James Morrison

Perhaps the biggest reason why I was interested in The Co-operative Group was because it is a co-operative organisation. Shareholders don’t own co-operatives, they are jointly owned and democratically controlled by their members. The concept of working (co-operating) together to achieve common economic, social and cultural goals really appealed to me. As I researched the Group I found that their integrity and social agenda all matched what I was looking for.

Most people are surprised to discover that there are actually a large number of independent co-operative societies within the UK, and indeed around the world. The Co-operative Group is the largest consumer co-op in the UK and has over 4.5 million members, and accounts for approximately 85% of the co-operative movement as a whole. The Group has businesses across lots of different areas, including travel, funerals, pharmacy, insurance, food, legal services, banking and farms.

Through the programme I have been able to spend time in our customer-facing branches, our logistics networks and head office functions, enabling me to get a thorough understanding of the businesses. The exposure to such a broad range of businesses helped me to decide where I wanted to specialise.

I knew towards the end of the programme that I wanted to work in Marketing – unfortunately that placement wasn’t available. The graduate team worked really hard to secure my final placement in this area. Now I work in Marketing full time, but I still enjoy the support of my mentor from the programme. I’m now focussed on improving my skills within this role, as well as building on the broad range of experience the programme provided me with.

My current role is really varied because it involves working with the businesses, corporate functions and membership teams within the Group, as well as those in other societies. I’m now finding the variety the programme provided is becoming more and more useful as I make decisions which impact on other areas of the organisation.