Sudha Nandagopal

Chair of the Board

Sudha Nandagopal is a highly regarded organizer, facilitator, strategist, and movement builder focused on democratizing systems of power. Her career includes leadership roles in strategic communications, international organizing, program design, policy creation, and political campaigns. Through this work and her leadership in social, environmental, climate and racial justice organizations, Sudha has developed expertise in multi-sector stakeholder engagement, networks, collaborative problem solving, and building power with communities of color, immigrants, and refugees in the United States.

As Chief Executive Officer of Social Venture Partners International (SVPI), Sudha cultivates and expands a philanthropic network to catalyze more resources to communities around the globe, demonstrate ways for philanthropy to share power and wealth, and build stronger relationships between philanthropists and communities. Under Sudha’s leadership in response to the systemic crises magnified by the COVID 19 pandemic and the renewed global reckoning on racial justice, SVPI launched Reimagine Giving, to inspire donors to become system change advocates. Prior to joining SVP International, Sudha co-founded, in partnership with community leaders, and led the City of Seattle’s Equity & Environment Initiative.

Sudha is a published author and an expert consultant for foundations, local governments, and national environmental organizations. Grist Magazine recognized Sudha as one of their inaugural Grist 50 visionaries who will “lead us to a more sustainable future.” Puget Sound Business Journal recently recognized Sudha as one of the region’s 40 under 40 for her leadership in philanthropy and the social change sector. Sudha holds a degree in Biology and Society from Cornell University which informs her systems thinking and interdisciplinary approach.

Parin Shah

Director

Parin provides strategic advice and consulting to emerging renewable energy and environmental organizations, his specialty is working with communities of color and native communities.

He has worked on climate, environmental justice (EJ) and energy equity policy for over 20 years, most recently as Director of The Climate and Clean Energy Fund (The Fund) where he established their Policy Accelerator. The Accelerator supports organizations to advance policies that improve conditions for communities experiencing the causes and effects of climate change. Prior to The Fund, he was at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) leading their California focused environmental justice policy portfolio. At APEN, Parin led their equitable energy and climate justice policy agenda. His leadership led to the passage of California’s 33% (SB 350, de León) and 100% renewable (SB 100, de León) legislation. His favorite legislative win was a first in the nation legislation that put solar and storage on multifamily affordable housing (AB 693, Eggman).

Parin also helped launch Green For All, which gave birth to the green jobs movement in the US. He established their program working with mayors, cities and counties across the U.S. on workforce and green jobs with a focus on bringing about a “triple bottom” line – profit, planet and people. And in 2004, he founded the Urban Accords Institute, which in 2005 co-hosted the U.N. World Environment Day in San Francisco out of which was developed the Urban Environmental Accords – a road map for creating sustainable cities which was signed by the mayors of 67 of the 100 largest cities in the world.

From 2000-04, he served as the President of the Commission on the Environment for the City and County of San Francisco. He co-authored ground-breaking policies on climate change, environmental justice, wetlands conservation and restoration, zero waste, green buildings as well as food security. Parin began his environmental work developing habitat restoration projects, horticultural education and job-training programs for formerly incarcerated youth and adults in Southeast San Francisco. He began his ecological work as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia.

When he is not working on policy or watching/playing basketball at home in Oakland, Parin loves to connect with the Earth and garden or hike with his teenage daughter…if he can get her away from a glowing screen.

Danny Kennedy

Director

Danny Kennedy is the Chief Energy Officer for New Energy Nexus, an international organization that supports clean energy entrepreneurs with funds, accelerators and networks that operates programs in China, India, Southeast Asia, and East Africa. He worked at California Clean Energy Fund, and is the President of CalCharge, a public– private partnership in California. Prior to being an entrepreneur, he worked at Greenpeace and other NGOs on climate and energy issues for 20+ years. Danny is based in the United States of America.

Lorena González

Director

M. Lorena González is the Legislative Director at ACLU of Washington. In that role, she provides strategic counsel to a cross-departmental, integrated advocacy team on multiple, complex civil liberties and rights issues within local and state government in the areas of reproductive and gender-affirming health care, sentencing reform, conditions of incarceration, drug policy, youth policy, privacy and technology, policing, and health care access for immigrants.

Lorena is a nationally and locally recognized civil rights attorney and a former elected official with nearly 20 years of advocacy and organizing experience. In 2015 and 2017, Lorena was elected twice to serve as one of two citywide representatives and the first person of Latino/o/e descent on the Seattle City Council. As a civil rights attorney, she represented people who were victimized by those in positions of power, including the government. She represented workers in wage theft and anti-discrimination cases and victims of police misconduct.

Born and raised in Washington State’s lower Yakima Valley to a Spanish-speaking migrant farmworker family, Lorena earned her first paycheck at the age of 8, alongside her parents and five siblings. She relied on scholarships and worked three jobs to attend Yakima Valley College and later Washington State University. In 2002, she moved to Seattle to attend Seattle University Law School, where she graduated with honors in 2005. Since then, Lorena has worked with foundational immigrant rights organizations like OneAmerica, El Centro de la Raza and Latino Victory Project to protect our democracy and to champion the needs of women, children, and immigrant families in Washington State.

In her six years in public office, Lorena spearheaded legislation to ban conversion therapy, created secure scheduling for thousands of retail and restaurant workers, established a permanent $1 million legal defense fund for immigrants and refugees facing immigration proceedings, expanded Seattle universal pre-k programs for three- and four-year olds, permanently funded free community college for Seattle’s public school graduates, created sexual assault and workload protections and access to affordable health care for Seattle’s hotel workers, and passed meaningful police reform. During the pandemic, she focused on creating progressive revenue to fund Seattle’s equitable economic recovery, established hazard pay for essential workers, created tenant protections, funded rental assistance, and helped to significantly increase Seattle’s investments in affordable housing and homelessness prevention programs.

John Hepburn

Director

John is an activist and social entrepreneur with over twenty-five years experience running environmental campaigns. In 2017 he was an inaugural recipient of the Climate Breakthrough Award which was the catalyst for Sunrise scale its work globally. Prior to founding The Sunrise Project in 2012, John spent a decade leading campaigns with Greenpeace and previously worked on a wide variety of environmental campaigns at a grassroots level. He is the founder of several non-profit recycling businesses which led to him being awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2002. John holds degrees in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Business Management and before becoming an activist, worked for several years as an engineer making components for the oil, gas and coal industries.

Sam La Rocca

Director

Sam leads the Sunrise Project’s Australian Program. He brings over twenty-five years experience building people powered movements for a socially just and ecologically sane world. Sam holds a multidisciplinary degree in environmental science, and while completing his first class honours thesis on grassroots mobilisation, he co-founded activist education outfit The Change Agency to deliver social movement education, campaign strategy and organising training programs to community groups around Australia and internationally. He’s worked as a senior political advisor in federal parliament and led highly successful electoral campaigns. He has facilitated movement-wide processes for the Climate Action Network Australia and Friends of the Earth International’s Asia Pacific Region; and he has a strong interest in building powerful networks to catalyse system change.

Adreyauna Lewers

Recruiter

Adreyauna is a recruiting professional with 5+ years of experience as a business owner and career coach. She works with individuals, startups, and nonprofit organizations to amplify their authenticity and empower them to create equitable hiring practices that can be repeated in the future.

Adreyauna’s mission is to make sure that hiring is easier and gentler for the employer and the candidates!

She currently lives in Tennessee, USA where she enjoys trying new food spots, gardening, and spending quality time with her family.

