Meet the DEAL Community

Amsterdam

I studied urban management and development with a specialization in Economics and a master's degree in Urban Management, Sustainability, and Climate Change.  I possess a holistic approach that enables me to analyze, develop, and address challenges in a unique manner. With seven years of experience in diverse fields spanning the private and public sectors, I have gained a comprehensive perspective. Throughout my career, I have worked on various topics, including sustainable mobility, socio-economic and financial assessment, risk assessment, project evaluation, research, urban planning, and sustainability from different stakeholder viewpoints. This breadth of experience equips me with a well-rounded approach to tackling challenges, problems, and projects. Two years ago, I made the decision to pursue my dream of acquiring further knowledge in the field of sustainability. This led me to choose the Netherlands as the destination for my master's studies. Embarking on this path required a considerable leap in my professional journey, and while it was not an easy decision to start anew, my dedication to contributing to the creation of a more sustainable world remains unwavering.  Upon learning about the DEAL community and the specific role it offers, I was immediately captivated by the prospect of bridging the gap between theory and practice. Recognizing the significance of collaboration with key stakeholders, including businesses, cities, academia, and citizens. I consider that it is imperative that we take actionable steps to reduce adverse impacts on the environment and cultivate awareness of the planet's limits. This awareness is crucial for informing decision-making processes on a global scale, all from a sustainability perspective.             

Edinburgh

Founder of Impact Investment Symposium- Impact investment (napier.ac.uk) Wendy Wu (napier.ac.uk) Wendy Wu - Bright Red Triangle 

London

Diba Salam is the Founder and Creative Director of StudioDS, a dynamic London based architectural studio with bureaus in Dubai and Bangkok. As signatories to the UN ‘Race to Zero’ campaign, StudioDS core values are routed in promoting UN SDGs through designing efficient, adaptive, and effective communities.  Diba is an active voice in promoting sustainable innovation and diversity in the built environment through her curent and past roles as UK Built Environment Ambassador for COP 26, Woman in Construction Ambassador, RIBA’s International Committee member and UK Export Champion with the Department of International Trade. 

Paris

Hello :) I’m Stella, an Italian student currently studying in Paris at Paris School of Economics!  My master’s is in applied economics and my main interests are development economics and inequality studies. During my bachelor degree I was involved with the university group of Rethinking Economics and since then I have always been fascinated by heterodox theories of economics and been studying them. I am transfeminist, anticapitalist and meat-free 🌱

Auroville

Understanding money and the role it plays in our lives has been an interesting area of self-discovery for me since my childhood. When I was 6yrs old, my mom used to give me 1 Rupee everyday for buying sugar candies on my way back home from my school. I realised that while I had that money to buy 5 candies every day costing 20 paise each, not all my friends were able to afford it every day.  Understanding why mom was able to give me that 1 Rupee, why she will only give it for me and not for my friends every day, why their moms were not give the same money everyday to them, learning to exhibit the appropriate behaviour and trying to be sensitive to the limitations of my friends were some of the early life lessons that I had in my life. As I grew, my interest in life spanned over   and I see running a business is a highly meaningful and a responsible job in a society.

Berlin, Germany

I studied Government and Philosophy at Harvard, management at Stanford, and international relations at Johns Hopkins.  I then worked as a consultant at McKinsey and BCG, then at a variety of marketing, finance and corporate development jobs at Apple, and finally as CEO of a couple of startups.  I then taught IB History, Global Politics, and TOK for 20 years at a Quaker school.  All these perspectives concurred in helping me see the radical insufficiencies of economics as it is usually taught in high school and college.  My work focus now is on helping young people tackle the monumental challenges posed by climate change and other aspects of the polycrisis, and it’s clear to me that the stunted lessons so many of them take away from their academic encounters with economics is a major impediment to their success. 

Arvada, Colorado

I'm taking a Permaculture course, Kate and Doughnut Economics were mentioned in the social permaculture section. I am in the process of creating a food garden on my city property.   My values align with both permaculture and doughnut economics.  I am embracing my values and searching for a different way of living on this earth. I am excited to learning more from Doughnut Economics. 

