Russ Gaskin

Fostering Capacity for Collaborative Innovation & Systems Change

Russ helps people who don’t know each other, and often don’t even like each other, solve complex problems together. His unique strength is creating the conditions and frameworks that support efficient and meaningful collaboration across deep sectoral and cultural boundaries.

Russ also builds the capacities of others to lead effective collaboration by speaking and teaching around the world on changing complex systems, human-centered design, and leveraging conflict and diversity as sources of strategic innovation. In his guest faculty role, he has taught workshops and graduate courses on leading social innovation, designing collective impact initiatives, polarity thinking, and creating shared value.

Prior to launching CoCreative, Russ served as the chief business officer of Green America, a national leader in leveraging economic strategies to advance social equity and environmental sustainability; served as managing director of US SIF, the trade association for financial firms and institutional investors doing impact investing; and founded the Green Business Network, the country’s first network of triple-bottom line businesses.

Russ has served on numerous leadership and advisory boards. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow for the Green America Center for Sustainability Solutions, on the Expert Panel on Social Innovation & Design at the UN Development Program, and as a fellow with the Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability. He has also served on the Leadership Board of the National Education Association, the Good Housekeeping Green Seal of Approval Advisory Board, and the eBay World of Good Advisory Board. Russ has an MS in Organizational Development and a BA in Sociology & Anthropology

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Luzette Jaimes

Social Entrepreneurship

Luzette works in system change through the design and facilitation of transformational learning processes in the areas of human development, being-well, and awareness-based leadership development for changemakers.

For two decades she has focused on social entrepreneurship through different roles at Ashoka, including launching and directing

Click here to find out more about Ashoka’s Learning & Development. Luzette represents Ashoka at the Wellbeing Project CoCreators governance group. Luzette is the founder of Alive and Thriving– a human development incubator for individuals and groups, co-founder of Consciousness Coalition (CoCo Labs*) – an ecosystem builder for human development and wellbeing, and a co-founder of the Weaving Lab – a network focused on creating learning ecosystems for wellbeing for all. Luzette also works with CoCreative – a consulting firm that designs and facilitates collaborative innovation through multi-stakeholder networks to solve complex problems, from community revitalization to supply chain sustainability to education.

Luzette is adjunct faculty at George Washington University Center for Public Leadership’s e-Co Leadership Coaching Program. She holds a BA in Finance & Intl Rel, an MSc in Holistic Science (whole and complex systems). Professional Certified Coach PCC, Theory U facilitator, Being-well coach and mindfulness practitioner.

Click here to find out more about Ashoka.

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Laboratory For Global Performance & Politics

Performing Community

The Lab humanizes global politics through performance. We cultivate a distinctive global community of collaborators that includes students, emerging and established artists, educators, policy leaders, and activists. Our work harnesses narrative, memory, and acts of witnessing with the aim of sparking transformation and change.

Find out more about Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski

CLARK YOUNG
Co-Author

NEW YORK: Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski (as My Report to the World) at the Museum of Jewish Heritage | INTERNATIONAL: Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski at Queen Mary University, London; with Teatr IMKA in Warsaw, Poland | STC: The Taming of the Shrew (free-for-all), The Servant of Two Masters | REGIONAL: Ford’s Theatre: Fly, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Woolly Mammoth: Full Circle; Studio Theatre: Astro Boy and the God of Comics, Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven; Company One: Astro Boy and the God of Comics; Synetic Theater: Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Lysistrata; National Symphony Orchestra: georgeWASHINGTON | FILM: Remember This | TEACHING: Georgetown University (Acting, Directing), Bronx Lighthouse College Prep Academy. EDUCATION: Georgetown University: BA in English, Theater and Performance Studies, NYU Tisch: MA in Performance Studies | PUBLICATIONS: Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski: GU Press, 2021 | PERSONAL: he/him/his | UPCOMING: .406 Below, a new play about Ted Williams and the quest for immortality.