Adwoa Agyeman

Global Grants Director

Adwoa (pronounced Aa-ju-wa) Agyeman is the Sunrise Project’s Global Grants Director. She has over two decades of experience in global philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and design and over the course of her career to date has been a co-founder, a grant maker, and a grant seeker. During her career in grantmaking she managed a combined portfolio of 650+ of domestic US and international grants totaling over $50 million, to scale and support efforts to advance human rights, gender equity, well-being, and economic inclusion. Her writing and thought leadership explores areas such as resource mobilization, the intersection of technology and the non profit ecosystem in Africa; and new possibilities for the creative economy in the global south, with an emphasis on local ingenuity and innovation, sustainable development, and gender equity. In addition, as a philanthropy professional, she has built strong local and global partnerships that integrate business, philanthropy, and community development, contributing to raising 5 million dollars in resources and 2 million dollars in pro-bono and in-kind support. With a forthcoming MBA from Bologna Business School, her international positionality gives her a culturally rich perspective on social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, design innovation, globalization, community, and the future.

Adwoa is a Ghanaian-American, raised on the South Pacific island of Papua New Guinea and has lived and worked on five continents. Growing up as a third-culture kid inspired her strong sense of wanderlust and travel. She enjoys exploring different cultures through their creative industries, history, and cuisine, spending time with her family and friends, keeping active, watching documentaries, and exploring ways of further self expression through her design practice. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Alexandra Cibula

Program Associate

Allie has been fundraising and organizing on environmental campaigns since 2016. For the past 5 years, she has run grassroots canvassing offices in Colorado, California, Oregon and Washington, and has trained and managed campaign organizers across the United States. Before joining Sunrise, she oversaw a fundraising operation with The Outreach Team to sign-up long-term donors for Greenpeace and Oregon Wild. Allie is passionate about providing support to campaign teams working to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, and supporting organizations that build people power to create lasting positive change for our environment.

Her goal is to create, implement and streamline project management and administrative systems within campaign teams that both support and empower team members to hit their goals while simultaneously developing them as leaders in the climate movement. She is based in Seattle, Washington, USA where she enjoys exploring the beautiful outdoors in the Pacific Northwest and having cozy days at home reading while it rains.

Amanda Starbuck

Program Director

Amanda has extensive experience in campaigning, network building and organizational change, working for global organisations in Europe, North and South America. Prior to joining the Sunrise Project, Amanda was the programme director for Greenpeace in South America, responsible for setting the strategic direction and priority campaigns across the region. She also led the global finance team at Rainforest Action Network, pressuring the largest U.S. and European banks to address their role in the climate crisis and significantly reduce their financing of environmentally destructive fossil fuel extraction. With a professional background in the renewable energy and forestry sectors, Amanda holds a MA in Environmental Policy and has lectured at Yale, Berkeley and Leeds Universities.

Amy Galland

Senior Strategist

Amy has over a decade of experience providing strategy, analysis, research, fundraising, and communications services to clients in the US, EU, and Africa. Before joining Sunrise Project, Amy founded a consultancy in Nairobi, Kenya that provided sustainability expertise to NGOs, entrepreneurs, multistakeholder groups, and multinational corporations and wrote numerous publications analyzing industry performance on key issues of corporate responsibility, led successful shareholder engagements to reduce environmental impacts and protect human health, and created organizational and program strategies at As You Sow. Prior, Amy worked as a project manager and production coordinator in the music industry with a #1 song on the UK Singles Chart and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Binghamton University.

A certified yoga instructor, Reiki master, and Energy Medicine practitioner, Amy was awarded an MBA and a PhD in Art History from UCLA, an MA in Anthropology from Stanford University, and a BA in Philosophy and Art History from Tufts University. She is a recipient of the Business Ethics Network’s Path to Victory Award and a member of New Faces New Voices, Kenya.

Andrew Willis Garcés

Senior Strategist, Finance Action Organisers Network

During two decades as an organizer Andrew has worked on national and international labor union campaigns with teachers, janitors, transport and construction workers; helped renters in several US cities win full control of their building conditions; and designed successful campaigns to force wealthy taxpayers to pay higher income taxes and stop local sheriffs from working with immigration enforcement agents.

A lifelong Southerner now based in North Carolina, he founded and led Siembra NC during the Trump Administration, and draws inspiration from campaigners fighting to “vivir sabroso” in his maternal homeland of Colombia. He’s led trainings for activists across North and South America and hosts the Craft of Campaigns podcast.

Anita Nagpal Schwartz

Managing Director of Development

Anita Nagpal Schwartz is The Sunrise Project’s Managing Director of Development. She has three decades of experience in fundraising, marketing, and communications for nonprofit organizations. Anita was previously the Development Director for The Nature Conservancy’s India Program, guiding startup philanthropic efforts. Anita also worked as the Vice President of Development, Marketing, and Program Administration for Western Resource Advocates for twelve years. At Environmental Defense Fund, she managed fundraising efforts in a seven-state region.

Anita started her non-profit career at Conservation International in Washington, D.C., in 1990. She holds a bachelor’s degree from American University, Washington, D.C., with a double major in literature and American studies. She is a Certified Fund Raising Executive, having secured an internationally-recognized professional credential. She also completed a Certificate Program in Authentic Leadership at Naropa University, Colorado.

Anita is an avid reader, enthusiastic world traveler, and collage artist. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and pup.

Bobbie Sta. Maria

Program Director, Sunrise Organizing Lab

Bobbie has spent nearly 15 years in corporate accountability and human rights non-profits, fighting alongside local groups in national and international legal campaigns.

She draws inspiration from social movements in the Philippines, where she got her start in social justice work as staff attorney for the NGO Saligan (Alternative Legal Assistance Center). She then joined the EarthRights International team in Thailand in building transnational legal strategies to challenge harmful projects in the Mekong region.

She most recently served in the management team of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre as Director for Labour Rights and Asia, where she grew and led the Asia, labor, and corporate legal accountability teams. She also helped kick off the merger between Global Labor Justice and International Labor Rights Forum as Deputy Director for Strategy and Partnerships.

Outside of the Philippines, Bobbie has worked in Nepal, Thailand, and Myanmar. She is currently based in the Washington DC area with her husband and daughter.

Candice Douglas

People & HR Associate

Candice joins The Sunrise Project as the People & HR Associate with previous experience in Operations Coordination. She holds a B.A. in Design and has a professional background in Hospitality, Government Operations, and Education as a former English Language Arts & Science teacher.

As an accessibility advocate, her goal is to support an equitable work environment with intentional consideration of the distinct needs of each team member.

Candice is a native of Detroit, Michigan USA and enjoys tending to her backyard floral garden, exploring vegan restaurants, and working to amplify the voices of marginalized citizens within her community.

Caroline Henderson

Senior Strategist

Caroline is a skilled campaign strategist, project manager, and coalition builder with more than 15 years of climate advocacy and campaigning experience. Caroline has organized at the local, national, and international level with groups including 350.org, Save The Bay, and ACLU of Northern California. Most recently, Caroline joined Greenpeace USA to work with coalition partners to push Governor Newsom to phase out oil and gas drilling in California, leading to a landmark bill to end neighborhood drilling.

Casey Harrell

Senior Strategist

Casey has two decades of experience directing successful international climate and corporate accountability campaigns for groups ranging from Greenpeace International to ForestEthics. He helped start the anti-sweatshop movement in the U.S. in the late 1990s, conducted the largest test for mercury exposure in U.S. history, and led campaigns that engaged the tech sector to eliminate toxic chemicals from its supply chains and move industry leaders (Facebook, Google, Apple) to invest in and lobby for 100% renewable energy.  He is a graduate of Duke University and lives with his family in Oakland, California.

Cayla Doweidt

Hiring & Onboarding Specialist

Cayla supports the Global Finance Team and started with The Sunrise Project in March of 2020. Aligned with her dual passions for productivity and creating a better world, Cayla’s role is ensuring each member of the team can focus on effecting change in the outside world while she manages & supports the recruitment, hiring, and onboarding of the growing organization.

