Team
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Rich is the CEO of the Iswe Foundation. He has substantial experience in leading climate and democracy movements from a strategic perspective.
In 2004 he founded the public participation centre Involve. Since then he has been at the forefront of the new democracy movement; most recently co-founding the world’s first Global Citizens’ Assembly, Good Help and Funders Initiative for Civil Society.
Rich has been a senior advisor in local, national and multilateral governments, including for the UK Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. He’s also advised UNDP, WHO, OECD, NGOs and several social movements. He blogs on the Guardian, DeSmog, Carnegie Europe, New Internationalist, Open Democracy, is author of the book Anti Hero and is a trustee of the Local Trust.
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Claire Mellier is the Knowledge and Practice Lead at the Iswe Foundation. She comes with experience as a facilitator, process designer and researcher with expertise in participatory and deliberative democracy.
She is a co-founder of the Global Assembly on the climate and ecological crisis for COP26.She is an associate researcher at the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation (CAST) at Cardiff University, where she published a comparative analysis of the French and UK assemblies and a research briefing on systems change and citizens’ assemblies. She is on the Advisory Board of the International Panel on Social Progress.
Claire has a particular interest in systems change and how deliberation can be used to address polarization and trauma.
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Tanya is the Global Communications Lead at Iswe Foundation. She comes with over 6 years of experience in strategic communications, public diplomacy strategy, advocacy and stakeholder engagement especially with storytelling through visual multimedia.
Her past work includes projects with IOM - UN migration, British Red Cross, Save the children, Manchester University, UNICEF and GCC governments among others.
Tanya is currently working and studying in Geneva. Her interests lie in community mobilization, deliberate democracies and the intertwining of tech4good with locally led movements.
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Myra is the Organisational Development Lead at the Iswe Foundation. She is an experienced programme manager, engagement professional and researcher who has worked cross-sector across the arts, academia, VSOs and policy makers.
Myra is an evaluation specialist and experienced facilitator. She has trained architects in best practice engaging with communities for RIBA and led research projects for Citizens Advice West Sussex that have gone on to inform local NHS strategy. Recent publications include a piece for Arts Professional on the power of cross sector research.
People, communities, and how we can work together to create transformative, positive change drives her work.
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Carla is an associate at the Iswe Foundation. She is a Town Councillor with Independents for Frome (IfF).
She is also a Leadership consultant, facilitator and culture change expert for several global companies, NGOs and the UN.
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Sarah is the COO of the Iswe Foundation. She has decade long experience in operations and public engagement leading fundraising and innovation campaigns at Comic Relief UK.
Sarah has helped launch a tech start-up, developing scalable software to support nonprofits and engage with their audiences and has advised social movements in the UK and overseas on their governance and engagement strategies. She is particularly interested in power-sharing governance structures and is overseeing the development of sociocratic ways of working at Iswe.
Sarah was a core team member of the Global Assembly for COP26.
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Sophie is the Head of Communications at the Iswe Foundation.She comes with decade long experience in communications. She has completed the Year Here Fellowship in Social Innovation and went on to win the Cambridge Innovation Prize and Forbes 30 Under 30 for the social enterprise she founded.
Sophie has worked for a global brand agency, numerous charities, and a national grant funder on their communications strategies, as well as teaching across multiple universities and the School for Social Entrepreneurs
She’s especially interested in power shifting and climate change mitigation and has written for The Guardian, Vogue and Vice magazine.
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Margot is a fundraiser at the Iswe Foundation. She has decades of experience in organizational systems, rebranding, and fundraising for nonprofits and NGOs in the US and globally.
She has significant content expertise in transforming the waste system toward maximum waste diversion and sits on the Board of the Ulster County (NY) Resource Recovery Agency.
Her work has focused on new democracy,; climate and environment; civil rights; housing and mental health; and culture.
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Susan is the Finance Coordinator at the Iswe Foundation. Susan is a financial specialist with over 10 years of experience across multiple sectors.
She has experience working across nonprofit, small business through to large corporations, previously working in an accounting consultancy and also having held roles at firms in catering, drink retail, and manufacturing.
Susan is keen to provide support for sustainable change.
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David is the UN Advocacy Co-lead at the Iswe Foundation. He brings with a wealth of experience in advocacy and climate negotiations.
Before joining Iswe David was a Fellow for International Climate Policy and Diplomacy at the UN Foundation. His focus was on climate negotiations under the Paris Agreement, specifically on ambition and climate finance.He previously led IDDRI's climate program for a year and also played a key role as a climate negotiator for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs leading up to COP21.
David's experience also includes impactful projects in Africa linking access to energy and financial services, both with ACCION in Washington D.C. and PlaNet Finance in Paris.
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Johnny is a Programme Manager at the Iswe Foundation. He is a former nanotechnologist with a decade long experience now working in the fields of deliberative governance innovations and controlled environment agriculture technology.
Prior to joining the Iswe Foundation, he was a member of the core delivery team for the world's first global citizens’ assembly and co-lead author of its report.
Johnny is particularly interested in how we decide what to measure about society, how we use that information to make things better, and what we even mean by that, as well as opportunities to deploy the methods of one discipline or knowledge domain within another.
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Aishwarya is the UN Advocacy Co-lead at the Iswe Foundation. She was previously the Convenor of the UN Foundation Next Generation Fellows.
She helped to launch the Unlock the Future coalition, which brings together over 20 of the world's biggest youth driven organizations, and led a process to gather inputs from young people worldwide for the UN Secretary-General's landmark "Our Common Agenda'' report. She also co-authored "Our Future Agenda" — a complimentary report setting out young people's vision and plan for a reinvigorated multilateral system.
Aishwarya has an MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics and a BA in History and Politics from the University of Cambridge.
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Fiona is an associate at the Iswe Foundation. She is currently a Town Councillor with Independents for Frome (IfF).
She is also a brand strategist and storyteller for change-makers and community-builders.