DEREK GOLDMAN

Director, Co-Author

Derek Goldman is the Chair of Georgetown University’s Department of Performing Arts and Director of the Theater & Performance Studies Program, as well as Co-Founding Director of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, with the mission to harness the power of performance to humanize global politics. He is an award-winning stage director, playwright/ adapter, scholar, producer, and developer of new work, whose work has been seen around the country, off-Broadway, and internationally. His work has been seen at theaters such as Steppenwolf, Lincoln Center, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Folger, Round House, Everyman, Mosaic, Theater J, Synetic, the Kennedy Center, Ford’s Theater, McCarter, Segal Center (Montreal), Olney Theater (where he is an Artistic Associate), and others. He is the author of more than 30 professionally produced plays and adaptations, including work published by Samuel French, and he has directed over 100 productions. His engagement with global performance in recent years has taken his work to Sudan, Cambodia, Bangladesh, China, Poland, South Africa, Australia, Peru, Bulgaria, Armenia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, France, and throughout the UK, among other places. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Theatre Communications Group (TCG); Vice-President of UNESCO’s International Theatre Institute, and Founding Director of the global Network of Higher Education in the Performing Arts. He holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and he recently received the President’s Award for Distinguished Scholar-Teachers at Georgetown.

DAVID STRATHAIRN

On April 24, 2014, in collaboration with Derek Goldman and Clark Young, Strathairn joined with The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics in Georgetown to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jan Karski’s birth. Earlier versions of this piece were invited to Warsaw in October of that year and performed at Teatr Imka as part of the celebration of the opening of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish jews, in NYC at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and in Boston at Georgetown University’s John Carroll weekend. Other projects of which Strathairn is most proud of being a part of include: The THEATRE OF WAR Productions, community-specific theatre-based projects that address vital public health and social issues; George Clooney’s film Good Night and Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow’s confrontation, and ultimate victory against Senator Joseph McCarthy; Spielberg’s Lincoln starring Daniel day Lewis; John Sayle’s films Matewan, Eight Men Out, and City of Hope; Doug Magee’s Beyond the Call, about the tragic consequences of PTSD; and the plays Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad and Underneath the Lintel by Glenn Berger at ACT in San Francisco. Most recently: Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, and Nomadland, a film written and directed by Chloe Zhao and featuring Strathairn, won the top prize, the Golden Lion, at the Venice Film Festival.

Lighting Designer: Zach Blane
Associate Sound Designer: Delaney Bray
Movement: Emma Jaster
Scenic Designer: Misha Kachman
Associate Lighting Designer: Minjoo Kim
Original Music and Sound Design: Roc Lee
Costume Designer: Ivania Stack
Production Stage Manage: Laura Smith

Rubin Museum

Art Museum

Based in New York City, the Rubin Museum of Art is a museum and global platform for Himalayan art and ideas rooted in the artistic traditions of Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, India, and surrounding regions. Through in-person and online experiences, the Rubin fosters cross-cultural dialogues that promote mutual understanding, and explores how the works in its collection have provided a road map to mental, spiritual, and physical well-being across time.

Click here to find out more about Rubin Museum of Art.

The Mandala Lab includes artist contributions from:

  • Laurie Anderson
  • Sanford Biggers
  • Tenzin Tsetan Choklay
  • Billy Cobham
  • Amit Dutta
  • Sheila E.
  • Peter Gabriel
  • Dame Evelyn Glennie
  • Sarah Hennies
  • Taku Hirano
  • Huang Ruo
  • Shivamani
  • Wang Yahui
  • Palden Weinreb
  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul
  • Scents created by Christophe Laudamiel

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Find out about Mandala Lab to be exhibited at the Summit

Shruti Jayaraman

Chief Investments Officer, Chicago Beyond

Shruti Jayaraman is Chief Investments Officer at Chicago Beyond, a funder that invests in organizations, people and ideas towards all youth being free to live their fullest human potential. Beyond funding, our team works hand-in-hand with investments to deploy an array of resources. We have noticed that through this approach, rooted in humanness and mutual learning, what is possible grows.

Chicago Beyond has invested in holistic healing since our founding, ranging from collaboration with the city’s school system serving 350,000 young Chicagoans and the adults around them, to creating meaningful spaces to bring together children and their incarcerated parents, to telling one’s story through art to heal, to holistic health clinic, to 100 investments in healing during this pandemic. Chicago Beyond’s guidebook Why Am I Always Being Researched? has been used in all 50 states and more than 90 countries to shift practices around evidence in the social sector.

Shruti’s professional experience includes infrastructure construction and finance as a lawyer; launching one of the largest public hospital systems in the country’s Medicaid health plan; and forming strategy and new initiatives in diverse settings—Fortune 100 company, rural maternal-child clinic, municipal government, youth nonprofit, venture-backed startup.

