Michael Sheldrick is a policy entrepreneur, author and a driving force behind the efforts of Global Citizen to end extreme poverty and build climate resilience. As a Co-Founder and Chief Policy, Impact, and Government Affairs Officer, he leads the organization's campaigns to mobilize support from governments, businesses, and foundations. Michael is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, and the author of the Amazon best-selling book, From Ideas to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World (Wiley: 2024).

Michael's personal journey is deeply tied to his belief in systemic solutions such as access to education and healthcare. Despite struggling academically growing up, the support of a dedicated teacher helped him rise from the bottom to the top of his class. At just 23, while still in university, he organized his first concert in Perth, Australia, advocating for the Australian government’s support in polio eradication. From these beginnings, he and his co-founders built Global Citizen, starting solely with in-kind donations and growing it into the global movement it is today. His experiences fuel his commitment to leveraging policy to tackle the world’s most urgent challenges.

Michael has worked with an impressive roster of international artists such as Beyoncé, Coldplay, Idris and Sabrina Elba, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Priyanka Chopra, Rihanna and Usher, as well as prominent political leaders including Brazilian President Lula da Silva, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and former Australian Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

He has co-produced some of the world's most impactful social campaigns and events, including the annual Global Citizen Festival in New York, the Guinness World Record-winning virtual concert One World: Together At Home, and the Nelson Mandela 2018 centennial celebration, Mandela 100. These initiatives have reached millions of people in over 150 countries and helped secure over $40 billion in support for local and regional organizations working to provide access to essential resources such as healthcare, education, and climate resilience.

Oussama is a cultural management consultant and museum development expert based in Cologne and Beirut. Oussama advises cultural organizations in business development and philanthropy and provides consultancy services to foundations, private corporations and governmental bodies on national cultural strategies and governance. Oussama is involved in the design and implementation of various artistic and cultural programs and museum development projects in Europe, the MENA region and Africa. He is a board member of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and is supporting the development of similar regional cultural funds internationally.

Cynthia Cohen is a senior fellow at IMPACT, Inc., focusing on strengthening the contributions of arts and cultural work to opposing authoritarianism, both globally and in the United States. Previously,  at Brandeis, she initiated an undergraduate minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation, and launched  Peacebuilding and the Arts, devoted to strengthening the arts, culture and conflict transformation field. She has written extensively on the aesthetic and ethical dimensions of conflict transformation, including “Working with Integrity: A Guidebook for Peacebuilders Asking Ethical Questions” and “Creative Approaches to Reconciliation”. She co-edited and co-authored “Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict”, a two-volume anthology accompanied by a documentary film and a toolkit. Prior to her tenure at Brandeis, she founded and directed a multicultural, anti-racist community oral history center. Cynthia has worked as a coexistence facilitator with communities in the Middle East, Central America, and South Asia. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of New Hampshire, a masters in urban studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a degree in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. rsity of New Hampshire, an MA in Urban Studies from MIT, and a BA in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University.