Our people

Satish Kumar is the Founder of Schumacher College in the United Kingdom. He was Editor of Resurgence magazine for 40 years. This magazine was described by the Guardian newspaper as “the artistic and spiritual flagship of the Green Movement.”
A former Jain monk, Satish Kumar went on an international pilgrimage for peace. He, with a friend, walked 8000 miles from New Delhi to Moscow, Paris, London and Washington. Along the way he met Bertrand Russell and Martin Luther King. Satish is the author of ten books including his autobiography, No Destination. Other books include Elegant Simplicity, Soil, Soul, Society and Radical Love. Satish is a lifelong activist in the cause of environmental sustainability, social justice and world peace. He is the recipient of Goi Peace Prize 2022.

Jim Knight works in education, digital technology and as a legislator.

He is a director of Suklaa Ltd, providing advice to clients in education.

Jim is the Chair of trust board of E-Act Multi Academy Trust, and chair of the Council of British International Schools. He is a board member of Century-Tech, MACAT International and Educate Ventures Research Ltd; he sits on the advisory bodies for Nord Anglia Education, and BETT.

As a government minister and MP, Jim’s portfolios included rural affairs, schools, digital and employment. He was a member of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet, before joining the Lords in 2010. He regularly speaks in the Lords on education and technology policy.

Jude Kelly CBE is an acclaimed theatre director and arts impresario, and Founder and CEO of The WOW Foundation which runs WOW - Women of the World Festivals across the globe to celebrate the achievements of women, girls and non-binary people and confront gender injustice. WOW has seeded a global movement which has sparked WOW activity in 45 locations across six continents and reaches 65 million people a year through live and digital events, media and campaigns. WOW Festivals have taken place across the world, in Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, Greece, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somaliland, Taiwan, the UK and the USA where seismic shifts in cultural attitudes towards gender equity have taken place as a result of the festival. Participants have included Angela Davis, Malala Yousafzai, Annie Lennox, Patrick Stewart, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Salma Hayek - as well as thousands of people who don’t have public profiles but are changing the world. Kelly established The WOW Foundation as a charity working to build, convene and sustain a global movement that believes a gender equal world is possible and desirable through festivals and empowering women, girls and non-binary people. The unique festival model creates numerous pathways for participants to take part in WOW projects, amplify their own causes, or start new initiatives which have a wide impact on communities. It is the world’s biggest, most comprehensive and most significant network of festivals dedicated to presenting work by women and promoting equity. 

Kelly is among the UK’s most powerful cultural leaders. She is an award-winning creative having won many awards for theatre, opera and music, and a business leader, mentor and a celebrated global champion of equality, with a particular focus on intersectional gender equity. She created the cultural bid for London’s 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, is an inaugural member of Connected Women Leaders, and sits on the Global Advisory Board of Pathfinders Presidents Council and the Advisory Board of Julia Gillard’s Global Institute for Women Leaders. Her TED Talk on ‘Why women should tell the stories of humanity’ has had over 1 million views and she has given numerous keynote talks to business, governments and global leaders, including at UNESCO, COP 22, and at CHOGM. She is the recipient of 21 doctorates and fellowships for services to the arts and women in the UK, USA, Australia, Hong Kong, and China, and is a Knight of Denmark.

The President of The WOW Foundation is Her Majesty The Queen.

Named one of Europe’s Top 50 technology entrepreneurs by the Financial Times, Dhiraj focuses on innovating for impact, supporting “Tech for Good” start-ups, including climate tech. He has invested in several women and minority-led start-ups, and believes in the power of young people as the change-makers of the future.

Shivi is deeply passionate about driving sustainable and ethical change.

She leads the youth, women and gender engagement strategy for the Climate Champions Team, the delivery team of the UN High Level Climate Champions. In this role Shivi is working on delivering on a mandate to enhance ambition and strengthen the engagement of non-state actors in supporting Parties, working with the Marrakech Partnership, to deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement.

In 2022, Shivi was part of an expedition to Antarctica curated by 2041 Foundation, an organisation whose mission is to inspire youth and future generations to preserve Antarctica. 

Previously, Shivi worked with Leaders’ Quest (LQ), a social enterprise that helps leaders and companies align profit with purpose. At LQ, she helped build and deliver client programmes and experiential journeys in China, India, Israel, Palestine, the US and UK. Shivi originally joined LQ to help grow the Leaders’ Quest Foundation and its grassroots leadership development programme in India. She began her career studying finance, and worked as a consultant with a global audit firm.

