Northeastern graduate is bringing ethically sourced, high-quality coffee to Oakland campus

October 2, 2023

The Tea Shop at Northeastern's Oakland campus will start brewing Equator coffee, a certified B Corp co-founded by Helen Russell, DMSB'88. “We are a great fit for Northeastern because we prove that business can be a force for good,” Russell says.

Helen Russell, DMSB'88, always wanted to be her own boss. Thanks to the skills she learned as a business student and on co-op at Northeastern, she and her partner Brooke McDonald now own a coffee roaster that believes coffee should taste good and do good.

They put this belief in impact into practice. Their roaster, Equator, was the first in California to purchase Fair Trade coffee in 1999, became a certified B Corp in 2011, and Russell and McDonald were first LBSTQ+ people to win the National Small Business Persons of the Year award in 2016. “We believe drinking good coffee leads to good things,” Russell says.

This fall, Equator's coffee will be brewing at the Tea Shop on Northeastern's Oakland Campus.