Joseph Cureton Employs Innovative Business Model

As the chief coordinating officer at the Staffing Cooperative, Joseph Cureton works to bring new worker-directed enterprises to life within the holding cooperative model. He is a founding member of Core Staffing, Bmore Black Techies, and Tribe Works—all projects in the fight to overcome the challenges that modern workers face. Cureton also is a software engineer and chef by trade.

LIFT Economy is part of the community of Certified B Corporations. Learn more about this growing movement of people using business as a force for good, and sign up to receive the B The Change Weekly newsletter for more stories like this one, delivered straight to your inbox once a week.

Joseph Cureton

Here are some highlights from the LIFT Economy podcast interview with Cureton:

  • His journey from a fall-back career in tech to recognizing more of his whole self in his work through serving formerly incarcerated folks and building an innovative business model.
  • The genesis of the Staffing Cooperative, a new kind of worker cooperative leveraging a holding company model that can overcome some of the limitations of the more common worker-cooperative model.
  • A look inside the structure and nuances of this innovative business model.
  • The opportunity for emerging leaders to participate in the Staffing Cooperative’s Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition program that kicks off in 2020 in Q3, but applications are being accepted now.
  • Some sources of Joseph’s inspiration: Seed Commons, Start.coop, B Lab, Zebra’s Unite, and, perhaps more surprisingly, KKR and Barbarians at the Gate.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm with a mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.


A New Take on Worker Cooperatives was originally published in B The Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


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