Cayla currently lives in Colorado, USA. She holds a B.A. in Communications and has experience working in retail management, higher education, and banking.

When Cayla is not working, she is enjoying the beauty and rigor that Colorado outdoors has to offer, learning the banjolele, and working with her Women’s Circle.

Colby Sangree

Program & Operations Associate, Investor Program

Based in Baltimore MD, Colby is a passionate advocate for intersectional climate and healing justice. In their work, Colby has brought their love of systems, innovation, and deep creativity to further the impact of justice-centered organizations. Before and alongside their role at The Sunrise Project, Colby has served their community on the Baltimore City Trauma Informed Care Task Force, and as a health educator, doula, and racial justice advocate.

To unwind, Colby enjoys getting outdoors, making art, reading, and tending to their garden.

Courtney DeLong

Communications Associate

Courtney is a Communications Associate. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in Folklore & Mythology and History. Prior to joining Sunrise, she worked with environmental justice advocates in Cancer Alley, Louisiana.

Dana Affleck

Senior Digital Campaigner

Dana got her start organizing and campaigning after visiting people seeking asylum in government run detention centers in Australia. She founded Road to Refuge in 2012 and later joined Behind the Wire to lift up refugee voices in mainstream spaces. Dana volunteered at the Asylum Seeker Resource Center as a legal caseworker in the LGBTQ and women’s clinic before taking a job as an organizer and campaigner in 2015.

In 2017, America called and Dana moved to New York City where she worked as a digital campaigner at Everytown for Gun Safety and then on environmental and climate campaigns at NRDC. Some highlights at NRDC were working on stopping the Williams Pipeline, securing clean cars legislation in Virginia, blocking fossil-fuel friendly bills in Pennsylvania, and helping with the coalition win on #RenewableRikers in New York City. She has a degree in law and Arabic language.

In her spare time, Dana cooks often, volunteers with local campaigns, reads the many books assigned by her beloved book clubs, writes fiction, and tries to track down who’s stealing her New York Times subscription.

Daniel Sufranski

Senior Policy Strategist

Dan is a Senior Policy Strategist with nearly a decade of experience working on economic policy and financial regulation. Prior to joining Sunrise, he was an attorney at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency where he worked on a range of regulatory issues, including capital, consumer, and crypto matters. During that time, he completed details with the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the office of the Assistant General Counsel for Banking and Finance at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Prior to law school, he worked as an analyst at a Big Four accounting firm where he focused on tax policy and economic impact analysis.

Dan has a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA in economics and political science from Washington University in St. Louis. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, daughter, dog, and two cats.

Danqing Li

Senior Strategist

As the Senior Strategist at East Asia Energy Finance Program, Danqing works on decarbonizing energy finance and accelerating the low-carbon energy transition in line with the global climate change imperative.

Before joining The Sunrise Project, Danqing had been working on climate, environment, and energy issues for 6 years. With a master’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering, she has strong expertise in power market analysis, economic assessment, and environmental modeling including air pollution and water stress for countries in East Asia, Southeast and South Asia.

David Pinsky

Finance Campaigner

David is a Finance Campaigner working to move asset managers like BlackRock away from climate destruction. He has more than a decade of organizing, training, and corporate campaigning experience. Previously at Greenpeace USA, David led campaigns to shut down coal plants on university campuses, take on destructive fishing and human rights abuses in the global seafood industry, and demand corporations break free from plastic.

David has an MA in psychology from the University North Carolina Wilmington and BS in psychology from the University of Kentucky. He lives in Oakland, CA.

Diana Best

Senior Strategist

Diana has over a decade of organising and campaigning experience. Before joining the Sunrise Project team, Diana worked with Greenpeace USA to reform federal fossil fuel leasing policies, stop critical new fossil fuel infrastructure projects like export terminals and pipelines, and engage global financial institutions to restrict lending to new oil projects.

Diana works with a coalition of institutions and partner organizations to move Blackrock’s more than $6 trillion business away from climate and forest destroying investments.

She is a graduate of Vassar College and lives in Denver, Colorado.

Diana Pasquali

Global Director of Learning & Development

Diana is the Global Learning Director and has 18 years of experience with training, grassroots organizing, and managing teams and projects. Prior to joining Sunrise, she worked with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Movement Capacity Building program to build a national trainer network and design training and coaching for grantees working on immigration, criminal justice reform and housing. She has led large stakeholder engagement projects, including work for Paid Leave U.S. and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Other recent clients have included the One Project, Sierra Health Foundation, Swing Left, Change Walmart, and Greenpeace International.

Diana loves traveling, hiking, yoga, and she lives with her family in Oakland, California.

Ellen Best

Philanthropy Associate

Ellen studied Social Work, Women and Gender Studies, and Ethnic Studies in college and through that discovered her love of community building and advocacy. She has worked in nonprofits spanning the gamut of social impact roles including funding for public education, mental health services for queer and trans youth, improving abortion access and knowledge, providing affordable housing and services to residents, and most recently working to aid cultural exchange through education. She believes strongly in taking a community-led approach to social justice work and keeping intersectionality at the forefront of all interactions.

Ellen lives in Colorado and loves to explore new restaurants, read, spend time outside hiking, camping, and rock climbing, and expand her collection of funky earrings.

Emma Alaimo

Strategic Assistant

Emma Alaimo (she/her) is excited to join the Sunrise Project in such a unique capacity. Emma’s role is a hybrid role, but she spends her days fully embedded in Sunrise’s culture and within the Asset Manager team.

She was born and raised in California and has been working in non-profits for her entire career mostly in affordable housing, and food/farming education/justice.

Emilene Sivagnanam

Senior Digital Communications Campaigner

Emilene joins Sunrise Project’s insurance team after extensive experience working on environmental campaigns at the federal, state, and local level.

Prior to joining Sunrise Project, Emilene was a campaigner at Natural Resources Defense Council where she led the U.S. Eastern Region social media strategy ranging from stopping new fossil fuel projects to restricting toxic chemicals and more. Emilene holds a M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University and a B.S. in Earth Sciences from Oregon State University.

Emilene is based in New York City where she enjoys crafting with textiles and fibers, running, and traveling. She also loves fostering dogs and helping them blossom into confident city dogs and companions.

Eren Can Ileri

Finance Campaigner

Eren Can Ileri, originally from Istanbul and Boston, is a climate advocate, analyst, and storyteller.

Before joining the Sunrise Project, Eren worked at Reclaim Finance, campaigning to cut the financial sector’s support for climate-disruptive industries. He conducted policy analysis for the Insure our Future Scorecard, co-authored a comprehensive report on oil and gas financing in the Arctic, and contributed to exposing the fossil and finance sector’s lobbying operations.

In his volunteer time, Eren lobbies EU legislators to support an emissions fee and climate income regulation with Citizens Climate Lobby. He is a guest contributor for Açık Radyo/Open Radio, raising awareness of climate governance, energy, and finance issues. He also works to garner support for the Fossil Fuels Nonproliferation Treaty from Turkish thought leaders.

Eren recently completed his MPA in International Governance and Diplomacy at Sciences Po Paris School of International Affairs. He has two undergraduate degrees from Brown University, in neuroscience and theatre arts/performance studies. His thesis focused on the role of story-telling in social/democratic/environmental movements, focusing on the 2013 Gezi Resistance, in which he participated as a medic.

Grace Regullano

Program Director, Private Banks

Grace Regullano has spent nearly 20 years working in the American labor movement. She has been an organizer, communications specialist, and researcher and is passionate about supporting the power of working people to advance policies for the common good.

Most recently, she was part of United Teachers Los Angeles senior leadership team as the Strategic Research and Analytics Director. In that role she facilitated a strategic plan that led to a supermajority 6-day strike that saw 70,000 people marching on the streets of Los Angeles in the pouring rain. Her research and campaign work has been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, and NRK Norway.

