Europe
Emma Rees Co-founder
Emma Rees is a co-founder of Momentum and served as a National Organiser from the organisation’s launch through to late 2017. She was part of a small team that built the Momentum from the ground up, from an email list to an activist organisation with over 42,000 dues paying members.
She coordinated the 2017 general election campaign which mobilised tens of thousands of volunteers and played a decisive role in Labour’s comeback. Emma is a founding member of The World Transformed, Europe's largest festival of political education, and is a trained teacher and certified leadership coach.
Adam Klug Co-founder
Adam Klug is a co-founder of Momentum where he worked as one of three National Organisers and played a central role in developing the organisation from its launch around a borrowed table with no money, to a volunteer-driven mass membership organisation.
Adam played a leading role in introducing a host of distributed organising techniques, enabling hundreds of thousands of people to participate in campaigns at scale and was a founding member of Europe’s largest political festival, The World Transformed. Adam has a background in education and leadership development and is a qualified teacher and a certified coach. He has acted as a spokesperson for Momentum and has advised progressive campaigns internationally.
Jo Beardsmore Co-founder
Jo Beardsmore is a co-founder of UK Uncut, a volunteer led network which pioneered distributed organising techniques and utilised direct action to disrupt government narratives around the economic necessity of austerity. He has applied the lessons learnt to campaigns in the US and UK.
Jo has a decade of experience working with trade unions, grassroots groups and progressive organisations, helping them to build online teams, train volunteers, and develop campaign strategy and tactics. Jo also works to facilitate collaboration between social justice organisers and organisations in the U.K. and U.S., sharing the innovative tools, tactics and techniques that make up effective people powered campaigns.
Joe Todd Co-founder
Joe Todd was the Head of Comms at Momentum through the 2017 and 2019 General Elections - helping plan and implement election organising programmes that saw tens of thousands knock on doors and make calls for Labour.
He is also a founding member of The World Transformed, Europe's largest festival of political education, and Common Knowledge, a workers coop that designs digital tools for grassroots activists. He started organising in the student movement in 2010, and now works with big organisations and activist groups to scale up organising techniques and develop deep, impactful campaign strategies that win.
Faduma Hassan Senior advisor
Faduma Hassan has a background in education, training and mentoring and is a qualified secondary school teacher. She has extensive organising, campaigning and stakeholder engagement experience working for both grassroots organisations and for the UK Labour Party. She worked on the Doreen Lawrence Review which documented the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities and has supported the design and facilitation of leadership programmes for groups underrepresented in politics, including the Bernie Grant Leadership Programme.
Marianne Craig Senior advisor
Marianne Craig has over 20 years coaching experience and is an accredited master coach. She has been involved with many local and national social justice campaigns and has facilitated trades union courses on improving workers’ health at work. She has coached Extinction Rebellion and other climate justice activists, supporting them to reflect, focus and think strategically – and to give thought to their own well-being.
Laura Ho Senior advisor
Laura worked as the UK Organiser at Green New Deal Rising, where she was the organisation’s fourth staff member and contributed to the creation of the movement strategy, DNA and culture. She developed and led the movement’s MP challenge programme, challenging 130 politicians face-to-face in its first year and resulting in many viral moments including one that reached over 5 million views. She also co-ordinated viral disruptive actions, mass training programmes and big in-person events. Previously she worked as a community organiser for the UK Labour Party in the 2019 general election and cut her teeth in the UK student movement. Laura is now training to be a midwife.
US
Becky Bond Co-founder
Becky served as Senior Adviser to the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, and was an architect of the campaign's distributed organizing program. She co-wrote the book "Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything," a manifesto for volunteer-powered campaigning at scale to win big change. In 2018, she was an advisor on field strategy for Beto O'Rourke's historic Senate campaign in Texas, which was the largest organizing effort of U.S. midterm elections and set a new standard for volunteer engagement. Prior to working on the Bernie Sanders campaign, she served as political director of CREDO Mobile and an innovator in organizing and politics for more than a decade. Currently, she serves as an advisor to the Real Justice PAC which fights to end mass incarceration and hold police accountable by electing reform-minded District Attorneys. Becky advises advocacy groups, unions and electoral campaigns at The Social Practice, and is an internationally renowned speaker, organizer and strategist.
