Tarek Maassarani
Tarek Maassarani is a mission-driven attorney, program strategist, university professor, and project director with 20+ years leading federally funded initiatives across justice, equity, and climate resilience. He has litigated human rights cases, managed multi-agency partnerships, developed countless programs, published books and articles, and trained civil society and government agencies. As CEO of Sustainable Construction Solutions, he applies his legal and programmatic expertise to sustainable infrastructure, advancing fireproof, non-toxic, and low-carbon materials and methods aligned with resilience and decarbonization goals. Under his leadership, the company has delivered successful pilot projects and expanded public-private partnerships. Maassarani began his career providing civil legal services law at the federally-funded Neighborhood Legal Services Program, where he served as a Covington & Burling Westwood Fellow and later as a senior staff attorney. At NLSP’s Nani Helen Burroughs office, he represented underserved residents across housing, employment, public benefits, consumer protection, and discrimination cases, while also managing law student interns and supporting D.C. Bar legal clinics and Spanish-speaking workers’ rights seminars. He then served for over a decade as a consultant and trainer for the U.S. Institute of Peace and director of the Salam Institute, in which capacities he managed five-to-six figure USAID and State Department-funded civic engagement and peacebuilding programs across Africa, Afghanistan, and domestic military bases. He facilitated training for educators, nonprofits, African peacekeeping forces, U.S. Army units, and foreign service officers, and co-authored curricula on religious peacebuilding, conflict resolution, trauma resilience, and nonviolent action. As co-founder and technical lead of Restorative DC, Maassarani designed and scaled a citywide restorative justice initiative across Washington, D.C., delivering technical assistance to over 40 schools, coordinating a diversion program for the Department of Human Services, and advising the Office of the Attorney General on the creation of a nationally recognized in-house restorative justice unit. He later co-directed Central Virginia Community Justice, where he launched a restorative diversion program in partnership with local prosecutors, expanded referral networks, and formalized regional implementation. More recently, he served as lead trainer for the U.S. State Department–funded #Influencers4Peace initiative, which engaged 150 social media leaders across Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Niger to promote social cohesion and counter violent extremism.
Danette Wilkins Marte
Danette Wilkins Marte (they/them, elle, elu) is an expansive strategist, intuitive facilitator, and liberatory changemaker with over 20 years of experience providing strategic, technical, programmatic, and operational support to diverse organizations and groups and implementing research, programming, and training across the globe (primarily Central America, North America, South America, and Southern Africa). Prior to consulting, Danette worked with U.S. government agencies (U.S Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Peace Corps), consulting firms (Cultural Practice, Tetra Tech), international non-governmental organizations (Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs), and academic institutions (Emory University, Johns Hopkins University) addressing a wide range of health and development areas including agriculture and economic growth, democracy and governance, education, environment and natural resources, and health (e.g., animal disease preparedness and response, gender-based violence, mental health and psychosocial support, sexual and reproductive health). They also have demonstrated experience in gender mainstreaming and integration (e.g., men’s and boys’ engagement, women’s and girls’ empowerment), social and behavior change (e.g., entertainment education, gender transformative approaches, provider behavior change), and diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (e.g., gender equality, disability, and social inclusion, gender and sexuality diversity, and LGBTQI+ inclusion). Danette holds a bachelor of arts degree in Hispanic Studies and Government from the College of William and Mary, a graduate diploma in Gender and Development from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Ecuador, and a master of public health degree in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education from Emory University. Outside of formal schooling and training, they pursue informal learning through popular education and self-directed learning. As an Afrodiasporic child of immigrants and working-class people, Danette’s approach to facilitation values the wisdom of lived experience and centers humility, curiosity, empathy, authenticity, and respect.
Eric Tolson
Eric Tolson currently resides in Mexico City, where he is originally from. Whilst studying high school in the United States, he became engaged in social movements, particularly with the cooperative movement and with alternative economies more broadly. Ever since, he has been dedicated to the construction, connection, and strengthening of self-managed organizations as a life project and as a political venture. He then encountered sociocracy, which became his main focus for almost 4 years. He later received a bachelor’s degree in Social-environmental projects and entrepreneurship from the University of the Environment (UMA) in Valle de Bravo. He likes to think that the success of our species relies on good teamwork, and therefore aspires to get to know, practice, and spread the best praxis for collaboration. A good friend of paradoxes, Eric identifies as a Professional Anarchist. Some of his main interests are: popular pedagogies, gender, philosophy, systems thinking, creative storytelling and ultimate frisbee.