Grace obtained her CPA (inactive) while working for a Big 4 accounting firm as a forensic accountant. She is based in Los Angeles, CA.

Jacey Bingler

Senior Communications Campaigner

Jacey is a communications specialist with over ten years of experience in digital media and public relations. Prior to joining the Sunrise Project, Jacey led international media relations at Urgewald, conducted research for Avaaz’s anti-disinformation campaign around EU und US elections, and headed communications at the tree planting search engine Ecosia. Stints in her earlier career include working for a travel guide publisher, a record label and the city of Hamburg’s online presence. She has a degree in Journalism.

Jacey is half British, half German and recently relocated from Berlin to the United States, where she now lives in a coastal town in Maine. She has a fondness for New Wave music, senior dogs, Bavarian beer and trail running.

Jamie-Claire Chau

Finance Associate

Jamie-Claire joins The Sunrise Project from a social activism, community organizing, and educational justice background. Most recently, Jamie-Claire’s leadership and project management has been exercised at Vietlead, Coins for Change Vietnam, and currently at Chili Crisps 4 Spicy Lips, which they founded and co-operate.

Outside of working hours, they enjoy singing/songwriting, watercolor painting, latin dancing, and cooking food with beloveds.

Jane Li

General Counsel and Company Secretary

Jane Li joins the Sunrise Project from TakeRoot Justice, where she was a senior staff attorney and managed the organization’s launch into an independent organization. She has a decade of experience of working with community-based organizations to provide legal services to marginalized individuals and communities. She received a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and a B.S. from Georgetown University.

Jane lives in Brooklyn, New York. She enjoys eating her way through New York City’s diverse neighborhoods, being outdoors, and spending time with her family.

Jason Schwartz

Senior Communications Strategist

Jason is a strategic communications strategist with a career spanning movements workers rights, and climate, economic, and racial justice. Prior to joining The Sunrise Project, he led communications for Greenpeace USA’s campaigns on pipelines and the financial sector, Change to Win’s strategic and investor campaigns, Athena, the coalition to counter the power of Amazon, and numerous other movement organizations and coalitions.

Jason works on TSP’s campaign to leverage federal and state financial regulation and policy toward the transition away from fossil fuels and to a more equitable and stable system

Judith Crosbie

Senior Communications Campaigner, US Banks

Judith Crosbie has spent over 20 years working in journalism and communications, focusing on social justice and workers’ rights. She worked as a journalist in Dublin, Brussels and Sydney for The Irish Times, European Voice, RTÉ and BBC before joining the labor movement in Australia.

She was director of communications at the Transport Workers’ Union of Australia working on successful campaigns to organize workers to hold wealthy corporations at the top of supply chains to account for unfair and unsafe conditions. She holds degrees from Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University.

Justin Guay

Director for Global Climate Strategy

Justin Guay is the Director for Global Climate Strategy. He has a decade of experience in nonprofit advocacy and foundation strategy development.

Prior to joining Sunrise he managed grant-making and strategy development for global coal campaigns at the ClimateWorks Foundation and Packard Foundation. At the Packard foundation he oversaw a $40 million grant making portfolio across all climate and energy priorities in India, China, the US, the EU and South East Asia. He also assisted in leading the Foundation’s Innovation in Climate Solutions strategy and energy focused Program Related Investments (PRIs).

He has also run the Sierra Club’s International Coal Campaign as the Associate Director for the International Climate Program.  The program focused on global efforts to transition energy systems beyond coal to clean energy with a special focus on international finance. He worked for the Sierra Club since 2009, in roles involving lobbying, media relations, policy research and advocacy.

He has lived and worked in Mumbai, India where he supported local community groups advocating for clean energy solutions and partnered closely with distributed solar companies serving poor communities. Justin received a Master’s Degree in International Development from the University of Denver and received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah.

Karina Sahlin

Senior Digital Campaigner

Karina is a Senior Digital Strategist at the Pushback Project. With over a decade of experience in electoral and non-profit advocacy strategy, she has worked to secure progressive victories in multiple states across the country, including the passage of issues such as same-sex marriage and universal pre-K.

Karina has also been involved in a wide range of front-line environmental campaigns, including fights against LNG and other fossil fuel infrastructure. She has collaborated with Indigenous activists and Tribal Nations to address issues related to salmon conservation and clean energy siting. Additionally, she has designed training programs for over 50 global partners to develop their digital skill sets and has been deeply engaged in improving audience targeting accuracy and usefulness.

Kathleen Brophy

US Climate Finance Senior Strategist

Kathleen leads work on US financial regulation for Sunrise where she focuses on regulatory interventions that help move money out of fossil fuels. Kathleen joins Sunrise with a decade of experience challenging the oil, gas, and mining industries. Most recently, as the Director of Publish What You Pay-US, Kathleen led SEC strategy focused on fossil fuel sector financial transparency for the 40-member coalition. Previously, Kathleen worked as a Senior Program Advisor at Oxfam America where she supported partners all over the world to design advocacy campaigns related to fossil fuel sector taxation, macroeconomic policy and financial regulation.

Kathleen believes deeply in the power of social movements and also pursues her passion outside of work as an activist and organizer in the Baltimore/DC area.

Leslie Fulbright

Senior Communications Strategist, Private Equity

Leslie is a writer and communications strategist with over 20 years of experience working for racial and social justice. Passionate about storytelling, she has used her skills to support voting rights, criminal justice reform, environmental justice, and LGBTQ equality.

Prior to joining The Sunrise Project, Leslie was VP of Strategic Communications at Freedom for All Americans, where she worked on state and national campaigns to pass LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws. She also worked as a Communications Strategist for the ACLU of Northern California, and as a journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Times. She lives in Tucson, Arizona

Lisa Guraya

Digital Campaigner

Lisa Guraya is the Auto Supply Chain Digital Campaigner at Sunrise Project. Prior to joining the team, she worked at the ACLU and at BerlinRosen, working on progressive campaigns that ran the issue area gambit. Her favorite past campaigns include her work on the mounting student debt crisis, as well as her utilization of influencer strategy for environmental coalitions.

When she’s not online, she enjoys watching horror movies, organizing around sustainable fashion in New York City, and spending time with her cat Jalebi.

Mark Normington

Senior Communications Campaigner

Mark grew up in a picturesque coastal village in the North East of England. After studying History at the University of York, he moved to London where he launched his career in nonprofit communications. Before joining the Sunrise Project, Mark worked at environmental and human rights campaigning organization Global Witness, working to cut off sources of finance from the companies actively destroying the world’s tropical rainforests. A recent arrival to the US, Mark lives in Portland, Oregon, enjoying the familiar weather, cycling infrastructure, and readily available seasonal ciders.

Mary Sweeters

Senior Strategist

Mary brings over 13 years of organizing, activist training, and campaigning experience to her work at the Sunrise Project. She was most recently at Greenpeace US, where she managed a team of field organizers working to shore up support for climate action in key Congressional districts, became the Grassroots Training Director for a few years, and then worked as a campaigner on iconic oil fights including Arctic drilling and pressuring banks to stop lending money to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

As Outreach Manager, Mary works with cities, businesses, and other actors to pressure their insurance companies to divest from fossil fuels and stop insuring coal and tar sands projects.

Mat McDermid

Program Director, Autos

Mat brings over a decade in impact strategy spanning corporate sustainability and social impact campaigning across a wide range of issues.

