LIFT is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a racially just, regenerative, and locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Our team members include:

Emmy Allison is motivated by a curiosity for humanity and justice. She centers her work on making everyone feel like they belong and is inspired by the heart and creativity it takes to run regenerative businesses within our larger extractive economy. Before joining LIFT Economy, Emmy worked as a Community Success Specialist at B Lab (the non-profit behind the B Corp movement). Emmy helped drive awareness, engagement, and satisfaction for Certified B Corps in the US and Canada. As part of her role, she also supported 1,700 B Corps in the technical requirements of renewing their B Corp certification.

So far in her eclectic career, she has worked in finance and philanthropy for Kat Taylor and Tom Steyer at Fahr LLC, planned and facilitated diversity and inclusion trainings for independent schools in Washington, D.C., and served one year of national service with City Year Philadelphia where she developed after school programs that catered to youths in high-poverty, low-access communities. 

As a professional at Drexel University, she supported the successful launch of the University & Community Partnerships unit to better extend the resources of the university to the surrounding neighborhoods. She went on to operate workforce development and economic inclusion programming through Drexel’s Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships. Emmy’s other experiences range from working for smaller lean organizations, as a nanny for young children, and a co-founder for a myriad of startups and nonprofits. 

Emmy is based in Philadelphia, but you will often find her computer set up somewhere around the world as she learns about new cultures, foods, and people’s life experiences. She spends her time experiencing long walks, biking, and loves a good versatile spreadsheet. Ask her about her latest house project, what she’s reading/listening to, or the last interesting bird she spotted. Email her at emmy@lifteconomy.com. 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of businesses that benefit our climate, specializing in enterprises that address soil and water regeneration. She is a grassroots organizer and an amateur (for love of) ecologist. Her clients include/have included: Winona’s Hemp & Heritage Farm, Jonas Philanthropies, Buckminster Fuller Institute, Native Conservancy, Sunken Seaweed, Salt Point Seaweeds, Singing Frogs Farm, Daily Acts Nonprofit, Fibershed Nonprofit, North Coast Brewing Company, MycoWorks. She is also co-founder of the Force for Good Fund - the first crowdfunded accelerator and development fund supporting a more diverse, inclusive economy through social enterprise. She also convenes LIFT Economy's regenerative agriculture investor network (RAIN) and a Restorative Ocean Economies Field-Building Initiative. She co-initiated the launch of The Next Egg, a collaborative project to support citizens to move the $32T in US retirement savings away from Wall Street and onto Main Street.

Erin is an expert in business design, planning and systems development. As a facilitator, she focuses on effective process management, shared values alignment and customized project planning. 

When not working, she loves to plant trees and harvest wild foods in the forest ecosystems around her home, including mushrooms, huckleberries, elderberries and bay nuts to make nutrient dense foods for her community. A frequent public speaker, she has given presentations at conferences including Social Capital Markets Conference (SOCAP), Permaculture Voices Conference, FoodFunded, Sustainable Enterprise Conference, NorCal Permaculture Convergence, the Indigenous Hemp Conference and the CA Greywater Conference.

She received her Permaculture Design Certificate with Toby Hemenway in 2011 and has worked on projects ever since to support an economy that works for the benefit of all life, with no one left out. Email her at erin@lifteconomy.com.

Kevin Bayuk's roots are in entrepreneurship, having spent nearly a decade starting and growing technology companies, and activating projects and organizations that regenerate healthy ecosystems and socially just and joyful environments. After immersing himself in all aspects of starting and growing companies, Kevin focused his attention on learning about and teaching eco-systemic design. Now Kevin is merging his experience in business with his experience in permaculture to help businesses care for people while enhancing the earth.  

Kevin also serves as the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown developing the business case to address climate change through existing practices and technologies. He frequently teaches classes, workshops, does public speaking, facilitates meetings, plans events and provides one on one mentoring as a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute San Francisco. Kevin has helped design and start food security gardens and public learning experiences intent on reminding people that we,too, are nature.

Kevin has raised millions of dollars to capitalize business operations, led teams of more than 30 employees, and can speak well to the benefits and pitfalls of raising capital and the many paths of growing a business. He loves spreadsheets and loves to dig into operating models. One investor of Kevin’s last technology company said, “Kevin oozes strategy.” Email him at kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Shawn Berry is an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally. Shawn left an early career path in nuclear physics research to found the Woodshanti Cooperative (1997-2011), a custom cabinet and furniture shop in San Francisco that set the standard for ethical craftsmanship in the green building movement. This hands on experience as an entrepreneur combined with community organizing and systems theory to craft the vision for LIFT Economy to model an economy that works for all life.

Shawn is especially gifted at assessing and addressing gaps in the ways in which we organize our businesses and our lives. He has remarkable skills in being able to stay present in the often chaotic environment of leading a business, as he helps clients craft and adapt frameworks and models to enable them to be more efficient and effective. Shawn’s experience with working in democratic, multi-stakeholder work environments enables him to offer invaluable counseling in organizing business structures and communicating effectively with partners, employees and board members. Email him at shawn@lifteconomy.com.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner / Worker-Owner at LIFT Economy and coauthor of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good and The Next Economy MBA: Redesigning Business for the Benefit of All Life. Ryan has helped over 80 companies—like Patagonia, Allbirds, Ben & Jerry’s, King Arthur Flour, Tanka Bar, Animikii, and Red Bay Coffee—become Certified B Corporations, recertify as B Corporations, and maximize the value of their B Corp certification.