Elliot Corona
Elliot Corona. With over 15 years of experience supporting an industrial training ecosystem (Aramco), complemented by leadership development (QatarEnergy LNG) and leading virtual learning projects (U.S. Dept. of State), Elliot brings a unique combination of corporate and academic perspectives in developing competency-based learning solutions that address capability gaps and business goals. At Aramco, one hybrid learning project involved working with the Corporate Academy to co-design and implement a Sustainability Awareness Program targeting trainees – Aramco’s largest onboarding pipeline. As the lead designer, Elliot conducted a thorough needs analysis, co-developed the program’s learning framework with SMEs, and co-facilitated the pilot delivery. He subsequently trained 14 facilitators from seven training centers, enabling scalable implementation. Pre-COVID, he led the development of a behavioral change model for the “Quit & Win” smoking cessation program in collaboration with healthcare professionals, a smoke-free steering committee, and a dozen certified facilitators to consolidate data. In three years, these efforts resulted in 100 verified “quitters” kingdom wide. Across initiatives, Elliot has served as a bridge between learners, SMEs, facilitators, and operational stakeholders to ensure that development efforts tackle underlying performance needs rather than satisfying statistical requirements alone. More recently, Mr. Corona has broadened his talent development expertise as a Virtual Educator supporting four U.S. Department of State projects in Bangladesh. Designing integrated modules in job readiness and academic profile-building skills, Elliot scaled a synchronous VILT program from one to five in-person learning hubs. He engaged over 100 participants per cohort by linking EdTech, competency frameworks, centralized reporting, and partnerships with local support systems. In parallel, Elliot facilitated in-person workshops for QatarEnergy LNG via a regional training provider, challenging employees to apply leadership skills in emotional intelligence, creativity, time management, and technical writing in task-based simulations. Outcomes were evaluated through qualitative performance observations, L1 evaluations, and pre/post measures designed to identify competency gains and knowledge gaps using standardized methods. Elliot’s professional experience is backed by a master’s in management from Harvard University with an emphasis in organizational performance, coupled with certificates in L&D and project management. In short, Elliot is a versatile trainer who is ready to contribute to the co-design and development of learning solutions with evolving needs. He welcomes a discussion on how “we” could make a meaningful impact.
Birgit Hermann
Birgit Hermann is a social impact professional who has navigated international landscapes, leading organizations and teams through complex challenges and transformations. She is a senior leader and former country director with over 20 years of experience spanning 20+ countries, bringing a unique blend of strategic insight, cultural fluency, and leadership acumen to every endeavor. Since 2015, her main base has been Timor-Leste. As an accredited leadership coach with both ICF and EMCC, she specializes in guiding individuals and teams towards their full potential, fostering leadership, and driving sustainable, inclusive change. Her expertise extends across three key areas: Recognized as a Global Peace Fellow (Rotary) and Positive Peace Activator (IEP), she is deeply passionate about empowering changemakers. Throughout her career, she has championed a locally-led, human-rights-based approach to development, working closely with community-led, non-government, government, and corporate organizations. She advocates for participatory approaches and collaborative leadership, fostering environments where everyone can contribute their unique strengths towards a common goal.
Jordan Namerow
Melinda Varfi
Kari Kwinn
With a background in event management and production, Kari Kwinn works with expert level virtual facilitators to gracefully support the technical infrastructure and hold the container of their work. Drawing on the canon of work called Liberating Structures and the possibilities created by Zoom and other synchronous work platforms, Kari bridges the gap between facilitation and management allowing for seamless technical integrations that support human connection. A consummate student, Kari studied Neuroscience and Anthropology at Colorado College, and received a Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Management from Regis University. A multilingual, diverse thinker, Kari enjoys innovation, capacity building, and the importance of shared legacy.
Jessica Brockmann
Jessica Brockmann considers the word as one of the main keys to change, growth, collaboration, relationships and any kind of pursuit. Language is the foundation of our day to day life, so how to use language, how to use the word in order to transform it again into something honest, authentic and powerful. Everything we do, everything we are in this world starts with the word, the inner one, creating our own realities. With an entrepreneurial background, Jessica Brockmann took over roles in Marketing and Sales, became a Startup Founder in Tourism and Energy Supply and worked as a Freelancer establishing Digital Architecture including organizational and structural changes within companies before she left her established life to find answers to life changing questions arising from an inner calling. Outgrown of an old story, she finds herself on a quest to remember what it means to be human. Rediscovering the word as one key aspect to create, to participate and to transform first ourselves, then the world surrounding us. She is an Artist, an Author and a Mirror for every human being, ready to face his or her own limiting narrative.
Stephan Dohrn
Stephan Dohrn is a change facilitator and remote work expert. He believes a better world is possible and loves creating processes and systems that transform people and organizations from the inside out. Stephan envisions a future of work, where we use technology to live empowered lives based on trust and kindness. He began his career managing and curating communities of practice inside international organizations on topics like poverty reduction, food security, natural resource management, and gender equality. In this role, he started experimenting with online tools to connect people and help them collaborate across time zones and organizational boundaries. In 2009, Stephan co-founded Radical Inclusion as one of the first consulting companies to offer remote team development when companies still thought that online collaboration was just another fad. His experience as a leader, consultant, and advisor is that in high-level complex scenarios, there are no instructions. Sustainable change is about understanding what holds us back from realizing our potential and engaging with those around us to co-create our emergent future. Originally from Germany, Stephan lives in Belo Horizonte, Brazil with his wife and 2 kids.