New Economics Institute


	Bob Massie	President Bob Massie is the President and CEO of the New Economics Institute. An ordained Episcopal minister, he received his B.A. from Princeton Unversity, M.A. from Yale Divinity School, and doctorate from Harvard Business School. From 1989 to 1996 he taught at Harvard Divinity School, where he served as the director of the Project on Business, Values, and the Economy. His 1998 book, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years, won the Lionel Gelber prize for the best book on international relations in the world. He was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1994 and a candidate for the United States Senate in 2011. During his career he has created or led three ground-breaking sustainability organizations, serving as the president of Ceres (the largest coalition of investors and environmental groups in the United States), the co-founder and first chair of the Global Reporting Initiative, and the initiator of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, which currently has over 100 members with combined assets of over $10 trillion. His autobiography, A Song in the Night: A Memoir of Resilience, has just been published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday.
	Emma Beals	Campus Network Organizer Emma’s New Economy journey began while she was completing her Environmental Studies/Sustainable Development major at Mount Holyoke College, and working as part of a research delegation tracking the evolution of the Green Economy concept and civil society engagement in the Rio+20 United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development. Emma’s first love, sustainable agriculture, was born through farming experiences during a gap year in the Kalinago Territory of Dominica, a semester abroad in Panama and Kuna Yala, and a summer in Rutland, MA working as an Education Volunteer at the Heifer International Learning Center. Along with her position at the New Economics Institute, Emma is working with author and food activist Frances Moore Lappé at the Small Planet Institute, and serving as the Youth Group Adviser at the Follen Unitarian Universalist Church. Emma began working as an intern at the New Economics Institute in September 2012, concentrating on research and logistics for the 32nd Annual E.F. Schumacher Lecture, as well as preparations for the launch of the Campus Network Initiative. She has learned that economics is a means of organizing society, and can, like any institution, be reshaped to align with human and environmental wellbeing within the global ecosystem. She is delighted to join the staff of NEI.
	Eli Feghali	Manager of Communications and Online Organizing Eli Feghali is the Manager of Communications and Online Organizing for the New Economics Institute. He is a Lebanese-American who has spent the majority of his professional life working as a communications specialist and community organizer. He has particular expertise in strategic communications, press relations, new media strategy, and web design. During his undergraduate career at Vanderbilt University, Eli founded a student activist organization dedicated to addressing economic inequality, beginning a lifelong commitment to community organizing. Having spent the majority of his life focused on issues of economic and social justice, Eli is deeply passionate about the efforts underway to build a New Economy that puts people over profits. He believes that effective communication is essential to broadening the movement to build a just and equitable economy that works for all people and the planet. Eli lives in Boston, MA, where he enjoys eating vegan food, walking his dog Rondo, and watching as many Boston Celtics games as humanly possible. Follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/efeghali.
	Shayna Gladstone	Online Mapping Intern Shayna Gladstone began her journey towards sustainability advocacy when she was seventeen. Selected as Greenpeace's Chicago representative to campaign for the Safe Climate Act in 2007, she protested on Capitol Hill and urged her State Representative to sign the bill. A love of music brought her to Chicago where she received her BA in Arts, Entertainment & Media Management. Shortly thereafter she co-produced and managed the press relations for major music festivals throughout Chicago such as the North Coast Music Festival. As a wearer of many hats, Shayna became an Admissions Advisor at DeVry University immediately following college but quickly realized her passion to pursue a more impactful career path. This led her to assist EcoVillages, where she worked as a free-lancer, work-trader and entrepreneur. From Chicago city slicker to California EcoVillage dweller, Shayna is motivated to build community by being an advocate for living sustainably. Her new path has led her to become an online community manager and writer for Shareable and Emerald Village, an educational-event coordinator, fire-performer, gardener, social-bee, founder of Ecotivity, and the Online Mapping Intern for the New Economy Institute. She strives to "Be the Change" through living and working alternatively. Shayna is a student of life, striving to progress her skills and always delving into ground-breaking, innovative practices towards a connected and unified planet. Twitter: @ShaynaGladstone
	Esteban Kelly	Development Director Esteban Kelly has been an important leader and creative force in food justice and co-op movements, where he has served on many boards including the Democracy at Work Institute, the US Solidarity Economy Network, and Mariposa Food Co-op where he also worked for over eight years on the co-management team. From 2009-2011, Mr. Kelly was the Vice President of the U.S. Federation of Worker Co-ops and is a previous Board President of NASCO (the North American Students of Cooperation) where he worked as the Director of Education from 2003–2005, and was a board member from 2005–2013. In recognition of “outstanding leadership,” Esteban was inducted into the NASCO Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2011, and was recently appointed to the boards of the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) and the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA). Due to his impassioned advocacy for food justice, Mr. Kelly was appointed to the Food Policy Advisory Council in the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. Esteban is also a dynamic educator and movement facilitator. He is a founder and core trainer with AORTA (the Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance), a worker co-op whose consulting supports organizations fighting for social justice and a solidarity economy. As an active community organizer in West Philadelphia, Esteban has volunteered since 2004 with the Philly Stands Up Collective to advance transformative justice through dedicated work in sexual assault situations. Esteban lives in the LCA community land trust, with his partner, and their very young daughter. Esteban earned a Masters degree in Anthropology from the City University of New York, and received a B.S. from UC Berkeley. Mr.Kelly has taught Anthropology at Hunter College, and is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center.
