a year. She combines her references, tools, support for policy governance and sensitivity to the learning styles of individual directors to help us make progress on our goals.”

—Sharon Murphy, General Manager, Whole Foods Co-op, Duluth, Minn.

“For the past five years I have had the pleasure of working with Nina Johnson. Her leadership helped our board focus on the important issues while allowing time for the thorough discussion so necessary to building board cohesion. Nina’s perseverance in bringing forth the opinions of the group, her commitment to cooperatives, and her follow-through have helped us build a strong board.”

—Gail Graham, General Manager, Mississippi Market, St. Paul, Minn.