In addition to seeing herself as a lifelong dreamer, and a struggling pianist, Shivi loves travelling, reading, exploring underwater life, and animals. She dreams of opening an animal shelter with her partner one day!

Caroline Casey is the businesswoman and activist behind The Valuable 500, the world’s largest CEO collective and business move for disability inclusion.

Casey launched the movement at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Summit in 2019 and since then has signed up 500 multinational organisations with a combined revenue of over $8 trillion, employing 20 million people worldwide to radically transform the business system. The membership includes 36 of the FTSE 100 companies, 46 of the Fortune 500 and 28 of the Nikkei.

As well as President of the IAPB, Caroline sits on several diversity and inclusion boards to include L’Oréal, Sanofi and Sky and is a much sought-after speaker.

Caroline has received an honorary doctorate as well as multiple awards and accolades for her work as a disability activist.

Johan Rockström is Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam. He is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues and led the development of the Planetary Boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change. Professor Rockströmis a leading scientist on global water resources, with more than 25 years experience in applied water research in tropical regions, and more than 150 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability. He is i.a. member of European Commission expert group: Mission Board for adaptation to climate change including societal transformation, chair of the Earth Commission, Chief Scientist of Conservation International, and elected member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Carlo is the Sustainability Lead at Deloitte Consulting Switzerland and part of the firm wide sustainability leadership team. With over 10 years of experience in the field of sustainability, he supports organisations in their sustainability transformation and serves global sustainability initiatives.

Carlo is involved in several pre-competitive spaces working on climate emergency plans, decarbonization and circular economy in the healthcare and fashion industry. Currently he is coordinating the work with WBCSD and a global fashion coalition in creating the circularity indicators for the Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) tool.

Most recently, he supported a global Pharma company to decarbonize their mobility, and a global hospital NGO to develop a framework and platform to measure the maturity of 20k hospitals in their sustainability and circularity transformation.

Carlo has designed and conducted several executive trainings for SDG in collaboration with the UN Global Compact and UNITAR, but also with several Universities and Business Schools.   Carlo contributes today to several global sustainability coalitions and initiatives, including at the Vatican and the UN, focused on identifying new and better micro and macro indicators for ESG and broader economic measurements. Carlo has recently contributed to publishing the Global and Swiss Circularity Gap Reports in 2023

Sara is an experienced social entrepreneur, thought leader in the food ecosystem, and founder of systemic projects of integral ecological regeneration. As a seasoned growth expert, she works with globally recognized, high-profile think tanks on setting the agenda for the sustainable food industry.

Described as a game-changer who knows how to drive change, she has a flair for exploration and prosperity thinking.

Over the past 10 years, she has focused on a mission to take food leaders and youth to the next phase of action through education, research projects, and innovation challenges.

In 2013, she founded Future Food: a purpose-driven ecosystem facilitating positive transformation in life on earth, promoting food innovation as a strategic element to achieve sustainable and impactful growth, and in 2020, after the pandemic broke out, she birthed the Pollica - Paideia Campus, a Mediterranean Living Lab, a prototype of a sustainable village, where one can learn a new kind of sociality and live the concept of integral ecology, combining environmental protection and human health, regeneration of the territory and citizens' well-being, social justice, and climate change.

She manages the secretariat of the Italian Emblematic Communities of the Mediterranean Diet UNESCO, she recently co-founded the goodaftercovid19.org initiative and, among others, she is also a member of the Google Food Lab; partner, and board member of the Food For Climate League; Ambassador of the Agrifood Tech & Wellbeing thematic area of the Federated Innovation project @MIND; and President of the Scientific Committee of "Fondazione Italia Digitale".

Louise Cox Chester is a purpose-driven leader and renowned expert in presence, purpose, and compassionate leadership. Formerly a top-rated Extel analyst advising governments, wealth funds and C-Suite executives, she later oversaw over $15 billion in assets as Head of Research and Global Head for Telecoms and Media at Dresdner RCM.

In 2002, Louise followed her purpose to share the evidence-based Inner Game training that had contributed to her development, focusing on empowering individuals for success. She founded 2 award-winning companies: a UK-based organic retreat centre, Witherdens Hall, in 2003 and Mindfulness at Work in 2010. With her background in finance, strategy, leadership, culture change, and purpose work, she coaches CEOs, senior leaders, and teams in multinational corporations. A Founding Partner of The Inner Game Collective, she contributes to leadership programs worldwide. Louise has collaborated with 100s of prominent clients from Citi to Unilever, offering strategic consultancy and bespoke interventions. She designs programs to cultivate positive cultures in global organizations, to attract talent and maximizing outcomes for people, planet, purpose and performance.