Santo Antônio da Patrulha RS Brasil

Coordenadora Pedagógica @prefasap Mestre em Educação @unisinos Multiplicadora Mevis @portaliede @portalqedu Tutora Especialização em Alfabetização @furg_sap Quero desbravar o mundo e compreender as diferentes estruturas que nos permeiam, sendo uma verdadeira Trailblazer. Nasci para aprender e ensinar e acredito que tenho muito a contribuir.

Paris, France

Milan’s work is about design applied to the enterprise level. He is president of Intersection Group and a co-founder of Enterprise Design Associates, working with enterprises like Google, SAP, Toyota, ThoughtWorks, OECD and the UN, and scaling startups such as Back Market and Raisin. 12 years back, Milan launched a social software startup and designed a patented innovation for Boeing's flight decks. Today, he works with enterprises of all shapes and sizes to bring entrepreneurship to life: designing brands, products and organisations, operations and systems, to make enterprises deliver and useful to people. His first book Intersection introduces this Enterprise Design approach, and he is co-organising the Intersection conference series since 2014. He is co-author of the book Enterprise Design Patterns and key contributor to EDGY, an Open Source tool for co-creating better enterprises, adopted by organisations around the globe. Milan teaches design for innovation and transformation in master level and executive education programs at Télécom Paris and Sciences Po Paris. He is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop facilitator at international events on Enterprise Design and Architecture.

Oxford

I am tired of doing business as usual when we have known for decades that it is wrong… I want to be part of the action and do my bit.   

London

Scotland

I am a socially-engaged artist, creative producer, speaker and workshop facilitator who's work is focused on Creative Placemaking - an approach to using creative action to catalyse community-led change and imagine new futures for the places we live.  I work at regional, national and international levels to build collaborative working relationships and develop frameworks that support creative grassroots approaches to have long-term impact for communities. I have been working as part of the core team at The Stove Network in Dumfries, southwest Scotland, since 2015 and am now Director of the What We Do Now creative placemaking network for Dumfries and Galloway. The Stove is an arts and community organisation. We are a successful social enterprise, the first artist-led development trust in the UK and SURF award winner for Creative Regeneration in 2016. We use arts practice to facilitate community-led development, projects and decision-making grown from a foundation in community engagement.  Originally focused on High Street regeneration in Dumfries The Stove is now working regionally across places in Dumfries and Galloway through the What We Do Now creative placemaking network. What We Do Now supports the use of arts practice and creativity to instigate public action and grow community-led initiatives as a catalyst for development and influence local, regional and national policies.

Christchurch, New Zealand

Born and bred in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, Samuel is an agribusiness professional, a public sector consultant and an agri-food systems researcher.  As an agribusiness professional, was engaged in multiple research and business projects at levels of the agri-food sector in Ethiopia.  The most impactful among these include AgricaJice Tibila, a passionfruit juice export company. He was responsible for leading projects developing the nucleus as well as the outgrower farms supplying the fruit. As a consultant, he contributed to multiple impactful social and public sector projects across Africa. Working in numerous production and distribution companies in Christchurch, he acquainted himself with New Zealand's food and beverage sector. He is currently completing his PhD in agribusiness, focused on improving the performances of Agricultural value chains using the system dynamics methodology. His demonstrated ability to thrive on multiple pioneering challenges avails his analytical, modelling, consulting and managerial skills to challenges ahead. Regarded as a value-driven professional, he is a leader with deep, dynamic, and systems thinking. He is in line with DEAL's advocacy for reforming economics and orienting it towards systems thinking. I envision learning from and collaborating with the LEAD community.     

Vashon (near Seattle), Washington

I am a data engineer, analyst, and project manager passionate about working as part of a compassionate team to create a regenerative, equitable future for all. I care deeply about being part of a team that values diversity in all forms, empowers everyone to be a leader, holds compassionate spaces that allow everyone to do their best work, and works to improve social and environmental well being. I have an expertise in using data to support informed decision making, from fisheries management to financial technology. Using tools including SQL, Python, R, and AWS, I develop and manage data pipelines, analyze data to find key results, and build visual data dashboards that enable others to make decisions on an ongoing basis.  

