Advisory Committee

Barry Bluestone
Barry Bluestone is a labor and political economist. He is the founder of Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University and the founding dean of its School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.

Christina A. Clamp
Christina A. Clamp is a professor of sociology and Director of Cooperatives and Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University where she has been on the faculty for over 30 years. Dr. Clamp serves on the board of the ICA group in Boston and the Food Cooperative Initiative. She has published extensive research on the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, a model for collectively owned and managed industry.

Doug Cliggott
Doug Cliggott teaches economics at UMass/Amherst. Before joining the faculty in 2012, he worked in banking and finance for 25 years in the United States and in Scandinavia. Doug is also actively involved on volunteer boards in the Town of Provincetown.

Lew Finfer
Lew Finfer is founder and current Co-Director of Massachusetts Communities Action Network, a federation of faith-based community organizations with affiliates in Brockton, Boston, Springfield, Holyoke, Fall River, New Bedford, Worcester, and greater Salem. He has been a tenant and community organizer in Massachusetts since the 1970s, and lives in Dorchester.

Segun Idowu
Segun Idowu served as the Executive Director of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA) for many years. BECMA works to advance the economic well-being of Black businesses and of organizations serving the Black community and Black residents. He currently serves as the Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion for the City of Boston.

Marjorie Kelly
Marjorie Kelly is a Senior Fellow and Director of Special Projects at The Democracy Collaborative. Through her books, articles and active participation in community education, she is a longstanding advocate for alternatives to a corporate dominated, profit driven economy. In her latest book, Our Ownership Future, she sees a “generative” economy emerging in five different patterns of social ownership of economic enterprise including public banks.

Julie Matthaei
Julie Matthaei is a Professor Emerita of Economics at Wellesley College and a board member the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network. She is the author of Feminism and Revolution and The Time for a New Economics is at Hand.

Lev Menand
Lev Menand is an academic fellow and lecturer at Columbia Law School. He is a former senior adviser to the deputy secretary of the Treasury and was previously on staff of the Federal Reserve.

Nadav Orian Peer
Nadav Orian Peer is an associate professor at Colorado Law, where he teaches Financial Institutions, Bankruptcy, and a seminar titled Funding Climate Action. His current research studies the theory and the practice of supporting important social goals like racial equality and environmental protection through affordable financing. A former Massachusettsian, Nadav is thrilled to join the effort for a public bank in the state.

Tom Sgouros
Tom Sgouros is a public policy researcher and writer. He consults with states and city/county officials about banking, economics, budgeting and better ways for governments to manage citizens’ monies. He is the author of Checking the Banks: The Nuts and Bolts of Banking for People Who Want To Fix It. He sees public banks as a kind of public utility that can help build productive economic activity in contrast to a “financialized” economy driven by speculation and profit taking.

Paul Shannon
Paul Shannon works with the American Friends Service Committee in Boston, focusing on peace, prison reform, human rights and social/economic justice. He helped initiate and organize the statewide Budget For All Referendum campaign. As part of the Majority Agenda Project, he fosters collaboration among social movements and community organizations addressing current economic, environmental and foreign policy crises.

Joseph Sommer
Joseph Sommer is a retired central bank lawyer specializing in payment systems and bank insolvency.

Michael Swack
Michael Swack is director of the Center for Impact Finance and the Master’s Program in Community Development at the University of New Hampshire, focusing on innovations in community finance including CDFIs.

Greg Watson

Greg Watson is Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. His work focuses on community food systems and the dynamics between local and geo-economic systems. Previously Greg served as the Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture under Governors Dukakis, Weld, and Patrick from 1990 to 1993 and from 2012 to 2014.