Our Bios

Brynne Thompson

After ten years working as an analyst at Coburn Ventures, I co-created the Coburn Ventures Community for Change with Pip. The Community for Change aims to deepen the vitality of the existing community of professionals, learners and creatives who come together by virtue of Coburn Ventures activities and services by offering opportunities to lend insights and energy to organizations and leaders changing the world

Now that we are a few years in, we know more clearly that the Community for Change is about making a difference to difference-makers. I'm happy to be able to spend my days in service to great leaders while playing with ideas of my own. In addition to my work with the Community for Change, I consult with a number of organizations and social enterprises in efforts to enhance their strategic and development efforts.

Mission Statement: To lead from a spirit of service. To inspire a community of trust that comes together to turbo-charge each other's initiatives to change the world.

Amanda Posa

I attained my master's degree at the University of Florida in Special Education with a minor in Sustainability Studies, as I have a love for both environmental science and for teaching. I aspire to connect and use both my passions for education and the natural world and animals in my future career. For the last five years, I have been gratefully working for the Community for Change, leading the writing circle, developing the website, and engaging in a diversity of other project-based tasks that help to spark meaningful change for others. Every afternoon, I work with elementary-aged children in a one-on-one tutor setting, getting creative with new lesson plans each week. In my free time, I love to read and write, play soccer, hike and be out in nature, bake vegan desserts, and spend time with my two dogs, sweet nieces, and baby nephew.

Lauren Culbertson

Someone once told me that I "move" when I see the “earth out of alignment,” which is just a fancy way of saying that I’ve always had a natural inclination to pay attention to what happens in the margins; that’s where the most exciting things happen, after all. That has brought me to work for organizations like Restore NYC, UNICEF, World Vision, and the Overseas Development Institute. I currently work at Coburn Ventures to help clients thoughtfully consider environmental, social, and governance factors in their investment philosophy. I experience the most joy witnessing people flourish in the space where their greatest strengths meet the world’s greatest needs.

Jaime Posa

I teach and I write and I create things and I see if I can be a better listener more consistently every day. I enjoy using food, nature and yoga as tools for experiencing a deeper sense of joy, connection and freedom (within myself and with other beings). I began regularly referring to myself as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer in 2012, after serving more than 2 years in El Salvador, and I aways refer to that because that experience is an inflection point for when I began more intentionally living. I actually sometimes say that Peace Corps "saved my life" and I kinda sorta mean that. My biggest joy in my work is when a child's face lights up.

Jörgen van der Sloot

I am perhaps a charter member of the Community For Change we are all creating and a facilitator and coach of collaborative strategy development. I work with organizations who seek breakthrough thinking and I have been actively doing this for the last 15 years. I work to design customized think tanks for clients meant to help them see the world from a future perspective, helps them think of innovative solutions and guides them in taking action on their road to the future. My biggest joy in my work is when I see people are smiling as a result of the process they are engaging in with me.

Sasha Dichter

I’m the Co-Founder of 60 Decibels, an impact measurement company that helps organizations around the world better understand their customers, suppliers, and beneficiaries. Our proprietary Lean DataSM approach makes it easy to listen to the people who matter most, allowing us to bring customer-centricity, speed and responsiveness to impact measurement. Prior to co-founding 60 Decibels, I worked at Acumen for 12 years, most recently as Chief Innovation Officer. In this role, I helped create and growth both Lean Data and +Acumen, the world’s school for social change, and I oversaw the Acumen Fellows Program. I’ve also been blogging since 2008 and have written more than 1,000 blog posts on generosity, philanthropy and social change. I was the instigator behind Generosity Day and, frustrated with how nonprofits approach fundraising, I wrote the Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs, a free resource that has been shared with thousands of nonprofit CEOs and Boards who care about making a difference. I find I get the most joy from my work when I see someone around me change and grow.

Kelly Coburn

As one who has raised triplets (and I think if you met my adult children, you might add “wonderfully”), I became quite good at “herding cats”, as my father loves to call it. That, coupled with my deep belief in the goodness that lies within each of us, and my strong wish to benefit people in whatever way I can, has me joyful to join the Community for Change and help connect and support all of you.

Robert Rose

I teach marketers to be storytellers. My job is as chief strategy officer for The Content Advisory, a company focused on helping businesses transform their marketing departments into media companies. My biggest joy is to witness people realizing their creative potential.

Maria Souza

I think of science and of beauty in dance, all the time. For most of my career, I focused on developing frameworks that better assess the social and ecological impact of human activity on natural complex systems. I find the most joy in my work when it's done with laughter and when I get people excited and thrilled with stuff they didn’t know they’d end up being passionate about.

Pip Coburn

More than anything I suspect I am driven by “community”. Across the past 15 years, I have grown to realize that most any success or fortune I have had in the work I do I have re-invested back into my activities such that I spend more and more of my life with people I adore and admire and just loving being around and working on a whole bunch of things that I am incredibly excited about. I like to study monumental change at the levels of society, marketplaces, organizations and most significantly… people. I like to study culture deeply. I like to attempt to create culture. I like processes and helping others advances their processes and being trusted deeply. My wife Kelly is both supportive and probably confused by what I do for a living which makes two of us. My greatest joy in my work is when I have the chance to draw from two decades of intense work in order to perhaps help someone have a break through.

Irwin Kula

I wake up every day and get to be a disruptive spiritual innovator and rogue thinker. As President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership a do-tank at the intersection of innovation, religion, and human flourishing, I have had the privilege to work with leaders from the Dalai Lama to Queen Noor and with organizations, foundations, universities, and businesses around the world. I am a 7th generation rabbi who plays in different media – as author of an award-winning book, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life (2006), as creator of a film, Time for a New God (2004) and a Public TV series Simple Wisdom (2003), as a pundit in both traditional and new media – always trying to help people live with greater passion, purpose, creativity, and moral imagination. I am co-founder, with Craig Hatkoff and Professor Clay Christensen, of the Disruptor Foundation whose mission is to raise awareness of and encourage the advancement of disruptive innovation theory and its application in societal-critical domains.

Corey Loftus

I grew up in a blissful, suburban utopia of Columbia, MD, cocooned in love and space, where family was always close. I’ve lived a life in the theater, then the yoga + fitness world of NYC, and the experiential MBA of running my own company in real estate amenity management (acquired in May 2021). Now, I practice consciously breathing and moving simultaneously, in whatever I’m up to each day. My wife, 2 kids, and my Pomeranian Lucy keep me living in the moment. I’m working toward the Star Trek future that I believe is possible. Memento mori. Carpe diem.