Tess is an artist and a cultural organizer focused on community, social impact, and the arts. As co-founder of Shuffle Collective, she focuses on member engagement, operations, community partnerships and product strategy. She has also pioneered Shuffle Collective's Work Genome Project which is the world's largest database of skills and disciplines. It is core of Shuffle Collective's professional profile builder and powers search and discovery. Prior to founding Shuffle Collective, Tess has spent a decade in holistic health, both as a freelancer and a small business owner. Tess also has an active art and music practice, has produced films and currently working on a film project with Anuj.
Anuj is a technologist and filmmaker. As Co-Founder of Shuffle Collective, he focuses on product, engineering, and fundraising. Anuj studied computer science and film at USC. He has spent a decade in the world of startups, working as a full-stack engineer, designer and later has a Product Manager. He started off at Yahoo! and Geocities and has since led product and design teams at ShareThis, Scribd and Appirio (TopCoder). A trained filmmaker, he has written and directed short films(According to Plan A, and Sonder) that have shown internationally at film festivals. He has also studied improv and was part of an Oakland-based performance troupe Ace of Hobos.
Our luminary council of advisors are an interdisciplinary group of artists, thinkers, entrepreneurs and culture creators supporting us on our mission of empowering bold and meaningful projects
Rebecca Walker is the founder of Third Wave Fund, and has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, power, and the evolution of the human family for three decades. She has authored and edited seven bestselling books and was named one of the most influential leaders of her generation Time Magazine. She is also credited with coining the term, 'Third Wave Feminism'.
Sunny Bates is a founding board member of Kickstarter as well as on advisory boards of TED, MIT Media Lab, Creative Capital, New INC and the American Theater Wing. Sunny operates wherever executives, thinkers, artists, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, educators, philanthropists connect and collide around the globe as an author, serial entrepreneur, mentor and advisor.
Adam Davidson is the author of the book and podcast, The Passion Economy. He is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, covering business, technology, and economics, and was previously the co-founder and co-host of NPR’s “Planet Money.” He has been a frequent contributor to “This American Life,” and was named one of the top works of journalism of the decade by NYU’s Journalism Institute.
Dave Eggers is the founder of McSweeney’s and Co-Founder of 826 National (826 Valencia), a network of youth writing and tutoring centers around the United States. He is an award winning author with his books hitting the New York Times Bestseller list. His paintings have also been shown in establishments nationally including Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the Nevada Museum of Art.
David Krakauer is the president of the Santa Fe Institute. His research focuses on the evolutionary history of information-processing mechanisms in biology and culture. He served at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as well as visiting professor of evolution at Princeton University. David was included in the Wired Magazine Smart List as one of 50 people "who will change the world.
Kate Fowle is the director of MoMA PS1, which presents today’s most experimental, thought-provoking art. She co-founded the Master’s Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts. Kate has served as chief curator of the Garage Museum in Moscow as well as the director-at-large at Independent Curators International, New York.
Saikat Chakrabarti is the President and co-founder of New Consensus, a think tank and grassroots organization to promote the Green New Deal. Previously, he was a founding engineer at Stripe, co-founder of Justice Democrats, and was the campaign manager and then Chief of Staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez where he led the effort to draft the Green New Deal.
Krista Tippett is a journalist, author, and entrepreneur. She is the founder and host of the public radio program and podcast On Being. In 2014, Tippett was awarded the National Humanities Medal by Barack Obama.
Debbie Millman is a writer, educator, artist, curator, and designer and host of the podcast Design Matters. She is the author of six books and is the President Emeritus of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and chair and co-founder of the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Ruby Lerner is the founding Executive Director of Creative Capital and is on the boards of New INC, Eyebeam, and the Andy Warhol Foundation. Prior to Creative Capital, Ruby Lerner served as the Executive Director of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF) and as Publisher of the highly regarded Independent Film and Video Monthly.
Reza Aslan is a writer, commentator, professor, producer, and scholar of religions. His books have been NY Times best sellers and have been translated into dozens of languages. He is the producer of HBO series The Leftovers, CBS comedy United States of Al, and Rough Draft with Reza Aslan, and CNN’s documentary series, Believer. He is a recipient of the James Joyce Award.
Craig Newmark is a Web pioneer founding Craigslist in 1995. He created Craig Newmark Philanthropies to promote investment in organizations that drive broad civic engagement. He is the funder the News Integrity Initiative with the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Craig also serves on the board of Columbia Journalism Review, Girls Who Code, Poynter Foundation, and Sunlight Foundation.
Yves Béhar is a designer, entrepreneur. He is the founder and principal designer of Fuseproject industrial design firm. He is also the co-founder August (smart locks) as well as Canopy co-working.
Tiffany Shlain is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, founder of the Webby Awards, and author of a national bestselling book. She has received over 80 awards for her films and work, including being listed as one of Newsweek's "Women Shaping the 21st Century." The NY MOMA premiered her one woman performance Dear Human in 2020.
JD Beltran is a former President and current Commissioner of the San Francisco Arts Commission, as well the founder of Center for Creative Sustainability. She is on the faculty of California College of the Arts and her award-winning work in art, film, new media and photography has been exhibited worldwide including at the Walker Art Center, the San Francisco MOMA, Ars Electronica in Austria.
Shelly Steward is an economic sociologist and applied scholar who has studied the changing nature of work for more than ten years. She serves as director of the Future of Work Initiative at Aspen Institute. She is an expert on nonstandard work arrangements the lead author of the Gig Economy Data Hub in collaboration with Cornell University’s ILR School.
Elizabeth Daley has been Dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts for 27 years. She was the founding Executive Director of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication, and serves as the Executive Director of the USC Institute for Multimedia Literacy. She has been honored by American Women in Radio and Television and was twice nominated for a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award among other awards for her contributions to the world of film.
Ayodele Nzinga is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Oakland and the founding producing director of the Lower Bottom Playaz, Oakland's oldest theater company. She is the founding Director of the Black Arts Movement and Business District CDc and holds a Ph.D. in Transformative Education & Change. She is a Cal-Shakes Artist Investigator Alumni and one of the 2021 YBCA 10.
Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte is a designer, architect, and curator. He co-founded the traveling showcase NOMAD, and the Carwan Gallery in Beirut, the first contemporary design gallery of the Middle East. He has recently been appointed Art Director of the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia.
Nina Simons is an award-winning social entrepreneur and international public speaker. She is the Co-founder of Bioneers and its Everywoman’s Leadership program. She is a recipient of the Robert Rodale award and the Goi Peace Award for “pioneering work to promote nature-inspired innovations for restoring the Earth and our human community.
Mukti Khaire is the Girish and Jaidev Reddy Professor of Practice at Cornell Tech and in the Johnson School at Cornell University. Mukti’s research focuses on entrepreneurship in the creative industries, such as art, advertising, architecture and design, fashion, film, music, publishing, and theater.
Alice Loy is a Co-founder of Creative Startups is a leading voice on the creative economy. She is a public speaker on topics ranging from developing creative economy ecosystems to investing in the creative economy. Alice works with entrepreneurs and economic development leaders across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. She holds a MBA and PhD in Strategic Communication from and Entrepreneurship from UNM.
Suketu Mehta is an award-winning author and professor at NYU. Mehta’s articles have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Granta, Harper’s, Time, Newsweek, The New York Review of Books among others. He has also written original screenplays for films, including New York, I Love You (2008), and Mission Kashmir with novelist Vikram Chandra.