MBA VII

Rabia Abrar

I am an experienced communications and marketing professional, with a BBA and a Master of Sustainable Urban Management. Following a personal challenge of #100DaysOfClimateAction, I've transitioned my career to influence sustainable business, urban policy, economic system change, and behaviour change. Working to become bilingual (English / French).

Peter Masters

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.

Ana Martina

Media maker, facilitator, builder of bridges, mother and community organizer. Founding member of Colmenar Cooperative Consulting https://colmenar.coop. Her experience as Membership Director for 5 years at the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives granted her a great understanding of the workplace democracy landscape across the country. The experience contributed to her learning process to best practices for democratic processes and accountability. She has coordinated the support network of the Immigrant Movement in Cooperatives, and participated in the Racial and Economic Justice Council at the national level via the USFWC. Currently she is the Technical Assistance Project Manager for the USFWC.

Alisha Foster

Alisha was born in Nashville, TN to a Tamilian mother and Floridian father. She was always disappointed in the narratives presented to her about who she was and what the world was like, and has always felt a deep desire to build pathways out of these limiting narratives. She studied philosophy in college and has spent six years coaching, strategizing, writing, and launching projects in order to make the world better. She most recently launched and ran a transformative $500K wraparound services & community-building program in San Francisco centered around unhoused people.

Kerry OConnor

As the first Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Austin, Texas, Kerry helped teams identify and test solutions to complex challenges. Her teams focused on homelessness, displacement due to gentrification, racial profiling, re-imagining public safety, achieving zero waste, and application of emerging technologies, such as an MVP distributed ledger platform for people experiencing homelessness to store their identity documents.

As a former diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, she established an innovation unit in the Office of the Secretary of State, developed and managed an employee idea generation program, helped architect sustainable management reforms, coordinated logistics for the Pittsburgh G20 Summit, served as an executive staffer, and improved programs and operations at two U.S. Embassies.

Alison M. Chopel

I'm a public health researcher-practitioner who pursues health equity and social justice by collaborating across boundaries. My focus is on social determinants of health and I'm particularly curious about relationships between economic structures and population wellness. I strive to bring systems into focus and center the agency of people who are often marginalized by those in power. My primary tools are participatory and applied research, designed and implemented in partnership with people who contribute diverse experience and expertise. I’ve worked in several places and on varied issues; my current focus is on disaster recovery as a place of opportunity for building more equitable, ecologically sustainable systems and structures.

Steve McCoy

Hi! I am from Malaysia by birth and current address, and am a Social 5 wing 4 by. personality (Enneagram) 🤪 ! I spent the majority of my formative adult years (30 of them) in Europe (mainly in the UK, but I also worked for 8 years in Poland). I came back to this part of the world to help found a natural disaster relief non-profit following the 2004 Asian Tsunami. In the early days, we a lot of help from friends in LA, and later also helped us with our Katrina project in Mississippi! As my thinking shifted from natural disaster recovery to addressing natural disaster vulnerability and risk factors (ie my journey into sustainability consulting), I found that my core influences were coming mainly from the Pacific Northwest (Cascadia…?!!), rather than from Europe which would have been my natural inclination had it not been for these high profile natural disasters! I've been a member of the ISSP (International Society for Sustainability Professionals, based in Oregon) since its beginning and have been an ambassador for the Living Future Institute's LBC programme. I am Dad to a wonderful 14 year old human child and 6 of the fur variety (3 dogs 3 cats).

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.

Michael Mezzatesta

Michael is a thinker & communicator working to bring ideas from alternative economics into the mainstream American political conversation by leveraging social media, community building, and marketing technologies. As an independent consultant, Michael helps socially conscious startups establish the strategies & processes they need to achieve sustainable organic growth. Prior to his recent move to Berlin, Michael spent 5 years in the LA tech startup scene after graduating from Stanford with a BA in Economics.

Julia Ziegler-Haynes

I have an arts and culinary background and those paths have converged in my latest project: Moiré, an ethically and sustainably sourced bean-to-bar chocolate company hoping to launch in early 2022. What makes Moiré unique is that the chocolate is sweetened only with dates and the line of products is entirely plant-based. The most integral aspect of the company is our commitment to promoting agroecology while fostering deep and meaningful partnerships with the farmers we work with in our strive for a more equitable future. I am seeking a better understanding of alternative business models that support and uphold the values at the core of Moiré.

Jessa Carter

As a child my list of future occupations were fairy, potion maker, geologist and set designer. Although I studied in visual arts and communication those initial interests are an ever present filter on my lens. I became enmeshed in Seattle’s cultural landscape as a founding member of LOVECITYLOVE, a DIY arts collective praised for its unparalleled diversity, now recognized by the city as a cultural landmark. There I produced exhibitions and activations in partnership with the wider community. I am currently exploring the alchemy of disciplines and mediums; the collapsing of categories; the intersections of modalities via still image, motion, sound, durational performance, ceramic sculpture, printmaking, natural building, permaculture, systems thinking and collective healing. My work/play is a practice in externalizing internal queries about phenomenology and human constructs such as value, ownership, authorship, identity, time, performativity, language, labor. I feel most compelled towards the union of opposites and the notion of the emergent third. At present I am drawn towards pattern literacy and narrative intelligence as it pertains to the ecosystem and the egosystem. My perpetual passions trace back to the life/death/life cycle and the mysterious wild feminine. For the past 7 years I’ve been collating research and engaging in experiments related to community living, land stewardship and collective governance with the intent of establishing a space for friends and family to take refuge and develop the resilience needed to transmute our future hardships into potential future flourishing.

Jenn Calloway

For 15 years, I’ve worked in the public and private sectors. Currently, I’m the chief program officer for Genuine Foods. We’re a food service management company focused on cooking from scratch and leveraging our buying power to benefit local food systems. I’m grateful for this opportunity to learn a new paradigm and apply it to my day-to-day work and beyond. In my free time, I enjoy food with family and friends and being outside.

Velma Gentzsch

Velma loves learning – about herself, other people, and how systems work. She excels at understanding the details, keeping sight of the big picture, and crafting creative solutions to whatever challenge shows up. She has the privilege of a 20+ year career in the public benefit sector, being the mother of an amazing child, leading an organization dear to her heart, and moving back home to rural Missouri after many years in the SFBA. Cats, dancing and deep conversations feed her soul.