Carolina Lasso is the author of the Amazon #1 bestseller, The Path to Flourishing: Seven Principles for a Joyful, Fulfilling, and Purposeful Life, and the founder of the personal development platform, Plenari. Passionate about creating practical tools to help people flourish, Carolina combines her business background with her dedication to personal development as a teacher, marketer, coach, and consultant. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Business from the University of Maryland and an MBA from New York University. She has worked as a marketing leader at SIY Global, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, Google, American Express, and Telemundo/ZGS. Carolina is a certified emotional intelligence, mindfulness facilitator, and Life Purpose Coach.

Caro believes inner transformation leads to a healthier thriving world. She has a passion for helping people align their work to what is most meaningful to them, and helping teams become more effective in how they work together.

Caro has been working in the leadership and organizational development field for over 20 years. She creates and leads learning experiences in the areas of mindfulness, emotional intelligence, wellbeing, resilience, and leadership. She has also trained and certified teachers, built operations teams, managed human resources, led organizational culture change processes, and facilitated company-wide strategic planning processes. She was formerly Chief of Staff at the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, Founding Vice President at Axialent, and has held a variety of leadership positions in the non-profit sector.

As a certified Transformational Practitioner who is deeply passionate about being in service to others, Chelsa leverages a unique combination of transformative principles, practices and powerful coaching to support people through career and life transitions. Currently serving as a Personal Development Coach with both 1-1 and group offerings, she draws on a variety of tools and methodologies tailored to a clients’ specific needs, utilizing her experience in human design, mindset and somatic work, nervous system regulation, emotional healing, subconscious reprogramming and behavior change. 


Prior to Coaching, Chelsa co-founded the international non-profit, Kiva.org, in 2005. In her time with the organization, she developed Kiva's Global Microfinance Partnerships program, focused primarily on overseeing operations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She then oversaw the development of Inventory Management (content management by 500+ volunteers), Kiva's expansive Fellows Program (think mini-Peace Corps in 50+ countries), and Kiva's Marketing and Community teams. Developing strategy for brand management and online marketing, she led the organization through a full site redesign and rebrand, including introducing a new mission, vision and core values. Chelsa also served as Head of People with a focus on Talent Programs and Employee Engagement, where she built culture internally, across Kiva's expansive global ecosystem of staff, interns, fellows and volunteers. Prior to Kiva, Chelsa was a Corporate Recruiter and Immigration Specialist with Barclays Global Investors.

Dr Cathy-Mae Karelse (she/her) is a scholar-practitioner, facilitator and public speaker on issues of race, difference, bridging and belonging. As a Bridger, she is trained in numerous transformation approaches with 20+ years of experience in deep systems change that addresses the underlying social norms and narratives that keep institutionalised and systemic discrimination in place. Cathy-Mae has worked with corporates, policy institutes, communities, and global programmes on pathways that generate embodied liberation and collective leadership to make love and justice one. As author of Disrupting White Mindfulness: Race and Racism in the Wellbeing Industry, she foregrounds global South, Indigenous, and queer knowledges that elevate communal consciousness.

Ellie is the eldest multiracial, queer daughter of an immigrant from the largest Muslim country in the world. An organizational strategy and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) specialist with a 20-year career in management consulting, leadership and program development, communications, and open data and civic technology, she believes that individuals and communities are the experts of their own experience and that asset-based approaches deliver the most impact. Ellie spent over a decade in social impact on international programs and organizational effectiveness, prior to advising on program, product, and business strategy as Director of Impact at Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies. She has served as a mentor to Founder Institute, regularly advises on business strategy, and speaks regularly on identity, leadership, and civic engagement. Ellie has been interviewed by and featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, Silicon Valley Business Journal, and Tech Inclusion’s D&I Leader Spotlight for her EDI expertise. Ellie has a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in Urban and Strategic Management from San Francisco State University, and a specialty in Generative Somatics and Emotional Intelligence.

Lindsey has a strong background in startups and nonprofits. She served as a strategic partnership director for a marketing firm and as a consultant for cleantech companies. She’s a founding board member of the Israel Green Building Council and has an MBA in sustainable management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. A longtime mindfulness practice guides her desire to change the world.

