I’ve had the chance to participate in a variety of sectors including nonprofits in East Africa, tech startups in Silicon Valley and organic farms in Colorado and California. As different as they were, all of these opportunities seemed to be directed by forces and systems that didn’t align with what I value and believe in. I know there are others that feel the same way and I hope to tell a different story and help bring healing to a very broken world.
Adrian Gershom
Adrian is a marketing leader and uses his experience and commitment to elevate purpose-led companies and organizations. His goal is to help the companies that have committed to climate justice, racial equity, and stakeholder governance succeed. Adrian also currently serves as the Chair of B Local Illinois--the organization that represents businesses that have obtained B Corp Certification in Illinois.
Matthew Sherman
Masters in Performance Psychology, 15 years as a chef and restauranteur, planting seeds for my future kids existence and learning the trade of social farming. Basically I am lost and dont know what I am doing...but, very much inspired.
Joshua Álvarez
Joshua Álvarez is an advocate, creative visionary, and conscious business coach focusing on the intersections of healing, justice, and collective liberation. He has studied business for over 10 years and has served communities globally, including serving in the Peace Corps. Joshua has worked with socially and environmentally conscious entrepreneurs, including Certified B Corps like TOMS, Raven + Lily, and Krochet Kids, to create businesses that are making a positive impact in a sustainable way. In the past few years, he has worked with consulting firms led by people of color focusing on intersectionality, racial justice, and equity within philanthropy. He recently launched his own business, offering creative services and coaching for entrepreneurs who are envisioning a new economy based on the principles of empathy, solidarity, and liberation with decolonizing practices. You can learn more about him and his offerings at joshuaialvarez.com.
Anish Johnson
I am a queer South Asian emigrant to the Bay Area, with 11+ years of experience building and growing innovative analytics and artificial intelligence driven software products for enterprises. Across the 5 venture capital funded companies I have worked at, I saw how their business models did not prioritize the long term interests and sustainability of local communities, customers, and employees.
Through this program, I am interested in learning more about Next Economy principles, and finding collaborators for a sustainable venture that puts people and planet first.
Gregory Akinbiyi
Greg is the Founder of Solution Finders, a Strategy & Innovation Consultancy focused on helping companies harness the power of "Collective Intelligence" to identify hidden opportunities and performance variations quickly.
He has a track record of delivering results in various industries where he combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to innovation, customer discovery, and process improvement.
He earned his bachelor at Duke University, where he was voted captain by the coaches under David Cutcliffe. He finds joy in reading, bike rides, working out, and investing in his community. He is also working on a book reflecting on the intersections of leadership, death anxiety, and identity formation.
Kirshan Murphy
I am a digital marketing expert with 15 years experience. I started out by teaching myself how to build websites and then learning how to market them. Over the years, I have worked with over a hundred companies and have expanded to broader business consulting. My background also includes work in politics, community organizing, and social justice. I am now working to use my business and social impact experience together to help the economy be more inclusive and sustainable via https://amplifyprogress.com/, and in the future, The Black Empowerment Lab.
Eric Ferrer-Vaughn
Big Tech defector who moved back home to create a more equitable society. My background is in product development and technical design. I am constantly looking at the intersection of complexity theory, game design, social justice and technology.
Michael Partis
Michael Partis is the Executive Director of the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative: a nonprofit focused on increasing shared wealth and community-based planning with working class Bronx residents. He is also co-founder of The Bronx Brotherhood Project, a community-based college success program for Black and Latino teens at the New Settlement College Access Center. Formerly, he was the Director of South Bronx Rising Together (SBRT): a collective impact initiative dedicated to improving health, grade-level reading and math, and post-secondary outcomes in the neighborhoods of Morrisana and Crotona Park West. For 8 years, Michael lead community-informed policy development and partnership at the Young Movement - a New York-based, grassroots nonprofits focused on social entrepreneurship.
Khary
Khary has a passion for empowering people to skillfully connect across real and perceived cultural differences through cultivating cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence and mindfulness skill-sets. He has over 14 years of experience in international relations leadership positions and has conducted workshops and presentations in over 40 countries. He is a certified trainer in: EQ-i 2.0 (Emotional Intelligence); EQ 360; Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI); and CQ Level 2 (Cultural Intelligence).
He earned a bachelor of science degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. Khary is a certified Budokon yoga instructor and is an avid social dancer (salsa, kizomba, Brazilian zouk and bachata).
Marcus Henderson
Through his travels and work experience, Marcus has acquired a diverse skill set including solar system design, natural building, construction management, and farming. The common thread throughout his journey has been an intense passion for social and environmental justice. In the midst of the George Floyd protests in Seattle, Marcus started the Black Lives Memorial Garden in the middle of Cal Anderson park in what was labeled “CHOP”. Through his organization, Black Star Farmers, Marcus aims to create safe, joyful, and supportive spaces for BIPOC communities to reclaim their ancestral connection to the land.