Lisbon, Portugal

I'm 29 years old, korean-american originally from seoul, south korea & atlanta, georgia, usa. I am passionate about workers rights, democratic decision making and governance (with a focus on the tech sector), and am currently pursuing a master's of science in Transition, Innovation, Sustainability Environments.

Camden, north London

I am a director of ThinkandDo, an environmental and social equality organisation based in Camden.  We devise and run projects in collaboration with Camden council and a range of businesses and charities.  We aim to promote a circular economy in our community which includes schools, tenants associations, businesses, and social enterprises. We are registered as a community interest company.

Cardiff, Wales, UK

Reader in Human Geography; Director of the MSc in Environment and Development, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University

Lebanon

Zoetermeer

I'm part of the international Plant Based Treaty campaign designed to put food systems at the forefront of combating the climate crisis. 

Southampton, UK

I am passionate about the potential of technology to help people to live good lives whilst regenerating nature. A versatile software engineer and data scientist with a strong academic background, I hold a PhD in environmental science and engineering, specialising in carbon accounting and life cycle assessment, bringing a wealth of domain expertise to my projects. Throughout my career, I have driven the development of innovative solutions to measure, model and optimise complex socio-environmental systems. As a data scientist, software engineer, and leader, I have worked on projects to optimise national infrastructure, model cities, simulate organic carbon dynamics in agricultural and urban settings, and calculate supply chain carbon footprints using IoT. I have also been fortunate enough to work with some fantastic teams developing innovative probabilistic modelling frameworks, simulation platforms, and SaaS products. Collaboration is central to my approach and my background enables me to work effectively with multidisciplinary teams combining technical excellence and academic rigour with a strong commitment to sustainability principles. My aim is to inspire confidence and passion for delivering projects with the potential to make a measurable and lasting impact.

London

I run a community and stakeholder consultancy called BUILD Networks for Good. I help organisations build global networks for systems change. I would like embed the work of DEAL into my consultancy and ensure that my organisation is aligned with my mission of creating real social and political change through relationship building.  Feel free to drop me a message if you would like to talk about community building and DE, always love connecting and talking about this!

Southampton

Head of Sustainability for conservation charity Marwell Wildlife. Passionate about sustainability and supporting business community to adopt sustainable and circular business models. Organise regular events in Southampton and Hampshire and online under the banners of Sustainable Business Network, IEMA, People Planet Pint and Green Drinks for local business to meet up, share experience and learn from each other. #sustainablebusiness   

Forest Gate, London

I have been working in schools for over 15 years as a teacher and whole school leader of curriculum development. I am interested in expansive curriculum design, especially concept-based learning that enables young people to understand complexity. Recently, I have worked as a project manager delivering transformative experiences disadvantaged for young people; a learning designer delivering a hybrid curriculum  based on the concepts of change-systems-sustainability and circularity and the skills of collaboration-communication-creativity-criticality; as a curriculum consultant supporting schools to be imaginative in the design of both whole school Curriculum and smaller scale curriculum.  My expertise in modern curriculum design that encourages deeper and liberated learning through; collaborative group learning, collaborative problem solving; project based learning; design thinking; academic rigour; mastery learning; flipped learning and use of technology to enhance learning; community and authentic challenges; memory and long term retention of knowledge & skills; authentic assessment; pragmatic rehearsal of exam skills; metacognition; wider attributes and character; innovation in learning spaces.

Seattle, Washington USA

I am a semi-retired energy economist having worked for over 40 years in the practical implementation of projects and policy for energy efficiency and renewable energy including wind, solar (PV and thermal), biofuels, etc. from residential to utility scale.  Was engaged working with Danish RE experts for over 30 years, developed and installed residential and commercial wind and solar projects. I led the development of the first utility scale green pricing wind project in 1996, in Traverse City, Michigan.  In 2020 I published a short concept plan paper "Emerald City 100% Renewable Energy Plan" (using Doughnut Economics concepts) and recently "Accelerating 100% Renewable Energy Plans" with the American Solar Energy Society for this 2023 summer conference, "Transforming the Energy Landscape for All."   I recently moved to Seattle, Washington, from Michigan, where I continue to write and be active in fighting to abate the climate crisis.