The DEAL Team & DEAL's Advisory Team

Andrew leads DEAL's work on applied research, data analysis and iteratively improving our methodologies, especially for making the concepts of Doughnut Economics visible from a data-led perspective.

His research in ecological economics has been published in leading journals, such as Nature Sustainability and The Lancet Planetary Health. He led the development of a National Doughnuts Data Explorer where people can explore the results of a major study that quantifies the sustainability of national resource use associated with meeting human needs in more than 150 countries (URL: https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk).

He is also a Visiting Research Fellow in the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, and holds a Masters in Development Economics from Dalhousie University (Canada) and a PhD from the University of Cadiz (Spain). 

Carlota Sanz leads the development of DEAL's emerging strategy. She combines her corporate experience with her passion for regenerative economics to design DEAL in a way that is future-fit. She also leads the early days of DEAL's work with Business and Enterprise.
   
Carlota was co-director of Economy for the Common Good UK and continues to be a member of ECG's Knowledge Hub, which continually refines ECG's standards for business accreditation and transformation. For over 10 years, she worked as a management consultant in the financial sector in Spain , for KPMG, Deloitte, Santander and Metro Bank, based in Spain and the UK.
  
She studied Business and Economics at Carlos III University in Madrid and she has studied grass-roots business transformation, and narratives of new economics, at Schumacher College. 

Erinch leads DEAL’s work on business and enterprise. For over 10 years, he has focused on the transformation of the business world to make sure it is regenerative and distributive by design – exploring governance and ownership models that embed social and ecological priorities.

Erinch’s background spans business, government, social enterprise and NGOs. Most recently, he was the chief executive of the World Fair Trade Organization, a global network and verifier of social enterprises and cooperatives that practice Fair Trade. Previously, he spent 7 years at Oxfam leading campaign and advocacy initiatives, and founding Oxfam’s Future of Business Initiative. He has also worked at Procter & Gamble as a market strategy manager, established a furniture business and worked for Australia's aid programme.

Erinch speaks and writes regularly on cooperatives, social enterprises and other enterprise alternatives to profit primacy. He has lectured extensively on sustainable business and holds degrees in finance and law, and an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University. 

Karn leads the design, development and management of DEAL's website and Community Platform.
 
Their professional background is in game development as a programmer, collaborating across many different disciplines to help deliver projects at various scales. They're interested in using play to help people explore important and complex topics.
 
They're also a freelance writer covering the games industry, technology and climate change. They've been involved in the fossil fuel divestment movement as a campaigner, combining the need for climate action with tangible steps towards a more regenerative economic system.
 
Karn also helped found the game workers branch of the IWGB - the UK's first trade union dedicated to empowering and improving the rights of workers in the games industry.

Laura co-leads operations at DEAL, with a particular focus on our people and culture. She’s passionate about creating, experimenting and innovating on the question of how a growing, regenerative and distributive 21st century organisation could operate in a way which supports a thriving team. 

Prior to this, she has had significant experience within operations over the last 15 years including Head of Operations at 38 Degrees, and DataKind UK.

Lia co-leads operations at DEAL, specialising in finance and systems. She is also a business mentor and the Founder of Get Comfy With Money, where she supports entrepreneurs to thrive doing what they love.

Her background spans finance, operations, project management, creative industries and coaching. Lia has an experimental and people-centred approach to implementing new efficiencies and tweaking existing processes. She likes to spring into action and is very passionate about being challenged in how we can better improve our relationship with our local community and reduce our global footprint.

For the future, Lia hopes to see more openness and collaboration in the business world, with more emergent ways of working becoming the norm. She is committed to being anti-racist and is an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, championing accessible, diverse and inclusive practices - such as job sharing and less barriers to hiring.

Ruurd is a systems thinker/doer, designer and a social entrepreneur, with many years in digital design, marketing, innovation and strategy. He is co-founder and strategist of Groundforce Studio, partner in the development of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab website . Ruurd is co-founder and former chair of the Amsterdam Donut Coalitie, co-founder and board member of Climate Cleanup, and a former Research Fellow at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science – where he also led the sustainability program Re-set. Currently, Ruurd is mainly active as a designer for DEAL and as a lecturer for the School for Change and the Bio Leadership Fellowship. Ruurd’s favourite motto is from Charles Eames: ‘eventually everything connects’.

Risalat is an activist and intrapreneur addressing the climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, and other existential challenges. He is a senior campaigner for the global civic movement Avaaz that helped spearhead the largest global climate marches before the Paris Agreement, spanning over 2,000 cities. Risalat also consults with mission-driven organizations on building effective and loving team cultures. 

Risalat has expressed his voice on sustainability issues by writing for Dhaka Tribune and the World Economic Forum's Agenda, and speaking on panels and interviews at Davos, CHOGM, and Columbia University. 

Immy is Co-Founder and Director at CIVIC SQUARE. She is passionate about building fairer, more equal and just cities. She is a bold and ambitious activist focused on creating large scale systemic change with citizens at the heart of the work, bridging the space between complex systems science and bold experimental practice in the heart of the city. Immy was Co-Founder of Impact Hub Birmingham, she is a member of Project 00, [zero zero] and of Dark Matter Laboratories. She was also licensee, curator and producer of TEDxBrum between 2012 - 2017.