Ryan is a leadership coach that combines elements of somatic / embodiment practices, mindfulness practices, and other forms of inner work to help social impact leaders unlock the next level of their potential. Ryan also works with white-led and majority white organizations (particularly white men) to promote racial justice, love, joy, and compassion in the workplace. He is a member and facilitator of White Men for Racial Justice.

Along with his LIFT Economy team, Ryan helped cofound the Force for Good Fund, a $1M fund that invests in women and people of color-owned, "Best for the World" B Corps (e.g., those that score in the top 10% of all B Corps worldwide). He is also a cohost of "Next Economy Now," a LIFT podcast highlighting the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, democratic, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business for good.

Ryan has written articles for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Utne Reader, and TriplePundit. He has been a featured speaker at SOCAP, Bioneers, Summit LA, the B Corp Champions Retreat, the Sustainable Enterprise Conference, the Hong Kong Social Enterprise Summit, the Stanford d.school, the Wharton School of Business, the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and many others. You can follow him on Twitter at @honeymanconsult or email him at ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Jeanette Morelan is a storyteller, entrepreneur, and social impact activist. With a degree in Social Entrepreneurship and Communications, Jeanette has leveraged her skills in marketing and strategy to build movements and scale reach for purpose-driven organizations. Her professional career has spanned leading communications for World Central Kitchen, founding Novel, a social impact consulting firm, and developing marketing strategies at B Corp certified digital marketing agency.

As Marketing Lead, Jeanette is excited to share the stories of LIFT’s clients and partners as we work together to create a world that works for all life through our podcast, the Next Economy MBA, and more.

In her spare time, you can find Jeanette traveling, hiking, or picking up a new hobby (she’s currently re-learning the cello and has dabbled in ceramics). Jeanette is also proud to serve as the Secretary of the Board of the Social Enterprise Alliance and is a member of the RAINN Speaker’s Bureau. Connect with her online @jeanettemorelan or email her at jeanette@lifteconomy.com.

Nairuti Shastry (she/her) is an educator, engaged scholar, and movement builder working toward racial and economic justice that transcends organizational, cultural, and political borders. Founder and Principal of Nuance Research, Strategy, & Consulting, LLC, Nairuti supports teams, organizations, and communities spanning sectors as diverse as healthcare, education, tech, philanthropy, social services, and international development and finance to both hospice the old and birth the new in pursuit of new economic realities. Trained in Freirean pedagogy and informed by a hooksian love ethic, Nairuti enjoys conspiring with her BIPOC and APIDA kin to co-create bolder, brighter futures for us all.

Previously, Nairuti served as the Director of Research for Beloved Economies, a story-telling and action initiative demonstrating the power of work to affect economic change. Nairuti began her career in higher education at the Johns Hopkins University, advancing place-based community engagement to redistribute capital across historically marginalized communities in Baltimore City. She cut her teeth as a facilitator as a Community Impact Fellow at Break Away, promoting quality civic engagement programming to connect campus and community across the United States. She has also collaborated---as a consultant or a board member---with several other organizations and projects in the solidarity economy ecosystem, including: the New Economy Coalition, the Place-Based Justice Network, the Asian American Justice + Innovation Lab, the Human Rights Funders Network, the Pathways Practitioner Profiles Research Project at the Utah Valley and Stanford University, the International Accountability Project, ThirdSpace@ Barnard College, and, of course, LIFT Economy.

Nairuti holds a BA in Sociology, French & Francophone Studies, and Public Health from the College of William & Mary and an MBA from LIFT Economy. She is fluent in Gujarati (her mother tongue), Hindi, and French and comfortable conversing in Spanish. Based in northwestern Indiana (affectionately known by locals as Michiana), Nairuti enjoys all sorts of arts & crafts (currently, she's obsessed with soft pastel landscape paintings!), Bollywood films (especially anything featuring the love of her life, Shah Rukh Khan), and frolicking along the shores of Lake Michigan with her partner, Daniel, and sweet pup, Rani. Email Nairuti at nairuti@lifteconomy.com.

Phoenix Soleil is a Haitian-American artist, activist, and educator with a deep interest in the intersections of community, emotional intelligence, and trauma. She also teaches and practices Insight Meditation and is a certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication (NVC).

Over the years, Phoenix has conducted workshops and training sessions on communication, racial justice, and meditation for various organizations, including Google, the Kellogg Foundation, UC Berkeley, the Insight Meditation Society, and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. Phoenix also provides support in mediations and facilitate restorative circles.

Since 2018, Phoenix has served as a partner and co-owner at LIFT Economy. Additionally, living in intentional communities has been part of her journey. Her experiences have given me an in-depth understanding of the complexities and challenges associated with communal living, collaborative work, and collective decision-making. She particularly passionate about assisting individuals and organizations in cultivating healthy, thriving cultures. Additionally, she’s deeply involved in improvisational theater, freestyle rap, dance, and writing, and working on an Afrofuturistic sci-fi novel.