the group

Hildreth England is a designer from Texas who’s spent the last fifteen years creating tools and environments that build up belonging in diverse communities. She uses an intersectional and values-sensitive approach to stitch theory and practice together into new patterns of organizational behavior, inclusive processes, and innovative products. She’s led complex systems change efforts and design research in food and agriculture, ethics & technology, higher education, sustainability, and public health. Her clients and idea partners include the MIT Media Lab, IDEO, Pentagram, Ferrero, Target, and Barilla. At MIT, her design research collaborators included the Harvard School of Public Health, New America, the James Beard Foundation, and the Culinary Institute of America. Hildreth has designed and evaluated client-centered products, services and systems with teams and communities at the USDA, the Centers for Disease Control, the State of Texas, and with the cities of Austin and Boston. She’s the founder and director of a small inclusive design studio (HESTIA design lab), and her product designs have been included in the Triennale di Milano, the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, the Barbican, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. She's an award-winning performer and director with degrees in Foreign Service (Georgetown) and Nutrition (Texas State University), and was a 2015 Food Innovation Fellow at the Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia. She’s recently taken her Texas boots to live in Paris, where she gets to practice how to y’all with a French accent.

Eugene Yi is a product designer, creative storyteller, and policymaker in media & technology working across the corporate sector, non-profits, policy and academia. He is the Creative Development Lead at Kuku Studios working on developing animated feature films. Previously he was Director of Product at Hawkfish building tech infrastructure for the Democrats in the 2020 U.S. presidential cycle. Eugene served the Head of Asia Public Policy at Twitter for three years developing the company's hyperlocal and global corporate social responsibility mission. He was the Co-founder and President of Cortico, a non-profit in cooperation with the MIT Media Lab, aiming to foster constructive public conversation in communities and the media to improve our understanding of one another. Eugene has applied his digital expertise for a number of political campaigns and served in the U.S. Department of State at Embassy Beijing as a Political Officer covering Internet freedom and at the U.S. Department of Defense as a Country Director for China and Korea at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Policy. He received his AB and MPA from Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, and is pursuing a part-time DPhil at the Oxford Internet Institute.

Founder Mike Benz is a strategist, entrepreneur and enthusiastic dot-connector who focuses on building long-term relationships to achieve higher and more efficient outcomes on behalf of his clients. ​In 2016, Mike and his wife co-founded Ampersand Partners, an independent consultancy offering strategic, operational and marketing advisory services. With Ampersand, Mike has advised high net worth families as well as companies ranging from pre-operational ventures to established enterprises. ​Mike was a Strategist, Deputy Portfolio Manager, and Chief of Staff at Pine River Capital Management, a hedge fund in New York City and spent a number of years at Goldman Sachs in the Prime Brokerage and Securities divisions. He began his career at Spear, Leeds and Kellogg as a Market Maker in Chicago on the floor of the CBOE. Mike holds degrees in Communications and Economics from Northwestern University and an MPA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. A native of San Diego, CA, Mike lives in Alexandria, VA with his wife and daughter. He enjoys travel, running, reading, cooking, hiking and golf.

Founder Morgan Binswanger is a senior executive advisor, innovator, crisis manager, strategic team-builder and counselor in both for-profit and non-profit organizations. He has been in the C-Suite at some of the world’s most recognized brands and institutions where his creativity and collaborative skills built new operational models for growth. A trusted advisor to founders, Presidents, CEOs and boards through periods of expansion, upheaval and uncertainty, Morgan is adept at addressing issues and moving quickly to problem-solving. His belief in prioritizing actions, based on mission and values, lies at the core of his management style. His engagements include co-creating the CAA Foundation, senior executive roles at LIVESTRONG, Habitat for Humanity, the U.S. Department of Education during the Clinton Administration, as well as strategic and advisory roles at the MIT Media Lab and Harvard University. He brings a unique talent for seeing opportunity in the face of headwinds and mobilizing internal operations to adapt in emerging circumstances and driving successful outcomes. Morgan has lived and worked throughout the United States and in Japan, and received a BA in History from Bowdoin in Maine. He currently lives in Austin where he shares his love of music, rugby, comedy and film with his six-year-old son.

Founder Theo Ianuly has honed his skills navigating brand purpose and reputation with C-level executives globally. His track record of success relies on a collaboration-oriented and detail-focused approach to his work leading multi-disciplined teams and advising brands and nonprofit leadership on campaign development and execution. Theo’s work encompasses strategy with go-to-market playbooks in multi-platform and cross-platform campaigns, content and experience production, leverage of digital and social media platforms to effect change, cultivation of influencers to broaden campaign reach and operational performance. His global clients have included Patagonia, The Nature Conservancy, United Nations, Nokia, International AIDS Society, Vulcan, Starbucks, Nissan, University of Washington, Microsoft, SXSW and GiveBIG. Theo has developed and managed multi-year sponsorships and activation programs across EMEA, South America, North America and Asia, working with colleagues in multiple locations. A graduate of Miami University of Ohio, Theo lives in Seattle with his wife and son, where he enjoys film, music, surfing, skiing, running, tennis, cooking and sustainable purpose.

For over 10 years, Founder Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi has served as President & CEO of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a center dedicated to inquiry, dialogue, and education on the ethical and humane dimensions of life. The Center is a collaborative and nonpartisan think tank, and its programs emphasize responsibility and examine meaningfulness and moral purpose between individuals, organizations, and societies. Venerable Tenzin's unusual background encompasses entering a Buddhist monastery at the age of ten in his native India and receiving graduate education at Harvard University with degrees ranging from Philosophy to Physics to International Relations. He is a Tribeca Disruptive Fellow and was a 2018 Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Venerable Tenzin serves on the boards of numerous academic, humanitarian, and religious organizations including the Advisory Boards of Mastercard Foundation and MIT OpenLab; as a Project Advisor for Tsunami Safe(r) Houses in Sri Lanka; and as a Founding Member of IEEE Council for Extended Intelligence. He is the recipient of several recognitions and awards, and received Harvard’s Distinguished Alumni Honors for his visionary contributions to humanity.