	René Pérez	Online Communications Intern Rene Perez is the Online Communications Intern for the New Economics Institute. Born into a family that works in the media industry, he's been in newsrooms, sound stages, and recording studios his entire life. He is very concerned with the degrading state of media narrative and how it enables and perpetuates crony capitalism. He first became politicized during the anti-war movement in 2003. He later studied at the North Bennet Street School for Piano Technology just before becoming deeply involved with the Occupy Boston Accounting, Tech, Media, and Logistics working groups. He's thrilled to be working for the New Economics Institute where he can continue to use the skills he acquired with an organization he believes can change the world. Rene is a Chicano from Texas but loves the weather, history, and architecture of Boston. You can find him getting a burger in Dudley Square or a local craft beer in Jamaica Plain but he's usually on the internet because he is "from the internet."
	Rachel Plattus	Manager of Organizing and Development Rachel Plattus is Manager of Organizing and Development at the New Economics Institute. She coordinates the Campus Network program and works to build community and funder engagement in the New Economy Movement. Rachel comes to NEI with extensive experience in community organizing, electoral politics, local government, and mass movement activism. Since moving to Boston in 2010, she has worked as a Health Equity Scholar at the Center for Community Health and Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as an organizer for Occupy Boston, where she was involved in helping to craft and disseminate media, facilitating General Assemblies, mediating and resolving conflict, and engaging in other community organizing and movement-building work. Rachel continues to engage in climate and economic justice activism in the Boston area with her affinity group and hopes that today’s social movements will become places where lots of people want to bring their friends. Through collaboration, movement building, and popular education, she hopes to inspire communities to embrace and protect what is left of our planet and to build resilience in the face of environmental and economic transformation. Her interests include dancing, the ocean (and particularly the herons and whales that live there), disaster preparedness and collaborative resilience, and social movements and populareducation as levers for environmental, social, and economic justice.
	Filippo Ravalico	Operations Filippo Ravalico has directed his energy to the sustainable agriculture space since 2010. He worked with nonprofit organizations like The Carrot Project and the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association as well as with community leaders and entrepreneurs to expand access to capital for small-scale farms and food businesses across New England, New York, and Ohio. He is an engaged member of the Slow Money Alliance and has extensive expertise in financial regulation. Before relocating to the United States in 2009, Filippo was a business lawyer in Milan and Rome, Italy, specializing in securities and investment regulation. He earned his LL.M. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University), focusing on climate change and environmental policy. Back in school, he was abruptly awakened to our ecological predicament and found vital inspiration in the work and legacy of the E.F. Schumacher Society. Filippo is truly honored to join the whole team at the New Economics Institute, and he believes we can get much closer to a sustainable world.
	Mike Sandmel	Campus Network Organizer Mike Sandmel is the Campus Network Organizer for the New Economics Institute. Having recently completed a course of study involving far too many outdated economic ideas and multiple choice tests, Mike is thrilled to be working with students to advance new economic theory, grow restorative and democratic enterprises, and transform their schools into anchor institutions for the New Economy. Mike graduated magna cum laude from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study with an interdisciplinary BA in ecology and economics. He founded and managed the NYU Bike Share, the first ever bike sharing program in New York City. He was a 2011 Morris K. Udall Scholar, an exchange student in political economy and economic history at Stockholm University, and authored an honors thesis entitled "Populism In The Anthropocene: A Study of Climate Change Politics at Occupy Wall Street." He is currently serving as Media Relations Coordinator for SustainUS, a youth-run NGO which advocates for sustainable development and the new economy at the UN level. Mike's writing has appeared in Grist, Common Dreams, Waging Nonviolence, Nation Of Change, N+1 Occupy Gazette, and Alternet as well as Andrew Revkin's "Dot Earth" blog for the New York Times.
	Cheyenna Weber	Director of Coalition Organizing and Campaigns Cheyenna Weber is an economic justice organizer and writer working to develop the solidarity economy in New York City. Originally from West Virginia, Cheyenna began organizing against mountaintop removal mining in high school and became active in global labor struggles in college. She views organizing as an act of love in direct response to oppression. Her work on the solidarity economy grew out of her recognition that without an awareness of shared responsibility for our interconnectedness we are unable to address the myriad forms of injustice, oppression, and destruction currently dominating our economic activities. Through SolidarityNYC, a solidarity economy advocacy collective she co-founded, Cheyenna supports values-led grassroots economic development in the 5 boroughs. She supported similar efforts nationally as the Interim Director of the New Economy Network, and continues that work with the New Economics Institute. Cheyenna is also active in GEO (Grassroots Economic Organizing) Collective, a media collective focused on promoting worker ownership and the solidarity economy, the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, Brooklyn Food Coalition, and the Occupy Wall Street Worker Co-operative working group. A former national organizer for the Responsible Endowments Coalition, she also mentors student and youth leaders interested in economic justice and develops resources for burnout prevention and sustainable anticapitalist activism. She has contributed to Kosmos magazine, A Guidebook of Alternative Nows, Organizing Upgrade, Shareable.com, West Virginia Gazette, and West Virginia Free Press. She is a co-producer of Portraits of a Solidarity Economy (2011.)