Prior to joining Sunrise, he worked at Purpose leading diverse client and partner projects—including Everytown for Gun Safety, UN Human Rights, and Oak Foundation’s prevent child sexual abuse programme—and progressed to become Global Head of Strategy shaping Purpose’s strategy practices, skill-sharing, mentorship and growth, and then Co-Head of the New York office. Previously in corporate sustainability, Mat worked across sectors, including the power sector and apparel, pushing clients’ climate and sustainability ambitions.

His career began with the Australian Foreign Service: working daily with local officials on his posting to Baghdad, Iraq, then on the Afghanistan desk, it was a quintessentially formative experience.

Mat received his M.S. in Environment & Energy Policy at New York University and Bachelors from The University of Queensland. Born and raised in Australia, Mat is based in New York City and enjoys practicing photography and woodworking, rock climbing and hiking, and pursuing a lifelong land stewardship endeavor in the Gunks.

Milap Patel

Deputy Director

Milap has worked at the intersections of climate policy, global human rights, and economic justice with an overarching commitment to civil society, internationalism, and to our natural world. Prior to joining the Sunrise Project, he was Research Director at MSI Integrity which was exploring mechanisms to challenge the dominant shareholder-led, inequality-fueling corporate form. He has also worked as a Senior Program Officer at the Open Society Foundations on an individual grants portfolio and as a researcher at the World Resources Institute, looking into multilateral development bank lending for climate-compatible projects.

Milap is originally from Nairobi, Kenya of diasporic Indian heritage and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York where he is an avid, if uneven jogger, museum and theater aficionado, and board member on several national and international LGBTQ nonprofit organizations.

Minnie Shin

Senior Strategist, Global Sustainable Finance

Minyoung “Minnie” works across the global investors, insurance and Asia-focused campaigns at the Sunrise Project. She is a sustainability impact catalyst with a decade of experience advising C-suite executives and policy decision-makers across many sectors and regions. She started her career in corporate sustainability, climate policy and international development consulting, where she spearheaded myriad cross-sector, multi-stakeholder projects on a broad range of issues including sustainable finance, carbon pricing, corporate sustainability, and clean technology. She fell in love with the nonprofit sector in 2016 and since then is on a mission to amplify the good works of the people and organizations making our world a better place. Before joining the Sunrise Project, she has worked for global organizations including the Export-Import Bank of Korea, Environmental Defense Fund and Asia Society Policy Institute.  

She holds an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University and MA in International Cooperation from Seoul National University. She is also a Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) credential-holder. 

Minnie is originally from South Korea and now lives in Texas. She is a savvy retail investor, loves to learn about different cultures, and hopes to one day publish a vegan Korean cookbook.

Myriam Fallon

Senior Communications Campaigner

Myriam has a decade of experience in environmental campaigning and communications. She started at Greenpeace US where she worked as a Grassroots Organizer, a Program Coordinator and Trainer, a Media Officer, and Global Communications and Mobilization Coordinator. She also spent time campaigning at sea aboard Greenpeace’s ships. Myriam is based in Chicago, IL and has a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, and Photography. In her spare time she likes to take long bike rides around her home city, rock climb, travel, and play music.

Nic Carroll

IT Support & Systems Administrator

The Sunrise Project Inc

Nic is based in the United States and is an experienced IT professional from the financial technology industry. With a deep passion for technology and a keen understanding of the evolving needs of the modern workforce, Nic has consistently demonstrated their ability to adapt and excel in a rapidly changing IT landscape.

Nic is also an experienced rugby union player, aspiring to professionalize women’s rugby in the United States. On their free time, they enjoy home DIY, roadtrips, antiquing, and the occasional odd project as a “jack of all trades.”

Phoebe Hall

Executive Program Associate

“Phoebe joins the Sunrise Project as a member of the operations team. She has several years of experience developing, coordinating, and supporting programs in the education and nonprofit sectors. Phoebe has also worked as a facilitator and educator, focusing on global studies and intersectional, consent-based sexuality education.

Passionate about creating a more just world, Phoebe has lent her skills to initiatives that protect voting rights, promote anti-oppressive education, and support cross-cultural communication.

Phoebe lives outside of Philadelphia with her very chatty cat.

Risalat Khan

Senior Strategist

Risalat is an activist and intrapreneur from Bangladesh, with nearly a decade of experience driving campaigns on climate and intersecting social justice issues across the world.

From campaigning to stop the Rampal coal plant near the Sundarbans mangrove forest in Bangladesh, mobilizing for youthful climate marches on the streets of 4 continents, advocating in the halls of power for the Paris Agreement, and supporting indigenous communities from the Maasai Mara to the Maōri heartlands — Risalat is grateful to have found a career nurturing the common spirit of people-powered resistance worldwide. And he is committed to partnering with communities as they deploy diverse strategies to better their lives.

Risalat’s academic background is in environmental science and policy, with degrees from Amherst College and Columbia University. He has campaigned with the global campaigning organization Avaaz for the past several years.

In his spare time, Risalat enjoys traveling, watching movies and documentaries, traveling, reading futurist non-fiction books, and having a delicious meal with his (new!) wife.

Roberta Giordano

Finance Campaigner

Roberta, born and raised in Rome, has over seven years of project management, development, and campaigning experience. While in college at the University of California, Berkeley, Roberta worked to pressure the UC to move its money out of fossil fuels investments, and once graduated, Roberta continued to work with coalitions in California to help cities and counties cut their ties with Wall Street Banks.

Prior to joining the Sunrise Project, Roberta worked with Amazon Watch where she helped launch a campaign to expose BlackRock’s investments in oil and gas companies operating in the Amazon basin and directly threatening indigenous communities and territories.

Roberta currently lives in El Cerrito, CA. During her free time, she loves to spend time in the outdoor rock climbing and backpacking. She also volunteers with Sunrise Movement, a youth led organisation working on implementing a Green New Deal in the US.

Ross Hammond

Senior Advisor

Ross has extensive experience working on critical policy issues like opening up the UN & World Bank to civil society, promoting strict regulation of the tobacco industry, and challenging the political power of the fossil fuel industry.

At the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids & the Framework Convention Alliance he helped usher in the world’s first public health treaty, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He then created & program to fund & support citizen groups as part of the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use.

At Friends of the Earth, he used FOIA to publicly expose conflicts of interest in the environmental review of the
Keystone XL pipeline leading to an official State Department Inspector General inquiry.

Most recently, he served as US Campaigns Director at Stand.earth where they successfully defeated multiple West Coast oil train terminal proposals and pressured Starbucks to recommit to making a recyclable cup. A native of Buffalo, he holds a BA in African Studies from UC Berkeley & an MA in Applied Economics from American University.

Tyler Kruse

Senior Communications Campaigner

As a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) who was lucky enough to grow up on my ancestral homelands, sustainability and balance with nature was instilled in me at a very young age. I currently live on Matinecock and Munsee Lenape land in so called Queens, NY with my 2 keiki and wife.

Umme Hoque

Director, Finance Action Organisers Network

Umme has been organizing and campaigning for over 15 years in worker’s rights, immigration, racial justice, and climate movements. She’s led and supported people-powered comprehensive local, national, and global campaigns that have won better rights and conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers; cancelled billions of dollars in debt; changed corporate policies and behaviour; passed legislation for a better future; and helped elect progressive leaders. She loves to hike with her two dogs and watch bad movies.

Xiomara Chingate

Organizer

Xiomara Chingaté, AfroIndigenous Muysca woman from Colombia(she/her), is a founder of the grassroots groups Brasil Solidarity Network and Real Talk: Colombia.

She is a community organizer focused on the intersection of climate justice and Black and Indigenous rights, primarily in Colombia.

She is standing for a healthy, beautiful, free future for all people where we can drink out of every river and live in balance with the sacred system of life. She lives in occupied Ramaytush Ohlone Territory.