Louise has a Masters from Edinburgh University, but is continuing her education, studying with Father Richard Rohr at The Center for Action and Contemplation and with her mentor Satish Kumar at Schumacher College. She is exploring Regenerative Economics & Embodied Systemic Coaching, leading Theory U initiatives, and is an active member of the B Corp for Good Leaders and Inner Development Goals for Sustainable Development movements. She is a Global Ambassador for The Center for Compassionate Leadership, has supported London-based youth charity XLP for over a decade and the Hackney Schools Mentoring programme and alumni since 1993. Louise's insights feature in publications including ‘The Contemplative Leader’, ‘Compassionate Leadership’, ‘The Mind of the Leader’, 'Values for a Life Economy,' 'And Now for the Good News,' 'Wanderful,' 'The Simplicity Principle,' and 'The Nowhere Office.'

Shelley Zalis is the CEO of The Female Quotient, an equality services company that creates platforms for women and solutions for organizations committed to closing the gender gap in the workplace. Through its signature Equality Lounge® at key industry conferences around the globe, Zalis and the FQ are connectors for the largest global community of mission-driven business leaders.

Zalis is a pioneer for online research, becoming the first female chief executive ranked in the research industry’s top 25. Today, Zalis works with Fortune 500 companies, impact organizations, and conscious leaders to advance equality in the workplace. A firm believer in giving back with generosity, Zalis is a proud mentor to women around the world.

Zalis authors a Forbes column that provides virtual mentorship for women in middle management. You can follow Shelley on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Dr Scilla Elworthy is a three times Nobel Peace Prize nominee for her work with Oxford Research Group to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy- makers worldwide and their critics.

She now leads Business Plan for Peace to help prevent violent conflict and build sustainable peace throughout the world, because it is possible; based on her latest books The Business Plan for Peace: Building a World Without War (2017), The Mighty Heart: how to transform conflict (2020), and The Mighty Heart in Action (2022)

Scilla founded Peace Direct in 2002 to fund, promote and learn from local peace- builders in conflict areas, was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003 and advised Peter Gabriel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sir Richard Branson in setting up ‘The Elders’. She has also recently founded Plan for Peace, a global organisation that acts as a catalyst for peace.

John Perkins first apprenticed with shamans when he lived in the Amazon rainforest from 1968 to1971 and has since studied with shamans from many different cultures. His books on shamanism, economics and transformation include Shapeshifting, The World Is As You Dream It, the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man trilogy, and Touching the Jaguar: Transforming Fears into Actions to Change Our Lives and the World. They have been on the New York Times bestseller list for 73 weeks, sold millions of copies, and are published in 38 languages. He has spoken at shamanic gatherings, economic forums and universities around the world and is a founder and board member of the Pachamama Alliance and Dream Change. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, CNN, NPR, A&E, the History Channel, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Der Spiegel, and many other publications, as well as in numerous documentaries including The End of Poverty?, Zeitgeist Addendum, and Apology of an Economic Hit Man. He was awarded the Rainforest Action Network Challenging Business As Usual Award.

Dominique Palmer is a dedicated Climate Justice Activist, Speaker, Storyteller, and Writer based in the U.K. She is a coordinator at Climate Live, where global youth-led concerts harness the power of music to engage, educate , and empower. Dominique is a member of the Steering Committee for the Youth Climate Justice Fund. She's a passionate advocate for #StopRosebank and contributes to published books and op-eds, actively participating in the fight for environmental causes. Her environmental journey began with a realisation of air pollution's impact on her community, propelling her into climate action. Notably, she played a significant role in organising the September 2019 climate strikes in the U.K., a pivotal event that mobilised 300,000 people, inspiring a global movement for climate action.

In 2023, Dominique Palmer received the esteemed 'Young Leader' recognition at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards. She was featured in Forbes 2020 Top U.K Environmentalists List for her impactful work, gaining visibility in reputable platforms like Mission Magazine, BBC, The Guardian, British Vogue, and more. As a compelling speaker, Dominique has graced world stages such as UN Climate Change Conference COP26, TEDxCountdown, and various international festivals, advocating for Climate Justice, inspiring hope, and urging action. She emphasises the powerful role of arts in conveying climate issues and finding joy in the pursuit of environmental solutions. Passionate about sustainable fashion and veganism, Dominique actively engages in activism and collaborations to drive change towards a more sustainable future.

