David Korten

President, Bainbridge Island, Washington. David is co-founder of YES! Media, president of the Living Economies Forum, a member of the Club of Rome, and the author of influential books, including When Corporations Rule the World and Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth. His work builds on lessons from the 21 years he and his wife, Fran, lived and worked in Africa, Asia, and Latin America on a quest to end global poverty. See more of David’s story here…

Puanani Burgess

Vice President, Waianae, Oahu, Hawaii. Puanani is a former board member of YES! Magazine and is a community building facilitator, trainer, and consultant in Hawai’i, the U.S., and the Pacific. She is also a poet, cultural translator and has been a lecturer with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning of the University of Hawai’i, a Weinberg Fellow, and the Myles and Zilphia Horton Chairholder for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee. She is noted for her experience in community, family, and values-based economic development, mediation and storytelling processes as part of conflict transformation, and in developing community-based organizations.

Roberto Vargas

Secretary, Ventura, California. Roberto is principle consultant for New World Associates and founder of the Provida Council. He has a Doctorate in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley and brings together indigenous wisdom and contemporary knowledge on leadership and organizational development to tailor consultations for organizations wanting to optimize their ability to serve community and improve the world. He is the author of Family Activism: Empowering Your Community, Beginning with Family and Friends

Frances Moore Lappé

Treasurer, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Frankie is the author or coauthor of twenty books, including the three-million copy Diet for a Small Planet. Her latest work is It’s Not Too Late! Crisis, Opportunity, and the Power of Hope.   In 2017 she coauthored with Adam Eichen, Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want focusing on the roots of the U.S. democracy crisis and how Americans are creatively responding to the challenge. Frances is co-founder of Oakland-based Food First and the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter Anna Lappé. The recipient of twenty honorary degrees, Frances has been a visiting scholar at MIT and U.C. Berkeley and in 1987 received the Right Livelihood Award, often called the “Alternative Nobel.”

Harry Pickens

Member, Louisville, Kentucky.  A pianist, composer, teacher and organizational consultant, Harry has worked as a classroom teacher on elementary, middle, high school and collegiate levels, as well as an organizational consultant, blending many interests and talents into a multi-faceted career devoted to teaching and sharing. As a jazz pianist, he has performed in 17 countries throughout Europe, the Americas and Japan, collaborating with many stellar names in the jazz world such as Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard and Milt Jackson of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Harry uses his music as an entry to his community activism. His current passion is developing a youth leadership program for his local school district that will use music and the arts to help kids become aware of what it means to be a leader and that real happiness is found in service.