Shruti holds a J.D. from the Yale Law School and an A.B. in History and Science from Harvard College. She is grateful for ancient wisdom and wellbeing practices, which have changed the course of her life.

Click here to find out more about Chicago Beyond.

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Monira Rahman

Executive Director, Managing Trustee and Ashoka Fellow

Monira Rahman is an Ashoka Fellow and a commonwealth alumni.

Her leadership role in tackling acid attack in Bangladesh and making a model for the world for combating acid violence has been recognized by the Amnesty International, Americans for UNFPA, World’s Children’s Prize and the French Government. BBC radio interviewed Monira to capture her contribution for combating acid violence in Bangladesh (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csywv3). Her leadership role in Acid Survivors Foundation established a BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL model in 1999 which was replicated in 5 other countries.

From her 15 years of successful experience at the Acid Survivors Foundation, she has established a new organization named Innovation for Wellbeing Foundation (IWF) in 2014 to promote mental health equity for sustainable development (www.iwellbeing.org).

Monira established Bangladesh Mental Health Network (BMHN) in 2015. This is country’s first and only network for all stakeholders working on mental health field and successfully advocated for replacement of the Lunacy Act 1912 by Bangladesh Mental Health Act 2018. Monira also played a crucial role for drafting National Mental Health Policy 2019 and National Mental Health Strategy 2020-2030 which is now waiting for government approval.

In the year 2015 she has established Mental Health First Aid Bangladesh (https://mhfainternational.org/international-mental-health-first-aid-programs/) to raise mental health literacy of the mass people. Mental Health First Aid is an Internationally accredited training program currently being adopted by 25 countries including Bangladesh. MHFA Bangladesh has trained 74 National Trainers who has trained 5000 certified mental health first aiders and 10,000 mental health Champions since 2015.

Monira’s idea for promoting women’s mental health win women innovation camp award 2017- a government run project and developed country’s first ever digital platform for promoting mental health in Bangla.

With the support of UNDP Monira’s organization also developed country’s first ever mobile application named mon janala (an android smart phone based application) to provide psychosocial support in Bangla during COVID 19 pandemic and beyond.

Monira has secured funding from Comic Relief and along with ADD International implementing a 4 years’ project started from June 2020 for developing community based mental health services for children and young people living with disability.

Monira and her organization is part of a UK-Bangladesh Global partnership led by Imperial College London and Bangladeshi partner include IWF, BRAC JPG School of Public Health and icddr,b and developing evidence based mental health care pathway model for rural Bangladesh.

Monira’s expertise on promotion of mental health and wellbeing developed from her early career in Concern Worldwide in 1992 where she developed mental health services for the homeless people living with mental illness from the scratch.

Monira obtained Masters degree in Philosohy from University of Dhaka. She was elected Vice President of student’s union of Shamsunnahar Hall of the University of Dhaka in 1989 and led many movements for peace and equality.

She frequently appears in media and a voice for the unheard.

Facebook page: Mental Health First Aid Bangladesh

Facebook page: Innovation for Wellbeing Foundation

Youtube video: How acid violence In Bangladesh is disappearing

Youtube video: Monira Rahman Fights for Life Free of Violence

Youtube video: Celebrating International Women’s Day with Monira Rahman and Anika Rahman

Youtube video: Monira Rahman, Child Right Hero, Bangladesh

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Kate Byrne

Chief Executive, Katapult X

Kate Byrne grows things; people, businesses, movements. Her career marries her love of media, the power of technology and the impact of heart to help people and business be forces for good. The Stanford grad is a trusted voice and cross-sector translator, a gifted rainmaker and team builder and a leading voice in conscious leadership and the importance of trust as a form of capital. Byrne has a successful track record as a well respected C-Suite executive leader at blue chip brands such as Katapult X, SOCAP Global, Businessweek, Inc, Fast Company, Tides, and the George Lucas Education Foundation. She is the Chief Impact Officer of PopVenture – disrupting the venture space as we know it, Growth Advisor to PlusMediaSolutions and Co-CEO of The Truth Teachers, a leadership development network building next generation leadership around the intentional use of power and spirit. She is the host of two popular podcasts, Rebels with a Purpose and the editor of WomenAdvancing, a part of the Media Village network. Her creativity and strategic acumen in building vanguard products won her recognition on the coveted Folio Most Influential Media Leaders list. She is the Co-Founder of the Stewardship Circle for the Next Economy leading efforts to make the impact ecosystem more efficient, equitable and broad reaching. She serves as an Advisor to SOCAP and to the TomTom Foundation. An advocate for women and girls, Byrne is the former resident of the UN Women SF Board, Commissioner for the Marin Women’s Commission and co-Chair for the Marin Teen Girls Conference. She loves travel, hiking, scuba diving, music, dancing, yoga, sous cheffing and her family (both the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds). She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Kate loves sunrise over sunset, peaks over valleys, ice cream over cookies, adventure over same same, believe over hope, dream over wish, love over all.

