Andrew Russell is a specialist in peacebuilding and organizational change with three decades of experience in the United Nations. Andrew has worked in Central America, Cyprus and, most recently, in Kosovo, where he served as UN Development Coordinator and UN Development Programme Resident Representative. He holds specialized expertise in crisis prevention and recovery and his field experiences have primarily been within the context of managing programmes in support of the transition from conflict to peace and development and the promotion of multi-stakeholder dialogue in ethnically or politically divided contexts.

Andrew holds a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University and has taught development and peacebuilding studies at the undergraduate and graduate level, including at Queen’s University in Canada where he currently is an adjunct professor.

AdeSola (Sola), is considered by many to be a trusted advisor, thought partner, spiritual guide and friend. His professional path has been rewardingly unconventional and personally transformational. Taking him from a young marketing professional traveling the globe for the National Football League, to serving children and families in NYC’s foster care system, to founding a leadership and organizational development consulting firm, to serving as a private practice psychotherapist and Executive Coach, to C-Suite media executive, to yoga and meditation practitioner and teacher.

He completed his 200 Hour Dharma Yoga Teacher Training, is Certified by the International Association for Human Values as an Ambassador of Peace and is a graduate of the Martin Luther King Center’s Non Violence 360 training. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has an undergraduate degree in communications and advanced degrees in education, social work and business. He is a loving father and husband born of bi-racial descent to a white Jewish mother and Black Pentecostal father.

I am a restorative justice enthusiast and advocate, originally from Los Angeles, I now live in Weehawken, New Jersey with my wife, Ngoc, and two young boys, Shem and Sol. I came of age around incredible peacemakers and healers from the Shadetree Multicultural Foundation, Homeboy Industries Watts, Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural, the Western Gate Roots and Wings Foundation, the Community Self-Determination Institute and others. I earned a degree in Community Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz and later a JD from Loyola Law School, where I helped run the Center for Restorative Justice. I am also a graduate of the Consciousness Studies program at the Rudolf Steiner College and the Grantmaking and Foundations program at NYU. I have been working for more than a decade with private foundations, Universities and non-profits on initiatives pursuing restorative justice, criminal justice reform, immigration reform, homelessness and wellness in indigenous communities around the US and abroad. Throughout my life I have been holding questions about justice and healing and the ways in which they connect. What I have learned so far is that I am only at the beginning.