Nicholas is a creative leader, designer, convener and place-maker with twelve years of experience managing high-impact projects, executing top-quality custom builds, and producing tailored cultural events with a focus on community, sustainability, and greening the built environment. Designing and building spaces for community and festivals has led him to join the community at the Mushroom Farm, where he is helping to restore the land and build spaces for communal thriving.
Rhumi Maher
Rhumi Maher is an aspiring entrepreneur in the consumer packaged goods industry. Inspired through her background in grocery retail and by the power of food to bring people together, she seeks to empower consumers with healthy food based innovations while fostering growth in local food systems.
Colleen Skemp
I am a co-owner of a tech coop called CoLab Coop. Our goal is to use technology to make the world a better place. There I manage projects and manage our Team support Org Area, making sure our workers have what they need to thrive.
Danylle Kunkel
Danylle Kunkel is an Associate Professor in the Davis College of Business Economics in the Department of Management at Radford University. She has studied at University of Central Florida and VCU. She received her Ph.D. and Post Doc from Virginia Tech focusing on leadership and business curriculum development. Before entering Higher education, Danylle spent 8 years working for Red Bull North America.
She had taught at 3 universities in areas Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership Development at the Undergraduate, MBA, PMBA and Executive Education level. She has also worked in corporate leadership development in industries. Her research interests are centered around social issues and sustainable benefit corporations.
Adrian Roman
Inspired these days by Adrienne Marie Brown, Tarthang Tulku, Frédéric Laloux, Lama Rod Owens, Angel Kyodo Williams, Lift. I am working for a non profit in Berkeley, Mangalam, and my focus is on - how to integrate or use Buddhist practices in a modern world; how to structure an organization in a way that is supportive for personal growth and meaning to the members; how to blur the lines between life and work; how to foster relationships and facilitate groups with emergence in mind. I am a 27 year old hispanic male who graduated with a degree in philosophy and business. I have a partner, Cyn, and twin sister, Anais, who I spend much of my time with. This past weekend I went to see Vulfpeck at the Greek theater and went hiking in Mt. Tam to West Point in to eat pancakes.
Amethyst Carey
Amethyst Carey is a queer, Black, land-loving co-op nerd working to free herself and the communities that raised and sustained her. She currently serves as a Program Associate at the Center for Economic Democracy, where she coordinates a statewide coalition working to advance a movement for worker ownership in Massachusetts.
Joyce Hu
A creative and marketing director hybrid with an entrepreneurial spirit for social and environmental impact. Fashion industry refugee. Marketing Director at Wildlife Works, a company that stops deforestation. Co-Founder of Sustainable Fashion Alliance.
Jazmine Cable
Inquisitive, Creative, Analytical, & Empathetic are 4 words I use to describe myself. My interest include being outside in nature, in-depth conversations, learning, music, and having a good laugh. I’ve received my Bachelor’s in Marketing with a Minor in Psychology and currently work as a Sr. Business Development Analyst. Topics I’m seeking gain increased involvement in include the circular economy, sustainability, global warming, systems thinking & applications of trans-disciplinary perspectives.
Hannah Kullberg
Hannah grew up amongst the trees in Portland, Oregon. In college, she studied food systems and worked on an organic CSA farm. Returning home, she served on the Food Policy Council, meanwhile, experiencing the power of business to make immediate impact. She co-founded Better Bean Co, growing it from farmer’s markets to national distribution. Successfully selling to Hain Celestial, where Hannah became Brand Manager. In 2019, Hannah started officially supporting natural food startups as a consultant and SBDC business advisor. Hannah is also a holistic health coach & leads a women’s new moon group. She is blessed to be mom to two young children.
Fariba Fuller
"It's been a journey from Iran to Europe to the States and now beyond (I hope). So much to say and nothing to say...I have had multiple careers - entertainment, medical, psychological, design, organizational transformation and I have multiple degrees. Not sure any of it applies any more.
I have journeyed the world and also taken the journey inward . The one thing I think I know is that we survive because of the kindness of others. The one thing that I want to give what is left of my life force to is emergence fanned by the winds love and kindness. "
Debbie Dekleva
Debbie Dekleva focuses on market based conservation of monarch habitat through the development of consumer goods. Debbie is well versed in all aspects of production, product development, and sales of products made with milkweed materials, the sole food source of monarch caterpillars.
