Leadership

Dov Baum, Ph.D., is the Director of Economic Activism with the American Friends Service Committee. For the last 15 years, she has supported investor and activist initiatives on state violence and studied the occupation, incarceration, surveillance, and security industries in Israel and in the U.S. Today she manages the Investigate project, a database and investment screening tool for activists and investors. Dov is a feminist scholar and activist with a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the co-founder of Who Profits from the Occupation and of The Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel.

You can learn more about Dov's work at Investigate, or donate, please click here.

Vanessa Roanhorse is the CEO of Roanhorse Consulting, an Indigenous-owned company that co-designs wealth and power-building efforts that put people back in the center.  Vanessa is a co-founder of Native Women Lead, a national organization that invests in Indigenous women in business. She sits on the boards of Delta Institute, and Zebras Unite and is an advisor to Decolonizing Wealth, Angels of Impact Fund, GenderSmart’s JEDI Working Group, and Social Venture Circle’s Restorative Investing Taskforce. She is a 2021 Paypal Maggie Lena Walker’s Emerging Leader Awardee and a 2020 Conscious Company Media’s World Changing Woman in Sustainable Business Awardee.  She is a 2021 Purpose Fund Building Fellow and a 2020 Boston Impact Initiative Fund-Building fellow. She is a citizen of the Navajo Nation.

You can learn more about Vanessa's work or donate to Native Women Lead, please click here.

Gopal has been involved in working for social, economic, environmental and racial justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, speaking and direct action since the late 1980’s. He is a co-founder of Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project, which inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture. MG is rooted in vibrant social movements led by low-income communities and communities of color committed to a Just Transition away from profit and pollution and towards healthy, resilient and life-affirming local economies. MG is a founding member of the Climate Justice Alliance. He has served on the staff-collective and is now a member of the Planning Committee and Board.

Currently, Gopal supports movement building through his work with organizations including The Climate Justice Alliance, ETCgroup, the Center for Story-based Strategy and People’s Solar Energy Fund. He is also a Fellow with the Center for Economic Democracy. Gopal teaches Ecological Systems Thinking in the Masters of Arts in Urban Sustainability program and Climate Justice and Environmental Justice in the undergraduate program at Antioch University in Los Angeles. Gopal also teaches Race, Activism and Climate Justice and Asian Americans and Environmental Justice at San Francisco State University in the Race and Resistance Studies and Asian American Studies Departments.

Gopal is a trainer with the The Ruckus Society and The Center for Story-based Strategy and is a member of Asians4Black Lives. Currently, he serves on the boards of The Working World, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center,  The People’s Solar Energy Fund and Cooperation Richmond. He has recently served on the boards of  The ETCgroup and The Center for Story-based Strategy. He is also on the advisory boards of the Catalyst Project and The Sustainable Economies Law Center. Gopal works at the intersection of ecology, economy and extractivism.

Gopal has been a campaigner for Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition on human rights and environmental justice in the high-tech industry and the Oil Campaigner for Project Underground, a human and environmental rights organization that supported communities resisting oil and mining exploitation around the world. He has been active in many people powered direct action movements, including the Global Justice/Anti-Globalization Movement, Direct Action to Stop the War, the Climate Justice movement, Take Back the Land, Occupy and as an ally with Black Lives Matter and Indigenous Sovereignty struggles.

Gopal was an elementary and early childhood educator, working formerly as a teacher and also as the co-director of the Tenderloin Childcare Center, a community based childcare center supporting children and families forced into homelessness. He has worked in teacher education and education organizing in the US and in India.

Most importantly, Gopal is the parent of two amazing rabble-rouser. He lives in Huichin/Oakland in an intentional, multi-generational social justice community of nine adults, and a squabble of youth.

You can learn more about ETC or donate, please visit our TEAM page!