Cyrus Julian
Woodstock On Every Block, Coachella On Every Corner. Cyrus is the Founder of Zonez, a public benefit street festival Saas startup focused on establishing a new business model for independent musicians, artists, fashion designers, DJs through scalable artwalks which revitalize cities worldwide similar to the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx or the Summer of Love in SF in the 60s. This could help establish tech/art/retail hubs bringing not only revitalization of the restaurant industry, revenues to bankrupt cities and jobs to lower income communities but the RIGHT type of jobs where people are happy to go to work with personal sustainable life satisfaction.
He has worked for startups funded by the same VC firms who funded the likes of Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Lyft. In 2020, ZONEZ was chosen out of hundreds of applicants to participate in the accelerator program of SoCap, the largest organization of social impact investors and double/triple bottom line enterprises focused on solving societal and environmental challenges through business.
He is also a Certified M&A Advisor/business broker in Silicon Valley focused on social impact ((ESG/UN SDG/GIIN), born and raised in San Francisco, with 22 years combined experience in international residential and commercial real estate sales/finance. He has practiced throughout Northern and Southern California, along with Hawaii and Tokyo as well. In his past life when he had hair, he has played in heavy metal, hip-hop, folk, post-punk bands throughout the Bay Area.
Tony Bednar
I'm a sound healing practitioner hoping to co-create a community wellness space and want to find an equitable, accessible and viable model to bring it into being. I'm also in the process of developing a company/org that will offer products and educational content related to traditional and sustainable ways of living. Through these pursuits I'm hoping to utilize my resources in ways that align with my values and passions while building community and self-sufficiency and divesting from traditional capital structures. I live in rural VT on unceded Abenaki land with my partner Elena and dog Willow.
Chris Clarke
I’m currently a Project Coordinator at Daily Acts working to support ecological and community resilience in Sonoma County. I also mentor young people in nature connection and Rites of Passages and have a background in Permaculture design. I am most concerned with avoiding the impending climate disaster while finding ways to address the root issues that plague humanity and allow us to create such inequitable, life destroying systems. My hope is that regenerative business and social entrepreneurship will be an avenue with enough potency to create a more just and beautiful world while reestablishing the health of the ecological systems we depend upon.
Justin Hitchcock
Justin strives to align his values with his career. He started his career as a Peace Corps Volunteer, followed by 8 years in the nonprofit sector. He most recently served as the Executive Director for GRID Alternatives. In his spare time, he enjoys surfing, rock climbing, and playing bass. He enjoys traveling and is fluent in Spanish.
Luis Gonzalez Imbert
Bilingual English/Spanish professional with over 10 years of experience delivering smooth transitions, product launches, and systemic corporate change in complex business environments. Passionate about working with people—building relationships, fostering self-sufficiency, guiding the implementation process, and supporting teams to succeed and sustain changes.
JD Kath
I love collaborating and learning from individuals with very different skill sets and backgrounds. I am always trying to develop a worldview outside my comfort zone to push and examine my own belief systems.
I am trained as a Wealth Advisor and I love to use my background in that field to tackle wealth inequality in the US. My partner and I are social entrepreneurs with a focus on real estate and businesses that are designed to fuel the regenerative economy.
Proud father of 2 with another nugget on the way.
Ricardo I. Garay
Ricardo’s background as a farmer, researcher and designer have shaped his deep understanding of restorative production practices. Over 10 years experience in mixed crop regenerative organics & carbon drawdown; Ricardo is a Regenerative Textile & Systems Strategist. He holds degrees from UC, Davis; B.S. in Sustainable Agriculture Food Systems as well as an M.A. in Sustainability in Fashion; ESMOD Berlin University.
Prior to relocating to Berlin, he was involved in sustainable growing activities in his native California. His pursuit to understand fashion's global value chain and to learn innovative agricultural techniques lead him to places such as Guatemala, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, & Colombia.
Maxime Paul
Maxime is an autodidactic polymath and cross-domain problem-solver focused on creating sustainable, equitable, and generative solutions. He possesses a wide range of skills and experiences that include technology development and business design as well as interdependent city planning and community engagement. Currently he is the Head of Mobility and Digital Innovation with MHP Americas and CEO/Co-Founder of a SportsTech startup, CMDSense, his fourth venture. He is currently developing a holistic, systems-driven, generative community development framework for disinvested urban and suburban neighborhoods. Maxime holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Rice University in Electrical and Computer Engineering.