"Slouching Toward Democracy: Operationalizing Sociocracy On The Fly"

Thomas A. Beckett is the Executive Director of Carolina Common Enterprise. He has for most of his career worked as an attorney serving the needs of small and startup businesses. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University, and earned his law degree and later an MBA at the University of North Carolina. He has been professionally focused on cooperatives and cooperative development for the past seventeen years.

He holds a certificate from the International Centre for Cooperative Management for the 2023 International Cooperative Law School. Beckett is certified to present the FastTrack TechVenture program, the Kauffman Foundation's entrepreneurial training. curriculum. Beckett speaks regularly on small and cooperative business legal issues. He provides business & legal education and counseling other cooperatives throughout North Carolina and the South. Beckett is a co-founder and board member of the Cooperative Professionals Guild, now in its tenth year. Beckett previously served on the Boards of Cooperationworks, the Hendersonville Community Co-op, the Center for Participatory Change, the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), Weaver Community Housing Association (a shared equity affordable housing cooperative in Orange County), and on the Board of Directors and Loan Committee of Shared Capital Cooperative. He is a Fellow of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.