Barbara Bulc is a social chemist and the founder of Global Development and the non-profit
collaboratory SDG Colab in Geneva, Switzerland. Her transdisciplinary practice focuses on
design and research of alternative social arrangements that prioritize wellbeing of people and
the planet over economic growth.
She worked for over two decades in leadership roles in global diplomacy, business, public
health, and international development in over 30 countries. She was Senior Advisor at the
Clinton Foundation, founding director of Global Business Coalition in Geneva, and CEO of
KRKA Pharmaceuticals in New York. Working within the mainstream system and seeing
widespread failures, led her to dedicate her current practice to reimagining values and
relationships, essential to shift the current social and economic paradigm.
She is co-author of book Activating Values in Urban Transitions (2023), about innovation based
on trust and care before growth, and recent op-ed in Financial Times, Why we need to prioritize
wellbeing over growth. Her publications about rethinking multi-stakeholder partnerships and
governance include The Urgency for Transforming Youth Engagement and A Roadmap for
Intergenerational Leadership in Planetary Health (The Lancet Planetary Health, 2020). Her
recent study Accelerating Global Health R&D, commissioned by the UK government, examined
novel approaches to investments and policies for equitable system-wide collaborations.
She studied chemistry and social sciences at Ljubljana University, business management at
Columbia University Business School in New York, leadership at Cambridge University Judge
Business School, systems thinking with Fritjof Capra and deep ecology with Joanna Macy. She is
a student of mindfulness in a variety of Buddhist and other wisdom traditions. She has practiced
with John Kabat Zinn, Gyetrul Jigme Rinpoche and Roshi Joan Halifax, and sees embodied
awareness as key to our personal and collective transformation.

Jonathon Porritt is an eminent writer and campaigner on sustainable development. For the last 30 years, Jonathon has provided strategic advice to leading UK and international companies to deepen their understanding of today’s converging environmental and climate crises. He is also focused on intergenerational justice, supporting young people in their activities around sustainable development issues as they face a future defined by the twin crises of the Climate Emergency and Biodiversity Emergency. He is President of The Conservation Volunteers and is involved in the work of many other NGOs and groups. In 1996, he co-founded Forum for the Future, a leading international sustainable development charity, working with business and civil society to accelerate the shift toward a sustainable future.

Jonathon was formerly Co-Chair of the Green Party (1980-83) and Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90). He stood down as Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in 2009, after nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers, and served a ten-year term as Chancellor of Keele University (2012-2022). Jonathon was awarded a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection. His latest book, Hope in Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020, revised 2021) is a powerful ‘call to action’ on the Climate Emergency.

Richard Dunne is the Founder and Director of The Harmony Project (https://www.theharmonyproject....), an education charity dedicated to working with schools and educators worldwide. The project aims to revolutionize learning by integrating principles of harmony inspired by His Majesty King Charles III's book 'Harmony, a new way of looking at our world'. The essence of the Harmony approach lies in embracing sustainability by incorporating principles derived from nature into the learning process.

The educational model at Harmony emphasizes project-based learning, transcending traditional classroom boundaries. Each learning enquiry is rooted in a principle of Harmony found in nature, including Interdependence, the Cycle, Diversity, Adaptation, Health, and Oneness. Understanding these principles equips learners with the knowledge to live sustainably, addressing the critical issues facing our planet today.

Richard Dunne honed and implemented this educational approach during his tenure as the Headteacher of an Ofsted graded Outstanding School. Presently, he shares this impactful methodology with the global education community through presentations, workshops, and support programs. He has also authored a comprehensive teachers' guide, enabling educators to integrate Harmony principles and practices into their respective educational environments. This guide is being recognized as a blueprint for Education for Sustainability by the Department of Education in England and is instrumental in shaping case studies for the new Curriculum for Wales. Moreover, the guide is available in nine languages, reflecting its international relevance and impact.

Zena Creed oversees communications for Paul Polman, the former CEO of Unilever turned global advocate for sustainable business. She previously worked out of Downing Street as Chief Speechwriter to the then-UK Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, and in Strasbourg as a senior adviser to Europe’s top human rights official. She has also lead communications for the Russell Group of universities. She’s a mother, a campaigner and hopes one day to write a semi-decent novel.