Marcuz James is a 27 Year old Singer, actor, and chef. He is also a behind the scenes lgbtqia+ advocate, human rights activist and supporter. He was born In Philadelphia, PA and raised in Fort Myers, Florida. He is the proud company owner of Palate Marcú: International Kitchen, which provides luxury private chef services, which is well known for its city wide appearances supporting & vending at community events including his debut at the 2019 Pennsylvania Trans Health Conference. He has served on the Gender Justice Fund committee helping black & trans led organizations get the funding they need to continue supporting community. He also has been a pioneer in bridging the gap between black trans chefs and the culinary industry for 7 years.

You can learn more about Marcuz and find his new single on his Instagram page @Chef_marcu.

Kate R. Finn is Executive Director of First Peoples Worldwide, which builds corporate accountability to the rights of Indigenous Peoples at the intersection of law, finance, and business. Ms. Finn’s areas of focus and research expertise include Indigenous Peoples law and policy, federal Indian law, preventing violence against women, sustainable finance, and business and human rights. Her recent work focuses on articulating the impacts of development in Indigenous communities as business and financial risks to forecast the materiality and opportunity of embedding respect for Indigenous Peoples into routine business operations. She has authored or co-authored several articles and publications, including Harnessing Private Equity for Indigenous Peoples, The Business Case for Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Rights as a Central Value in Investing in Net Zero, and Social Cost and Material Loss: The Dakota Access Pipeline. Ms. Finn holds a J.D. and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Colorado, and a B.A. from Princeton University. She serves on the boards of First Nations Community Financial, Unified Solutions Tribal Community Development Group, Cultural Survival, and on the Stewardship Circle of Adasina Social Capital. Ms. Finn is an enrolled citizen of the Osage Nation.

You can learn more about First Peoples Worldwide and donate on our TEAM page.

Ron has dedicated his career to advancing social change through the power of philanthropy, and prioritizes equity and inclusion in all aspects of his work. Throughout the last two decades, he’s raised awareness and developed revenue for organizations working on the frontlines of achieving social and racial justice.

Ron is a seasoned fundraising professional with experience building and overseeing all aspects of fundraising including corporate and foundation support as well as major gifts and planned giving. Currently, Ron is leading fundraising efforts at organizations that center protecting Black lives and celebrating cultures including "The Movement For Black Lives". Previously, Ron was Managing Director of Development at the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute and also served as Director of Major Gifts and Corporate Relations for The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR). Prior to LCCHR, he served in a number of key roles at Planned Parenthood, including as Chief Development Officer for Planned Parenthood Southeast.

An alum of Oberlin College and former NCAA basketball player, Ron is based in Washington D.C. and resides in Chevy Chase, MD.

To learn more about Ron's work at Movement For Black Lives, or to donate, please click here.

Curator @ Full Spectrum Labs, Partner @ Spectrum Capital Partners, Founder @  Movement Strategy Center

Taj James is a father, poet, practitioner, strategist, designer, and philanthropic and capital advisor. Curator at Full Spectrum Labs and Principal and Cofounder at Full Spectrum Capital Partners. Taj is also the Founder and former Director of the Movement Strategy Center. He is an official dance instructor at the intersection of wild possibility and urgent practicality, where play and unleashed potential find each other.

Taj thrives building community around the shared questions that matter most in our lives: how can we build the relationships and express the love needed to transform our world?  How do we support leaders and communities to unlock potential and possibility, see the ecosystem and the whole, and design and act in ways that bend the long arc of history towards justice?

Working with transformational leaders, small teams, networks and anchor institutions, Taj enjoys exploring what it means to nurture the community we have and create the community we need. What are our sacred responsibilities as stewards of land, capital, energy and life to past generations and our children’s grandchildren?

By living into these questions together, Taj works to create space and fertile ground for seeds to be planted and nurtured, for fruit to be harvested and for us to thrive in the web of our watersheds and relational ecosystems.

Taj lives with his family as a guest on unceded Ohlone land, known by many as Oakanda (Oakland) California. He is a proud trickster, undercover mystic, aspiring Ho-Tei, long time Zen practitioner, and a son of a Baptist minister and a keeper of the Sacred Feminine.

To learn more about Taj's work at Movement Strategy Center, please click here.