Who We Are

Jayne Engle has a background in insurgent city planning and philanthropic innovation and worked in diverse societal change--from transition in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, to post-disaster community change in Haiti and urban transformation across North America and Europe. Jayne is on the accountability circle of Arising Quo. Positionality: I’m a descendant of settlers from Europe and live on the island of Tiohtià:ke, also called Montreal, Canada, on unceded Indigenous homelands of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Nation. I’m deeply committed to a journey of learning and unlearning and of system transformations for the long term that are radically inclusive, decolonizing, and ennobling.

Panthea Lee is a writer, activist, and transdisciplinary designer and facilitator in service of life and liberation. She has built and supported coalitions of community leaders, artists, healers, activists, and institutions fighting for dignity in over 30 countries. Her practice is rooted in commitments to decolonization, collective healing, and global solidarity, and explores ways—through narratives, initiatives, infrastructure—to weave the spiritual and political in realizing structural justice. Panthea has held fellowships at Stanford University and Arizona State University. She is a board member at The Laundromat Project, RSA (Royal Society of Arts) US, and DemocracyNext. From 2010-23, she served as co-founder and Executive Director of the award-winning social justice organization Reboot. She has written for The Atlantic, In These Times, The Nation, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and more.

Romy researched and supported translocal anti-mining struggles, built and ran online and offline educational programs for social entrepreneurs globally, and did applied human factors research in the oil industry. She had never worked in philanthropy and her research had made her critical of NGOs that weren’t connected to grassroots movements – two major ingredients for setting up Guerrilla together with Toni and Ivan. Romy is the mother of an energetic toddler and, despite 20 years of yoga practice, still can’t sit in meditation. Too perfectionist and self conscious to ever develop an artistic practice, curating salads and composing meals from whatever is in the fridge is Romy’s way of making art. Born in East Berlin she experienced some of the positives of the GDR as well as the hard come-down into capitalism after the fall of the wall. Romy often daydreams about what a deeply democratic communism 2.0 might look like and what role non-religious forms of spirituality might play in this new system.

Sofia is a Mexican filmmaker, activist and social justice philanthropy professional who has been a passionate advocate for systemic change, Indigenous rights and new narratives. After working for many years in the film & advertising industry, Sofia spent over a decade in the philanthropic and social justice field, playing many roles, most recently as EDGE Funders Alliance’s Executive Director. A recipient of Open Society Foundation’s New Executive’s Fund grant, Sofia currently works as an independent consultant and serves on the boards of International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, Kindle Project and JASS (Just Associates). Sofia has been striving to effect social change by raising awareness about the values and perspectives rooted in ancestral traditions and by upholding and advancing a vision for a just and interconnected world.

Anasuya Sengupta is Co-Director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, a global multilingual campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalised communities (the minoritised majority of the world) online. She has led initiatives across the global South, and internationally for over 25 years, to collectively create feminist presents and futures of love, justice, and liberation. She is committed to unpacking issues of power, privilege, and access, including her own as an anti-caste savarna woman. She is a co-founder and advisor to Numun Fund (the first feminist tech fund for and from the Global South), the former Chief Grantmaking Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, and the former Regional Program Director at the Global Fund for Women. Anasuya is a 2017 Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and received a 2018 Internet and Society award from the Oxford Internet Institute. She is on the Scholars’ Council for UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, and the advisory committee for MIT’s Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship (CREOS). Anasuya has an honorary doctorate from the University of London, and holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She also has a BA in Economics (Honours) from Delhi University. When not rabble-rousing online, Anasuya makes and breaks pots and poems, takes long walks by the water and in the forest, and contorts herself into yoga poses.

Ruby Johnson is a feminist activist, practitioner, writer and strategist fiercely committed to redistributing resources and power to intersectional social justice movements, in particular working alongside young feminists. She brings 17+ years experience advancing gender justice and human rights with grassroots movements, organisations and foundations. Ruby is Co-Director of Closer Than You Think, an ideas studio and consultancy collective working at the intersection of activism, philanthropy and art, having produced work on feminist co-leadership, narrative change with garment workers and a feminist tarot. Ruby leads the Global Resilience Fund at Purposeful, a collaborative feminist fund resourcing young feminists responding to crises. Ruby also works as an Independent Consultant providing advice and accompaniment to organisations and funders on strategy, participation and funding. She was the Co-Executive Director of FRIDA during 2013-2019 and sits on the Board of Women Fund Asia, (Australia), is an advisor to Gender and Adolescence Global Evidence (GAGE) and part of Comic Relief's Strategic Investment Committee.

Stephanie is a financial activist and practitioner seeking to mobilise private capital in service of a just economy. She practised as a private wealth lawyer in the City of London for a decade, during which she gained an outstanding reputation in the private wealth industry and was named one of eprivateclient’s Top 35 Under 35 in 2020 and 2018.  After becoming deeply politicised around her role as an actor in the global economy, in September 2021 Stephanie launched the Good Ancestor Movement, a social purpose business which exists to disrupt the mainstream wealth advisory industry by challenging traditional ideas about the economy, excessive wealth accumulation and tax minimisation. Stephanie’s mission is to leverage the power of private capital around the world to help accelerate the just transition to a regenerative economy. Alongside her team at the Good Ancestor Movement, Stephanie supports wealth holders primarily based in the UK, Europe, and North America to transform their practices around wealth, tax, and redistribution. In recognition of her work, Stephanie was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2023 and as a fellow of the Just Economy Institute’s 2023-2024 cohort.