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Ander Etxeberria is the cooperative diffusion director of Corporación Mondragón, the largest cooperative group in the world, made up of 92 cooperatives and over 70,000 worker-owners.
impact.info
Listen to the testimony of Ander Etxeberria, cooperative diffusion director of Corporación Mondragón.
María Díaz Valderrama
impact.info journalist
Published on 18 August 2026
Photo credit — Corporación Mondragón
Transcript Audio in Español — text automatically translated· AI-generated transcript
0:00 Impact.info, another way to undertake. 0:07 Good morning. Welcome to the podcast for entrepreneurs who want to change things, 0:12 starting with their own companies. Companies like Corporación Mondragón, 0:17 which demonstrate that another economic model is possible. 0:21 I am Ander Etxeberria, I am 54 years old and I am the director of cooperative dissemination 0:27 in the Mondragón group, at Corporación Mondragón. 0:30 Ander, Mondragón is today the largest cooperative group in the world, 0:34 a global reference for decades. 0:37 But we have to start with this key question, right? 0:40 What is Corporación Mondragón? 0:42 We are a group made up of 92 cooperatives, worker cooperatives, 0:47 that is to say, the person who works is a partner, is an owner, 0:53 about 80% of the workforce is owner-partners. 0:57 We also have 104 companies abroad, in the United States, in France, in China, 1:03 that are not cooperatives. 1:05 We generate a total of about 11 billion euros a year 1:09 and we are together about 70,000 people. 1:13 How did this cooperative of companies come about, so to speak? 1:17 What is your story? 1:18 It was born with the arrival of the Catholic priest José María Arizmendiarrieta 1:23 from a relatively nearby municipality, 40 kilometers from here, Marquina. 1:28 He arrived in Mondragón in 1941, in the post-war period, 1:32 like all post-wars, a very tough situation. 1:35 Arizmendiarrieta promoted social relationships, 1:40 he brought friends and families together again, 1:43 through cultural, sports, and also educational activities. 1:47 Since 1943 he started what was called the Professional School 1:53 and today is Mondragón University, 1:55 and through that cultural, sports, also spiritual and educational activism, 2:00 in 1956, five of the young people who moved around him, 2:06 who thanks to him studied Technical Engineering, 2:09 were encouraged to create a company where the owner would be a worker, 2:15 the worker would be an owner, 2:17 in a context in the municipality of Mondragón where there were no cooperative companies. 2:23 Ander, you talk to me about a gigantic business volume, 2:27 with almost a hundred cooperatives. 2:29 How do you ensure today the real participation of workers 2:35 in decision-making, which is one of the key points in cooperative companies? 2:40 From the very first minute of the creation of the first cooperative, 2:44 back in 1956, we make the big decisions, 2:49 all of us, where each member has one vote, 2:54 in the General Assembly. 2:55 That is, practically once a year. 2:58 If there are more important issues, there will be extraordinary assemblies. 3:02 But I want to say, the operational issues are decided by the managers. 3:07 We don't meet every two or three days with all the members in the Assembly to make decisions. 3:13 The big issues, those that mainly affect my life once a year, 3:18 which is the Annual General Assembly, and the daily issues, the managers. 3:24 After so many decades in which you must have had to withstand economic crises, 3:30 a permanent industrial transformation, 3:33 how would you summarize today the philosophy that has supported you since your origin? 3:38 What has been the key to preserving the essence? 3:40 Well, one of the keys is what Arizmendi Arrieta always repeated. 3:45 When we started creating cooperatives, starting in '56, 3:49 you all, what are you going to manufacture? 3:51 We, machine and tool. 3:53 And you, we, valve. 3:54 We, automotive parts. 3:57 And he always told each of those promoting groups, 4:00 don't let anyone beat you. 4:02 You have to be the best. 4:04 Don't let anyone beat you. 4:05 And, on the other hand, he also asked, 4:07 who is the first member, the first female member of the cooperative? 4:10 Who is the most important? 4:12 And the answer was given by him. 4:15 The most important member is the cooperative itself. 4:18 When the year ends, and with that gross, positive result that we expect, 4:24 what we are going to do is invest in new machines, new programs, 4:29 in opening markets, developing patents, 4:31 and then the distribution of a part among the members will come. 4:36 But first we are going to maintain the competitiveness of the cooperative. 4:40 Those ideals, or that way of understanding the cooperative business, 4:45 from minute one. 4:47 Mondragón generates thousands of jobs in the Basque Country and beyond. 4:51 How does your impact translate in the territory and in social cohesion? 