María Teresa Kumar is a political and voting rights activist from Colombia, is dedicated to fostering inclusive political participation in the US. As co-founder of Voto Latino, she’s helped register over a quarter million young Latinx voters. She also co-founded National Voter Registration Day, the largest one-day voter registration effort. A media commentator, writer, and speaker, Kumar’s work has earned her numerous awards, including an Emmy nomination and recognition as one of Elle’s 10 Most Influential Women in Washington D.C.

Host of the Words to Win By podcast and Principal of ASO Communications, Anat Shenker-Osorio examines why certain messages falter where others deliver. She has led research for new messaging on issues ranging from freedom to join together in union to clean energy and from immigrant rights to reforming criminal justice. Anat’s original approach through priming experiments, task-based testing and online dial surveys has led to progressive electoral and policy victories across the globe.

Anat delivers her findings packed in snark at venues such as the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Centre for Australian Progress, Irish Migrant Centre, Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation and LUSH International.

Her writing and research is profiled in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Salon, The Guardian and Grist among others. She is the author of “Don’t Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense About the Economy”.

Chuck Collins is the Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits Inequality.org. He is an expert on U.S. inequality and the racial wealth divide and author of over ten books and dozens of reports about inequality, climate disruption, philanthropy, the racial wealth divide, affordable housing, and billionaire wealth dynasties.

U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley was born in the timber town of Myrtle Creek, Oregon. The son of a millwright, Jeff grew up in a working class neighborhood in Portland. To Jeff, America has always been about giving everyone a chance, no matter what they look like or where they come from. He has lived the American dream and has focused his whole career – both in elected office and running non-profits – on making sure that all Americans have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. From his first election, beating two former state representatives by jogging door to door with home-printed flyers , Jeff has always known that grassroots movements are the key to changing how government works and whom it works for. Our democracy is at its best when ordinary people have a seat at the table, and Jeff Merkley fights every day to make our government more accessible to the people it serves. 

Maurice is a nationally recognized social movement strategist, leader in the Movement for Black Lives, and community organizer for racial, social, and economic justice. Born to Caribbean working-class parents in New York, he began organizing as a teenager. At Howard University, he led efforts against police brutality and for divestment from private prisons. In 2018, Maurice became the National Director of the Working Families Party, where he is building a political home for a multi-racial working-class movement.

Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange and the author of 11 books, including Drone Warfare and War in Ukraine. Recognized as a leading advocate for social justice, she has been described as one of America’s most committed human rights fighters. A former UN and WHO economist, Medea has spent over 30 years promoting peace, fair trade, and human rights. She has led numerous delegations to conflict zones, organized anti-drone campaigns, and played a key role in exposing labor abuses by major corporations. Medea has received several peace awards and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Angela Lang, born and raised in Milwaukee, is a seasoned community organizer. She previously served as an organizer and State Council Director for the Service Employees International Union, working on campaigns like Fight for 15. Before becoming Executive Director of BLOC, Angela was the Political Director for For Our Future Wisconsin. A graduate of Emerge Wisconsin, she has been a featured trainer for Emerge’s Diversity Weekend since 2015. Angela is committed to creating transformative change in her community and developing young leaders of color.

Ben Manski is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Director of Next System Studies at George Mason University. Manski studies the participation of ordinary people in the deliberate constitution of their societies. His work takes in social movements, law, politics, climate and ecology, technology, and the corporation, focusing on democratization, constitutionalism, and climate transition, and he has published widely on these themes. He has a JD from the University of Wisconsin (2005), a PhD from the University of California Santa Barbara (2020), and is an Institute for Policy Studies Associate Fellow, Next System Project Research Fellow, and a Critical Realism Network Associated Fellow.

Joe Guinan is the President at The Democracy Collaborative. His focus is on political economy and economic system change, and he is co-author (with Martin O’Neill) of The Case for Community Wealth Building (Polity, 2020) and (with Christine Berry) of People Get Ready! Preparing for a Corbyn Government (O/R Books, 2019), which was named one of The Guardian’s best politics books of the year. A former journalist, he was previously a program director at the Aspen Institute, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a consultant to the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. Born in England with dual Irish and British citizenship, he grew up in British labor movement circles and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He was the executive director of the Next System Project at The Democracy Collaborative when it was launched in 2016. He writes regularly for an array of progressive outlets, is a frequently cited expert on the new economics in major news media, serves on several nonprofit boards, and is a commissioning editor of the journal Renewal. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Saru Jayaraman is the President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley. After 9/11, she co-founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), which grew into a national movement for restaurant workers. She also launched One Fair Wage, a campaign to end subminimum wages in the U.S. Saru is a Yale Law School and Harvard Kennedy School graduate, and has been recognized by the White House, CNN, and the James Beard Foundation. She is the author of four books, including One Fair Wage, and has appeared on major media outlets. In 2018, she attended the Golden Globes with Amy Poehler as part of the Times Up movement.