Lori Schwanbeck, LMFT, MA, is a trauma informed psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher, and curriculum designer who weaves together Earth wisdom, body awareness and emotional intelligence to help people recover a deeper sense of connection to themselves and the world around them.

Tim Ream is a long-time Earth activist and Zen practitioner and teacher, leading retreats in various mindfulness traditions. He is an organizer, campaigner, writer, film maker, environmental attorney, and author of Fallen Water: A novel of Zen and Earth. His activism spans everything from direct action and civil disobedience like tree-sitting and road blockading to successful lawsuits to protect wolves and other species. SIYLI is excited to collaborate with Tim to build custom curriculum, including SIY for Environmental Activists.

Mindfulness, Public Health and Racial Healing Innovator.

Michelle Maldonado is CEO of Lucenscia (pronounced loo-SENSE-see-ah), a firm dedicated to human flourishing, Emotional Intelligence, and mindful business transformation. Her work focuses on leadership development at the pivotal intersection of mindfulness, unconscious bias, emotional intelligence, authenticity, and compassion, nestled on a foundation of neuroscience and taught through an equity lens.

Leveraging her 25 years+ expertise as a business leader, experience as a former tech attorney, and a practitioner with more than 40 years of contemplative experience, Michelle serves as a trusted advisor to leaders across industries. Her work has been featured in the United Nations Foundation’s Peace on Purpose Program, DQ Institute in association with the World Economic Forum, and Mindful Magazine as well as in various meditation apps. Michelle also serves as a state legislator where she founded the bi-partisan Technology & Innovation Caucus and was named “Rookie Legislator of the Year” in her first year of service.

Dr. Ekaterina Denkova
Dr. Denkova is a Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Assistant Director of the Neuroimaging Facility and Assistant Director of Research for the UMindfulness Initiative. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Strasbourg after which she joined the University of Alberta as a CIHR Fellow. She serves as Co-investigator on several federally funded grants with Dr. Amishi Jha.

Dr. Denkova expertise is in cognitive and affective neuroscience. Using brain and behavioral methods, she studies the neural basis of cognitive and affective processes and their trainability with mindfulness training. Her program of research focuses on: 1) The interplay between cognitive and affective processes underlying personal memories and thoughts, such as mind- wandering, ruminations, and intrusions; 2) The impact of mindfulness training on these cognitive and affective processes in high-stress/high-demand professionals.

Amishi Jha, is Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami, and Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, prior to which she was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD from the University of California–Davis, and received her postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University in functional neuroimaging. She studies the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion and resilience. With grants from the Department of Defense and several private foundations, she has been systematically investigating the potential
applications of mindfulness training in education, corporate, elite sports, and the military contexts. In addition to her own published body of research, her work has been featured at TED.com, the World Economic Forum, NY Times, NPR, the Aspen Institute, the Pentagon, the Journal of Special Operations Medicine, and Joint Force Quarterly.

Steven Laureys MD PhD MAE FEAN is a neurologist, author and keynote speaker, recognized for his expertise in neuroplasticity, neuromodulation and human consciousness. He is Chairholder of the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroplasticity, Professor at Laval University, CERVO Brain Research Centre, Quebec, CANADA and Invited Professor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston. He is Research Director at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research and founder of the ‘Coma Science Group’ and 'GIGA Consciousness' at Liège University. He is Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of BRAIN-NM NeuroModulation Clinics Antwerp and Amsterdam.
With his team and collaborators, he uses neuroimaging to study neuroplasticity and recovery from brain disease and trauma but also in sleep, dreaming, anesthesia, hypnosis, trance, psychedelics, and the power of the mind as studied in Buddhist monks, astronauts, entrepreneurs, and top athletes.

Jud Brewer, MD, Ph.D. (“Dr. Jud”) is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery,” who blends over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training and a career in scientific research. He is passionate about understanding how our brains work, and how to use that knowledge to help people make deep, permanent change in their lives — with the goal of reducing suffering in the world at large.

Heather Berlin is an experienced Associate Professor with a demonstrated history of working in the hospital & health care industry. Skilled in Neuroscience, Epidemiology, Research Design, fMRI, Clinical Supervision, and Psychological Assessment. Education professional with work at Harvard and Oxford Universities.