Identifying and using the natural, renewable resource of milkweed in products creates more demand and in turn, more monarch habitat. By working with natural systems, we restore soil health, promote biodiversity, improve water quality and capture carbon within the production model.
Debbie identifies partners, creates prototypes and launches environmentally positive milkweed products while providing social and economic benefit to communities.
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Rachel Plattus
Rachel Berliner Plattus is from New Haven, CT and currently lives in Boston, MA. She is Co-Creator of Beautiful Solutions, a storytelling and popular education project supporting people to imagine and create community-controlled solutions to the problems they face. Rachel also works with a national network of women religious and millennials through Nuns and Nones, and with Jewish organizers and spiritual leaders through Taproot. She is a graphic artist, a street medic, and a trainer with PeoplesHub. She likes to explore how to make meaning and support healing on big paper, in the dance studio, in the kitchen, in wild places, and in spaces that bring us into conversation, connection, and collective action with one another.
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.
Sara Johnstone
Sara is a recovering tech consultant that became disillusioned with the sharing economy and business as usual a few years ago. She was introduced to the “new paradigm” through her work with the startup NuMundo, a global network of impact centers (eco-villages, intentional communities, permaculture farms, social projects and retreat centers). She is currently working with CYCLEffect, a multi-stakeholder hybrid Venture Capital Cooperative Fund. CYCLEffect prioritize investments in companies that focus on restoring the planet’s biological and social systems to a healthy state. Sara is also a member of the GENNA (Global Eco-village Network North America) alliance which believes communities of practice, place, and purpose offer essential solutions to many of the world’s pressing social and ecological crises . Sara is currently honing in on expanding her knowledge in regenerative agriculture, impact investing, sustainable fibers and permaculture. She is committed to being apart of projects that focus on regenerative solutions, specifically with climate change.
Ansley Roberts
Ansley Roberts, a Charleston, South Carolina native, majored in international relations at American University, where she became fascinated with the areas for growth and sustainable change within our food system. After graduating, she dedicated her career to working towards more sustainable, and just food systems for everyone. Her past work includes working within localized food systems on diversified, direct-market farms, farmer and consumer education efforts, and community healing farms such as CooperRiis and the Homeless Garden Project. Ansley is taking her next step, joining her family business, Anson Mills to assist with their efforts to preserve genetic diversity and support sustainable grain systems for farmers and consumers.
Nicholas Jordan
I grew up in the Saint Louis metro east area. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in Computer Science. After the Saint Louis Rams left for Los Angeles, I got really interested in economics impact analysis. I created a company, Dynammek, to help build communities and businesses. Dynammek will develop an economic impact scores that will more precisely quantify the actual money a business generates in a community. The hope is with this information people and businesses will support those businesses that are truly beneficial to them.
Olive Watkins
Olive is a returning-generation farmer and organizer. She is the newest land steward of her family’s 4th generation timber farm in North Carolina. Olive is passionate about building equitable food economies for black farmers and food business owners and is co-creating an investment fund to support and center black folks in the food system.
Shirah Dedman
Shirah Dedman is a filmmaker, attorney and activist. After dropping out of high school at 15, she became a licensed attorney by the age of 23 yet subsequently found herself un- and under-employed. But through perseverance, she managed to build a career in film that included positions at William Morris Agency, DirecTV, and Paramount Pictures. So after her last layoff, she decided to relentlessly pursue her true passion: creating content reflecting the intersection between economics, race and the environment. Shirah is a 2018-2019 Associate of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and an Associate of the Equal Justice Initiative.
David Jaber
As a Project Drawdown Fellow (www.drawdown.org), the author of Our Historic Moment (www.ourhistoricmoment.com), and an advisor, I advance better decision-making through greenhouse gas (GHG) analysis, zero waste audits, green building investigation, life-cycle analysis and climate action/adaptation planning. I actively work with Native American tribes, where I have long-held a commitment to justice.
Ojan Mobedshahi
Finance Director of the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, Ojan is a 2nd generation Iranian American, born and raised in the Bay Area. His past work, from healthy land use to real estate development, informs his mission driven integration of social justice and real estate finance. Ojan lives in a co-op in Oakland and is also a landscape contractor and regenerative permaculture designer. While earning his B.A. in Economics from Pitzer College, Ojan was inducted into the Economic Honors Society and organized a local chapter of the Occupy movement.