Alex Wilks

Senior Strategist

Alex has spent 25 years bringing citizens and civil society groups together to scrutinise and challenge powerful institutions. As Coordinator of the Bretton Woods Project, and then of the European Network on Debt and Development, he helped bring pressure to bear on the World Bank, IMF to cancel megaprojects, and debt.

Then he helped build Avaaz to become a global movement involving 60 million people. He led many Avaaz campaigns. including several to get governments to forge the Paris Climate Agreement, and two to stop Rupert Murdoch taking over Europe’s biggest independent broadcaster. At one point he led thousands of people at a massive climate rally in a silent gratitude meditation.

When not working you may well find him juggling or cycling. Alex studied at Oxford University, and lives in Bristol, UK.

Alice Delemare Tangpuori

Bonds Campaign Strategist

Alice has 13 years experience of creating change on issues of social and environmental justice, both globally and in the UK. Alice has previously led campaigns that influenced big multinational companies on a range of issues including nutrition, plastic pollution and sustainable seafood. Across her carer she has worked on topics spanning food and nutrition, to the sustainable development goals and the effectiveness of aid, and gender equality and electoral reform. Alice holds a degree in Ancient, Medieval and Modern History and a Master’s in Development Studies and Gender. When not working she enjoys cooking, yoga, and spending time with her family.

Andrea Harden

Senior Strategist Canada Banks

Andrea has over fifteen years of experience in social justice and environmental campaigns, from developing digital and grassroots mobilization strategies, to implementation.

Most recently, Andrea worked as a Senior Strategist with Emdash – a communications agency providing strategy, design and content to progressives. This saw her project lead campaign and communication strategies for national campaigns on a range of topics including Indigenous rights, public education, water justice, and mental health.

Andrea has worked in the non-governmental sector challenging the fossil fuel industry, including the failed Energy East pipeline, and advocating for climate solutions. She has traveled to UN Climate Change Conferences, hosted workshops, and worked collaboratively with Indigenous communities and multi-sector coalitions.

Andrea is also a busy parent of two kids, a cyclist, local volunteer, and violinist.

Andrea Rowe

Global People Director

Andrea Rowe is the Global Director of People, she is a values – led people professional with extensive experience of leading and coaching teams, organisational development and developing people strategies, with a focus on equity, diversity and inclusion. She has experience of leading and scaling people functions in mission driven, non- profit organisations. She brings a range of experience from social and youth work, education and global women’s health.

Andrea was previously Director of People and Organisational Development at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, a charity that focuses on improving the standards of care delivered to women. She also held Head of People roles at UK Youth and Frontline, a charity focussing on systemic change in the social work profession.

Andrea holds a BSc. degree in Psychology from the University of Westminster and an MSc. in Human Resources Management from London Southbank University. She also holds a voluntary trustee role at Working Chance, an employment charity that supports women with convictions.

Andrea enjoys travelling and sketching and she lives in Liverpool, UK with her family.

Becky Jarvis

Managing Director, Financial Regulation

Becky has spent the last decade building people power and people-powered movements to hold the most powerful to account for a fairer, more just, and cleaner future.

She helped build 38 Degrees UK into a movement of over 1 million citizens and led many of the biggest campaigns, including the campaign to protect the NHS from privatisation and the campaign to ban fracking.  Most recently as part of OPEN’s senior team, she helped build and sustain a network across 19 different countries, by supporting, coaching, and building fast-growing digitally facilitated organisations.

She’s on the board of Skiftet, Sweden’s biggest online campaign community and Left Foot Forward in the UK.

Betsy Middleton

Campaigner

Betsy began her career at Follow This, where she planned and implemented shareholder activism campaigns which targeted international fossil fuel companies. She helped to put emission reduction targets on the ballot at US oil majors for the first time in 2021, successfully changing US legal guidance on investor-led climate proposals, and worked with shareholders on both sides of the Atlantic to demand accountability from oil and gas companies and further their commitments to the energy transition.

At Sunrise, she focuses on crafting campaigns which hold financial stakeholders accountable to new and existing net zero commitments, and identifies opportunities to influence net zero standards and processes to make them more fair, transparent and robust.

She completed her undergraduate education at University College Utrecht, and holds an MA in Science & Technology Studies from the Technical University of Munich, for which she researched the science of birdsong and the benefits of drawing on creative, multisensory and tacit knowledge practices in empirical scientific studies. She loves to dance (badly) to live music, never misses an opportunity to swim in the sea (the colder, the better), and performs on the clarinet once a year for a 30-piece Beatles cover band.

Camilla Schramek

Senior Communications Officer

Camilla is a communications professional with extensive experience in the climate movement. Before joining The Sunrise Project, Camilla was Head of Climate Change Communications at CARE International where she helped to lead CARE’s initiative to connect climate change and social justice, focusing on issues such as gender, finance and disasters. She is passionate about addressing the climate crisis, forging strong relationships with partners, and finding solutions to some of society’s most complex problems.

Camilla holds a bachelor’s degree in politics and environmental science from Emory University, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Copenhagen where she completed her master’s degree in climate change at the University of Copenhagen.

Chris Alford

Senior Strategist, Auto Supply Chain

Chris has over a decade of experience leading campaigns for social and environmental justice across Latin America. Before joining the Sunrise Project, he worked with Amnesty International’s Regional Office for the Americas managing regional and national campaigns on economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights. He led Amnesty’s work on the campaign to ratify the Escazú Agreement, a historic regional treaty on environmental democracy; on toxic contamination affecting indigenous communities; on the human rights and environmental impacts of lithium mining; and on sexual and reproductive rights.

Before working with Amnesty, he lived in Guatemala for five years supporting and coaching grassroots groups to lead advocacy strategies on issues such as indigenous rights, food sovereignty, gender justice, anti-corruption, and the right to water.

He is based in Mexico City and in his spare time he loves hiking up Latin America’s mountains and volcanoes, cycling, cooking up tasty food, discovering new music and trying to keep all his plants alive.

Diana Sánchez

Senior Strategist, Autos

Diana has over 12 years of experience driving change as part of different organisations and as founder of her own ventures. During her career in the world of social impact, she has worked on the implementation of social impact strategies, projects, and campaigns for organizations and companies such as Techo, the Hult Prize Foundation, Red Concero, among others. She worked for several years on the development of human rights campaign strategies for Amnesty International, and has developed human rights campaign trainings for other international organisations.

Diana has a Bachelors degree in Marketing and a Masters degree in Social Entrepreneurship. She is an expert in the use of communication tools and participatory design and is certified in design thinking.

Diana lives between Mexico City and Naples with her family and her dog Canica.

Fani Arampatzidou

Senior Programme Associate

Fani has been an activist for the past twenty years in Greece and UK, campaigning for environmental and feminist causes, amongst others. Before joining Sunrise she co-ran for seven years MayDay Rooms, a radical history archive in London, helped set up London’s East End Women’s Museum, worked in Callisto, an environmental NGO in Greece, protecting the brown bear and the Mediterranean wolf, and in various other organisations as a researcher and environmental consultant.

She has participated in various political theatre productions, designed and implemented environmental and political education workshops, translated and published books, and is generally interested in experimenting and finding effective ways to raise awareness and inspire for social change.

She holds a BSc in Environmental Sciences from University of Brighton, a MSc in Environmental Engineering from Imperial College and a MA in Environmental Education from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She lives in Thessaloniki, Greece with her daughter.

Frances MacGuire

Senior Strategist

Frances joins Sunrise from over two decades of research, policy advocacy and campaigns on climate change, nature restoration and public health. She has led climate and air pollution campaigns with a number of global NGOs and has a technical background in environmental and health risk assessment with a PhD exploring the power dynamics between government, industry and communities fighting toxic waste incinerators in South Wales and Australia. She has also trained in public health with a particular interest in maternal and child health as well as the linkages between health and the twin climate and ecological crises.