4:57 Of course, if we take into account that our cooperatives are of associated work, 5:02 that is, whoever is a member, works, has a vote. 5:08 The same vote is held by the person who works in the office, 5:14 who works in the workshop, who works with management responsibilities. 5:19 The same number of votes. Each one has one vote. 5:22 They are stable jobs. 5:25 If things go wrong, we tighten our belts. 5:29 So I'm going to be working, I'm going to give my best until the day I retire, 5:34 or until the day I decide to leave for some other reason. 5:38 And they are cooperatives, they are companies where the lowest earner and the highest earner, 5:45 that difference is limited. 5:48 The maximum difference that the top executive, the general director, can have, 5:54 compared to the lowest earner is six times more. 5:58 All of this has an impact on society. 6:02 Also the fact that, as we mentioned before, we participate in the General Assembly. 6:07 We don't just participate in the General Assembly once a year, 6:11 but the workers, the members, are part of the social bodies of the cooperative. 6:18 The Board of Directors, which is called the Governing Council. 6:21 The Social Council, which is also a very important element for the company's communication. 6:28 We participate in those bodies, then we learn to speak, to defend our ideas, 6:34 to respect the ideas of others, to lead meetings, to lead groups. 6:39 And those skills are also fundamental, outside of the cooperative, in the society around us. 6:44 So, normally, each year, if we do statistics, 6:50 the region where most cooperatives are concentrated, which is the region of the municipality of Mondragón and its surroundings, 6:56 is usually, on one hand, in the Basque Country, the region with the highest family incomes. 7:02 The Mondragón cooperative model is not about distributing poverty. 7:06 Higher family incomes, normally, here in the Basque Country. 7:09 At the level of the whole State, it is usually the region with the lowest unemployment, 7:15 the one that invests the most in research and development, because we want to keep existing, 7:20 and the one that usually presents the lowest economic inequality. 7:24 One of the lowest economic inequality values in the world. 7:28 We are talking with Ander Etxeberria, responsible for cooperative dissemination at Corporación Mondragón. 7:34 I wanted to ask you, also, what you think differentiates you, in your opinion, from more accessible cooperatives, 7:40 smaller ones, which is what people usually understand when we talk about cooperatives. 7:46 From the very beginning, what we wanted to do was a type of company 7:52 where the central focus was the person and a type of company that would be profitable. 8:00 That is to say, a company. 8:02 A cooperative company has one side in the heart and another side in the pocket. 8:09 There is solidarity and there is business. 8:12 And we have always kept that balance in mind, both aspects. 8:17 If any cooperative leans too much towards the heart, it will go bankrupt. 8:23 And if any cooperative leans too much towards the business side, then it won't be a cooperative. 8:28 From the very first minute of the creation of the first cooperative, 8:31 we have kept both aspects in mind up to today. 8:43 In Spain, 18 years old is the legal age to start your own business. 8:48 I would like to know where you saw yourself when you were 18 years old. 8:52 When I was 18, I started studying Technical Engineering at what is now the University of Mondragón, 8:58 in the town of Mondragón itself. 9:00 A tradition of this town for industry that goes back to medieval times. 9:06 And my intention was to work in a cooperative, also due to family tradition. 9:12 Many close people have worked, work in cooperatives. 9:17 I also have many friends who work in cooperatives, which allows me to compare. 9:21 And then I studied Sociology. 9:23 And with that combination, I remember that when I saw on our local television, 9:29 the regional television, a member of Mondragón, who was the director of cooperative diffusion, 9:34 talking about Mondragón, I said to myself, one day I will do that. 9:38 One day I have to do that, because I understand that this system needs to be extended, 9:43 it needs to be made known. 9:45 But first comes the academic part, first comes working in a normal position, 9:52 and after years of knowing both on-site and through references from family, friends, etc., 9:59 I hope one day to dedicate myself to cooperative diffusion. 10:03 And that's how it turned out. Different coincidences have happened, but that's how it turned out. 10:07 Thanks to Ander Etxeberria, head of cooperative diffusion at Corporación Mondragón. 10:13 You can listen to this interview on the impact.info website. 10:17 You have listened to Impact.info. Another way to undertake. Embed this interview on your site
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