Zack Malitz Co-founder
Zack was the field director on Beto O’Rourke's historic 2018 Senate campaign. He led a more than 800 person team that organised tens of thousands of people to knock on more than 3 million doors, make more than 20 million calls, and send more than 56 million peer-to-peer text messages. In the 2016 primary, Zack helped lead the digital organising department for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, and played a key role in defining the groundbreaking volunteer organising that came to be known as "big organising." In the general election, he managed NextGen Climate's $12 million campus organising program, which included 180 full-time field staff and more than 500 student fellows on 235 campuses in 8 states. Zack co-founded the Real Justice PAC, which fights to end mass incarceration and hold police accountable by electing reform-minded District Attorneys to county prosecutor positions; helped launch the ACLU's nationwide grassroots organising program People Power; and has trained activists in the U.S., U.K., and Canada in "big organising" tactics.
Jin Ding Partner
Jin has been an innovator in political technology and operations for political campaigns and advocacy organisations for a decade, with a deep expertise in legal compliance. She was previously the director of technology for CREDO SuperPAC and a product manager for Action Kit, the leading digital organising toolset. She currently acts as the director of technology and operations and the Real Justice PAC. At The Social Practice she delights in everything that’s involved in making teams and processes more efficient, and is experienced with using a range of technology, political or otherwise, to solve problems.
Alexandria Sousa Senior Advisor
Alexandria has led innovative digital and distributed organizing programs for national grassroots campaigns and advocacy organizations across the country. Prior to joining the Social Practice, Alexa was one of the first team members on the Beto for America presidential campaign, helping to set up the staffing, resources, and operational infrastructure across the digital, technology, data, and organizing departments. As the Distributed Organizing Director for the Beto for Texas campaign, Alexa led a 35 person department that organized tens of thousands of volunteers across the country and opened 70 volunteer-run grassroots offices. Before joining the Beto campaign, Alexa project managed a team of organizers to launch People Power, the ACLU's first grassroots organizing program. Alexa also led digital and distributed organizing programs for Women's March, NextGen Climate, and Bernie 2016.
Elijah Zarlin Digital Director
Elijah has spent more than a dozen years working on large-scale digital efforts spanning politics, advocacy, brand storytelling, and product marketing. On the 2008 Obama campaign, he was team lead on email fundraising for the ground-breaking program that raised over $200M. He has led digital organizing, content, and fundraising programs in the climate space first at Al Gore’s Repower America, then at CREDO, where his efforts included a 100,000 person civil disobedience pledge to stop Keystone XL, organizing the largest national rapid response protest during the Obama admin, and switching thousands to clean energy. He has led response climate messaging at creative agency Purpose, and brand marketing initiatives at the location data platform Mapbox. His work has been featured in The New York Times, NBC Nightly News, CNN, The Atlantic, Harpers, and more.
Katelyn Coghlan Senior Advisor
Katelyn has run, managed, and advised progressive organizing programs and campaigns across the nation. Prior to joining the Social Practice, Katelyn served as the Campaign Manager and Senior Advisor to Cristina for Texas, a progressive challenge to John Cornyn. Before that Katelyn served as the National Deputy Organizing Director for Beto for America, and Deputy Field Director for Beto's 2018 Senate run, where she managed senior organizing leadership to oversee a staff of nearly 800 people that knocked on more than 3 million doors and made over 20 million calls. In 2016, Katelyn was the GOTV director for NextGen Climate in Iowa. Katelyn is a Green Corps graduate and a yoga teacher.
Katherine Fischer Campaigns Director
Katherine has worked on and managed organizing programs and progressive campaigns across the country. Starting as an organizer on Beto O'Rourke's Senate race, she managed multiple teams of organizers in Houston and the surrounding area as part of the organizing program that knocked on more than 3 million doors and made over 20 million calls. Since joining the Social Practice, Katherine has worked with candidates and clients to build large-scale organizing and digital programs around climate justice, defunding the police, and worker protections. She served as the Campaign Manager for Cenk Uygur's congressional race in California, and has worked with organizations including the Sierra Club and National Nurses United.