Giana Andonini

Senior Programme Associate

Giana has 10 years of experience in program management and operations for impact organizations. Prior to joining The Sunrise Project, she coordinated community entrepreneurship initiatives at WWF International. She has also worked globally in different social impact-driven organizations focusing on women’s rights issues, social innovation, and education. Giana holds a degree in Communications from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (Brazil), a Master’s in Social Innovation Management from Amani Institute (Brazil), and a Master’s in Strategy and Technology for Development from Universidad Politécnica de Madri (Spain). When not working she enjoys planting, cooking, swimming, and spending time with her family.

Grace Cheong

Senior Programme Associate

Grace supports the programme team based in Europe to ensure its smooth and efficient functioning.

Prior to joining The Sunrise Project, Grace has spent almost a decade working on responsible business initiatives both in the nonprofit and commercial sector. She holds a BA in Business Management from King’s College London and an MA in Corporate Social Responsibility from the University of Nottingham.

Grace lives in London, UK where she was born and raised. When not working, Grace enjoys traveling, baking, and taking long walks.

Hilal Atici

Strategy Director

Hilal has extensive experience in movement building, energy sector, finance and story-telling. Before joining Sunrise Project, she has been Greenpeace International’s global campaign strategist for finance work for 3 years and helped build various projects around the world .  

Before she started working for Greenpeace Mediterranean in 2005 as a Climate & Energy campaigner, Hilal had studied Political Science in Istanbul and conducted research on social movements at EHESS-Paris. She led the GP Med campaign team in Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt between 2010-2014 and helped build strategies in coal, nuclear, oceans, GM and toxics and addressed issues around peace, having been part of significant moments like the Gezi protests in Istanbul. Between 2015-2017  she has been leading the Climate and Energy campaign in Nordic where she focused on finance work in particular, enabled the campaign for Norwegian Oil Fund’s coal divestment and helped build European energy strategies.

Ilana Winterstein

Senior Communications Campaigner

Ilana is a campaigner and communications specialist, with extensive experience leading dynamic and creative campaigns focused on human rights, corporate responsibility and accountability. She has spent over a decade as a campaigner for the Clean Clothes Campaign network, fighting for garment workers’ right globally and holding major clothing brands to account for rights violations in their supply chains. Ilana’s background is in theatre and she is an award-winning creative writer. These skills inform and shape her campaigning work, as she believes strong storytelling is at the heart of both. Ilana currently lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Isabelle L’Héritier

Finance Campaigner, Insurance

Isabelle has spent over a decade organizing and campaigning on social and climate justice issues in Canada, France, Tunisia, Nicaragua and Europe.

Before joining Sunrise as a Finance campaigner and organizer in Europe, she was at Greenpeace, 350.org and Alternatives Montreal working mainly on blocking fossil fuel expansion, stopping corporate impunity, mass mobilizing and building international alliances.

Isabelle is passionate about building people power and powerful networks to catalyse system change.

Josephine Doyle

Governance and Compliance Associate

Josephine supports the Operations team Europe at The Sunrise Project.

Prior to joining Sunrise, she worked as part of a Legal team with a focus on driving client discussions and contract management in both English and German. Academically, Josephine comes from a climate science background, having studied Climate Dynamics and Physical Oceanography at the National Oceanographic Centre Southampton.

Josephine grew up in Germany and now lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In her free time, she enjoys time outdoors, swimming, cycling, and hiking. She is an avid reader and always looking for a new book recommendation.

Lindsay Keenan

Senior Strategist

Lindsay has campaigned on environment and community issues for a number of decades. Prior to joining the Sunrise Project he worked on sustainable fisheries policy in the EU and Baltic. Before leaving Scotland to live in Sweden he was development director of the Kinning Park Complex, a vibrant cultural and community centre in Glasgow.
In the previous decade he was a senior campaigner with Greenpeace International leading global corporate work on the genetic engineering campaign and with Greenpeace Nordic where he variously led the oceans campaign, volunteer department and Arctic project development. Prior to that, working with GreenCity Wholefoods he coordinated the UK Wholefood trade genetic food alert food campaign in which he represented a large number of small and medium sized retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers, importers and exporters.
In his youth Lindsay opened a wholefood shop and catering business, set-up Greenpeace volunteer groups, participated in local community campaigns against toxic waste dumping and in UK and EU campaigns about climate change and the dangers of nuclear weapons.

Liz Clark-Lim

Senior Communications Campaigner

Liz began her climate jouney when she joined Possible climate charity, campaigning for projects such as onshore wind and cities built for people in the launch of the organisation’s first global campaign Car Free Cities. Since then, Liz has worked as a communications officer at the Natural History Museum in London, breaking science stories, promoting the Wildlife Photographer of the Year compeititon and has a passion for ensuring that important stories of nature and our planet are heard and continue to be accessible to all.

An extrovert in nature, Liz loves to counteract her high energy by spending her spare time volunteering at her local community gardens, painting and reading.

Marijke van Liemt

Chief Operating Officer

Marijke van Liemt joins the Sunrise project as the Chief of Operations for Europe. She brings a broad range of international experience: she started her career at ABN AMRO Bank in the Netherlands, in corporate finance. After leaving ABN AMRO, she worked for 13 years internationally as a coach and trainer in intercultural communications & leadership. She lived and worked in Brazil, the USA, Austria and Egypt, before moving back to the Netherlands in 2016. She worked as manager operations at KidsRights, an NGO advocating children’s rights before joining NLinBusiness as Manager Operations and Partners in October 2017, where she was responsible for setting up the operations.

Marijke holds a MA in Economics (Groningen University), and a MA in Intercultural Competencies (Donua University Austria). She is a certified leadership and organizational systems coach.

Melanie Mattauch

Senior Communications Campaigner

Melanie is a communications professional working for social change with a focus on climate justice. Before joining the Sunrise Project, she has spent seven years leading the communications of 350.org in Europe.

When not working to dismantle the fossil fuel industry, Melanie enjoys gardening, playing handball and long-distance hikes.

Peter Bosshard

Program Director

Peter has worked at the intersection of environmental justice and finance for over twenty years, including in senior leadership roles with International Rivers and the Berne Declaration. Starting in 2006, he pioneered engagement of western NGOs with Chinese state-owned financiers of major projects, helping to prevent Chinese investment in destructive dam projects. He has strong international network experience and helped initiate the World Commission on Dams, the Public Eye on Davos, and several NGO networks including ECA-Watch and Banktrack. Peter is a Swiss national and lives with his family in Berkeley, California.

Rachel Mander

Senior Programme Associate

Rachel studied philosophy at Cambridge before working in politics and then transitioning into the climate and conservation sector. She lives in Sheffield, a city she has made home. Rachel loves to meet new people and is always up for adventure, made-up traditions and cups of tea.

Reecha Upadhyay

Director, Corporate Clean Energy Program

Sunrise Inc.

Reecha has built and led campaigns on air quality, climate, gender equality, peace and security, and labour rights. Prior to Sunrise, she was the Director of International Campaigns at Climate Catalyst where she designed and delivered steel decarbonisation efforts in India, Japan and South Korea. Reecha also served as the Head of India Program and Global Campaigns at the Clean Air Fund and the Director of Campaigns at Purpose Climate Lab in India. Reecha has spent the last two decades working on social justice issues in Canada, US, South Sudan, India and Nepal. She was a co-founder in a media collective called Jamun in New Delhi which created social impact and commercial content

Renuka Saroha

Senior Strategist

Renuka has been working in the climate domain for more than a decade. She has provided technical support to various government programs on integrating climate impacts with public health, reducing the health impact of air pollution and creating sustainable livelihood options while improving environmental conditions. She has closely worked with communities to implement projects aiming at collecting evidence on the impacts of climate change, health impacts of air pollution and other climate disasters. Before Sunrise has worked in organisations like World Health Organization, 350. org.