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Sharon Rosen

Global Director of Religious Engagement, Search for Common Ground

Sharon Rosen is Global Director of Religious Engagement at Search for Common Ground (Search), the world’s leading international, non-governmental organization dedicated to peacebuilding. With a staff of one thousand, Search reaches millions of people through its programming. A global expert on interreligious programming, Sharon provides strategic oversight and technical expertise to Search field offices around the world. She leads the development of the Common Ground Approach to Religious Engagement toolkit for peacebuilders and recently co-developed a seminal online course with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on Religious Engagement in Peacebuilding – A Common Ground Approach, freely available in English, French and Arabic.

Sharon leads the Universal Code of Conduct on Holy Sites initiative for the protection of sacred spaces and directs a Jewish-Muslim religious leaders’ initiative to expand constituencies for peace in Israeli religious communities. She is a member of the Advisory Council to the Secretary-General of Religions for Peace.

Previously, Sharon was co-director of Search’s Jerusalem office for nine years together with a Palestinian colleague, directing multiple projects in religion, development, health, and media. Prior to this, she co-founded and directed Education for Life, an international non-governmental organization providing tools for the development and wellbeing of children within state educational systems.

Born in the UK, Sharon has lived in Jerusalem for 40 years and is an experienced facilitator in conflict mediation, communication skills, strategic planning, and capacity building for religious reconciliation. She holds undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Literature and a post-graduate degree in Literature from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and studied towards a PhD in Middle East Interreligious Reconciliation at Coventry University, UK. Married to a prominent rabbi, together they have served Jewish communities in South Africa and Ireland. She is a proud mother of three children and grandmother to seven grandchildren.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem

France Director, ONE.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem currently is ONE’s France Director, a NGO fighting against extreme poverty and preventable diseases.

A graduate of Sciences-Po Paris in 2000, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem began her career in a law firm at the Council of State and at the Court of Cassation. In 2003, she became intensively involved in politics in the city of Lyon. She was successively Deputy of the city of Lyon, General Councilor for the Rhône department, and vice-president of the Rhône-Alpes regional council. Between 2012 and 2017, under President François Hollande’s mandate, she became Minister in charge of Women’s Rights and was the spokesperson of the government from 2012 to 2014, then Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research, from 2014 to 2017. She was the first woman ever to hold this position in France.

In early 2018, she decided to join the private sector and take on the responsibilities of CEO Global Affairs within Ipsos, a leading global market research and consulting firm. She also leads “Raison de Plus”, a collection she created within the French publishing house Fayard, and teaches at Sciences Po Paris. Finally, she chairs the strategic board of the Tent Partnership for Refugees Foundation, which mobilizes private companies to help with the economic inclusion of refugees.

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Zainab Salbi

Founder of Women for Women and co-founder of Daughters for Earth

Zainab Salbi is a celebrated humanitarian, author, and journalist. Oprah Winfrey identified her as one of the 25 women changing the world to People Magazine, Foreign Policy Magazine called Zainab one of “100 Top Global Thinkers,” and Fast Company identified her as one of 100 “The Most Creative People in Business.”

Zainab is the co-founder for DaughtersforEarth.com, Chief Awareness Officer at FindCenter.com, and host of Redefined podcast. Zainab is also the author of the national bestseller Between Two Worlds and her latest book, Freedom Is an Inside Job. She is also the creator and host of several shows, including #MeToo, Now What? on PBS, and Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi at Yahoo News.

Zainab started her career when she was 23 years old as the founder and former CEO of Women for Women International, an organization to help women survivors of conflicts. She built the group from helping 30 women to reaching nearly half a million women and raising 146 million dollars in aid and microloans to help them and their families rebuild their lives.

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