In her free time, she likes to talk to her friends, tend to her balcony garden and make edible skin care products.

Rie Aso

Finance Campaigner

Rie, pronounced similar to “Leah”, is a Finance Campaigner at the Sunrise Project. She has experience working across non-profit and government sectors. She previously worked at Greenpeace, campaigning to raise awareness of Japanese people to stop tropical forest destructions by palm oil industry. In Ise-Shima National Park, Mie, she worked closely with park volunteers on environmental education and endangered species conservations. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Tasmania, Australia.

Rie is born and raised in Japan, and currently lives in Mie, Japan. In her free time, she is attempting to create a local NPO to clean up and protect the last remaining of untouched beaches for Loggerhead turtles and other oceanic life.

Roisin Shannon

Program Associate

Róisín’s career extends across applied social policy research, education, and consultancy in the public and private sectors in the UK and overseas threaded together by a focus on justice issues and change-making. She has fulfilled management roles in a number of right’s-based humanitarian and development NGOs and has taken up postings in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Since at least the mid-2000s addressing the consequences of global warming on local communities influenced her programme development work. She most recently completed a multidisciplinary doctorate investigating the potential of literature to change our ecological consciousness. The doctorate addresses Australian Aboriginal activist and writer Alexis Wright’s work, particularly that on climate change.

Sam Mealy

Deputy Director

Sam’s initial interest in finance was piqued by Occupy Wall Street, after which he used his masters’ thesis to explore the relationship between financialisation and rising income and wealth inequality. Since then Sam has worked on a range of inequality and sustainable finance issues at the OECD and more recently moved to Berlin where he joined climate change think-tank E3G and became its first Chief of Staff. He’s passionate about developing organisations and is hugely excited to be joining Sunrise’s private banks programme and leading its work in Europe.

Sam is a history nut – also partial to macadamias – enjoys making Nigella Lawson’s Guinness chocolate cake (it’s a thing!) and loves running, bike-touring and generally being outdoors in Berlin’s amazing range of parks and lakes.

Sean Wright

Digital Campaign Associate

Sean is an experienced digital campaigner with a passion for building sustainable networks for change. Following on from recruiting young people to become stem cell donors and fighting myths to diversify the donor register, he seeks to listen to personal stories and understand nuances to produce high-quality and meaningful digital campaigns. Alongside decolonising curriculums and building community projects in Sheffield, Sean has carried out research projects in Nepal and Brazil as part of his International Development MPH. He looks forward to working with global partners, as well as ideally sharing some foodie secrets.

Talk to him about travel, music and any cool trends that have caught your eye.

Shannon Lawrence

Director, Global Finance Program

Shannon has more than 20 years of experience addressing climate change and campaigning for environmental justice, living and working in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. Previously, Shannon was a Managing Director at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, where she led strategy development, program design and funder engagement for major urban climate action programs.

Prior to joining C40, Shannon spent over a decade campaigning on finance, energy and water issues with global NGO networks and community groups in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Shannon has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, with concentrations in international environmental policy and development economics. She has a BA from Georgetown University. She lives with her family in London.

Siman Li

Finance Strategist

Siman has worked for the East Asia Energy Finance Program since April 2021, focusing on decarbonizing energy finance and promoting green investment. Before joining the Sunrise Project, Siman had four years of experience in CSR consulting and project management. She led one overseas investment project under the Belt and Road Initiative in Germany. Siman holds a master’s degree in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science from Lund University and a bachelor’s degree in Finance Accounting and Management from the University of Nottingham.

Originally from China, Siman has lived in Malaysia, Sweden and Germany. She is a nature lover and hiking enthusiast. Her current goal is to be a better climber and to try the awesome via Ferrata routes in the Alps.

Tiba Fazeli

People Specialist, International PEOs

Tiba works with The Sunrise Project’s international employment and payroll partners to provide staff with top-tier onboarding and ongoing HR support. She comes to The Sunrise Project with five years’ experience in supporting the management of ISEAL – an international NGO focused on improving and scaling up sustainability systems. There she held various roles in fundraising, governance, executive office and finance. She has also worked in other sectors, including travel, education and public relations/marketing.

She is deeply passionate about sustainability with a particular interest in regenerative agriculture and sustainable food systems. Her other great passions include swimming, spending time outdoors and cooking vegan food.

Tiba holds a BA in Communications and Spanish from UCLA and an MA in Transnational Studies from University College London. She lives in London, UK.

Tonny Nowshin

Finance Campaigner

Tonny Nowshin is a Degrowth and Climate Justice activist. She encountered the IPCC reports in-depth for the first time while writing her master’s thesis in International and development economics in 2017. Reading the reports, the urgency of climate change mitigation hit her, and she decided to become active in the climate movement.

Tonny grew up in Dhaka Bangladesh and was an activist for social causes from her middle-school years. She mobilized with her student organization protesting privatization efforts of the World Bank’s structural adjustment program in Bangladesh. In undergrad, Tonny studied economics in her lifelong search to understand societies better and be able to have a positive impact on them. She started her career in the international development sector with the world’s largest non-profit BRAC. She has later worked with other leading NGOs like ActionAid and 350.org. Professionally at the moment, Tonny is working with the Sunrise Project focusing on fossil fuel finance to tackle the climate crisis. In her activist work, she focuses on centering the concept of climate justice at the core of the climate movement by putting forward antiracist and decolonial perspectives.

In a perfect world, we would find Tonny reading books with three cats, all day.

Usman Mohammed

Senior Digital Campaigner

I’m born and bred in South London, where I spent three years teaching after university. I moved into campaigning and started growing Organise, an online workers’ rights campaigning network. Four amazing years later, I’m jumping into climate campaigning.

Come and talk to me about any musical instruments you play, any weird hobbies you’ve got, and your favorite biscuit.

Ximena Banegas-Zallio

Campaigner

Ximena is an environmental activist and campaigner from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. She has a strong background in advocacy and has previously worked at the Changing Markets Foundation as a campaign adviser on the plastics and fashion campaigns, while also exposing greenwashing in various corporate sectors. Ximena’s extensive experience in advocacy has led her to develop campaigns on climate change in Bolivia, the ban of shark fin soup in China, anti-trafficking efforts in Southeast Asia, and most recently, a campaign against deforestation for the agro-cattle industry in the Amazon Rainforest and Chiquitano dry forest by co-founding Action for Bolivia.

Before her work as an activist, Ximena represented Bolivia at the United World College in Hong Kong. She also served as the Project Manager of Amigos Richmond Latino Center, where she cultivated strategic relationships with government partners and donors. Ximena successfully fundraised and managed educational, health, and outreach programs for Latino youth in the United States. Additionally, she conducted ethnographic research at the Smithsonian Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and served as a coordinator for the 51st Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Ximena holds a liberal arts degree in International Studies and Business & Non-profit Management from Earlham College. She further pursued her passion for Anthropology, Ethnography, and Cultural Heritage Studies through Erasmus+ by studying at four different universities in London, France, Hungary, and Norway. Ximena is fluent in Spanish and English, and also speaks French, and Italian. In her leisure time, she enjoys dancing and watercolour painting. Her dedication and international work earned her the Youth Peace Prize to a Bolivian Living Abroad in 2020.

Yossi Cadan

Senior Strategist

Yossi is a long-time environmental and peace activist. Before joining Sunrise, Yossi spent 30 years of his life in various positions in the environmental movement. Among those, as global finance campaign manager at 350.org, leading Greenpeace’s Canada programmes, serving as the Executive Director of Wildsight and as a regional conservation director at the SPNI. Yossi also represented Israel’s environmental NGOs at the multilateral peace talks between Israel, Palestine and Jordan.