What's Wrong With: The Podcast SOUR

Today in the episode of What’s Wrong With: The Podcast, we are excited to be talking with Emily McGarvey, Director of Sustainability for Room & Board.

Emily McGarvey brings 20 years of experience spearheading social and environmental strategies with a focus on product, supply chain, operations, and branding. Leading sustainability initiatives for Room & Board and Room & Board Business Interiors, the brand’s commercial arm, she is strategically focused on bringing sustainability to the forefront of furniture manufacturing.

Prior to her role with the company, McGarvey served as Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Target, where she played an integral role in developing the corporation's sustainability program, rolling out enterprise-wide initiatives including the company’s chemical management and transparency policy and their incredibly popular Car Seat Trade-In program. In 2018, she founded Star Impact Consulting, where she provided purpose-driven strategy and branding for both for-profit and nonprofit business sectors such as Apparel Impact Institute.

In today’s episode of What’s Wrong With: The Podcast, we are excited to be talking with equity and inclusion advocate: Manpreet Dhillon!

Manpreet is a certified Personal and Executive Coach, Human Resources Professional, and Internal Auditor who uses her skills and expertise to create strong organizational cultures and provide economic empowerment to equity-deserving groups - among which as Founder and CEO of Veza Global. Her experience in community development, knowledge transfer, project management, and gender mainstreaming sets her apart as an expert in the field.

With over 20 years of experience in leadership, coaching, human resources, and change management, Manpreet focuses on creating systemic change to address institutionalized inequalities through representation from the communities being served. As a settler, born in Canada with parents from India, and someone living with invisible disease, Manpreet is a powerful advocate for others who live with it too.

Manpreet ranked #15 globally on the 2020 EmPower Ethnic Minority Future Leaders list and is a contributing author to Chicken Soup for the Soul, Forbes, Thrive Global, and CHRP People Talk.

She also serves as an Ambassador with the Women's Enterprise Center and was a Business Coach for the Entrepreneurs with Disabilities program. In 2018, she led one of the first trade missions held by a private company, guiding women entrepreneurs to Croatia to further the mission of increasing exports by women entrepreneurs.

Manpreet has held positions as a board member of the Canada India Education Society, liveBIG Society, British Columbia Institute of Technology Alumni Board of Directors, was a past Board Member of Royal Roads University, and has served on various arts and health boards.

Today in the episode of What’s Wrong With: The Podcast, we are excited to be talking with Nzinga Mboup!

Nzinga Biegueng Mboup is a Dakar-based, Senegalese architect who co-founded WOROFILA a practice that specializes in bioclimatic architecture and construction using earth and biomaterials sourced locally. In addition to her architectural practice, Nzinga has worked as a researcher for the African Futures Institute and co-authored two research projects called Habiter Dakar and Dakarmorphose that investigate the problematics of housing, heritage and identity in the city of Dakar. Nzinga has also co-produced the installation Bunt BAN as a participant in Guests from the Future at the Biennale Architettura 2023 and starting in the summer 2023 has been appointed as the curator of the c/o Dakar program of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Today on the podcast, Michael Braun and Eldad Gothelf from Kasirer - a New York City based firm driven by strategists, problem solvers, and expert navigators of complicated systems, and complicated solutions. Kasirer builds coalitions and consensus to win support for their clients—across industries, interests, approvals, and all levels of government.

Our first guest is Eldad Gothelf, Kasirer’s Senior Vice President of Real Estate. Eldad works with all of the firm’s real estate clients, guiding them through the policy and political challenges of development in New York City. He is an urban planner with a deep knowledge of zoning and development in New York City. Eldad also served for eight years as an Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University’s GSAPP, where he taught classes focusing on land use Approvals, zoning, and housing policy, along with leading several planning studios.

Joining Eldad is Mike Braun, who directs Kasirer’s business development efforts, advises the firm’s principals on key operational activities, leads the firm’s communications, facilitates firmwide coordination, and supports recruitment, management, and professional development. Mike is also heavily involved in civic and charity work. He started his own local organization called Astoria Young Professionals, which hosts social, philanthropic and community events for the young professional network in the neighborhood. Mike was recognized on City & State’s Queens Power 100 list and received numerous awards in the built environment industry.

Today in the episode of What’s Wrong With: The Podcast, we are excited to be talking with design theorist, facilitator, and practitioner: Sloan Leo!

Leo is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of FLOX Studio, a community design and strategy studio that supports mission-driven organizations to animate the practice of their values. Using facilitation, FLOX Studio engages innovative social impact leaders to collaboratively design their culture, strategy, and organizational development efforts. Rooted in black feminist theory, Afrofuturism, and social justice, FLOX is on a mission to improve the embodied experience of social impact workers and the institutional communities they comprise.

Appointed the inaugural Designer-in-Residence at the School of Visual Arts Design for Social Innovation Master’s program, Leo has over 15 years of experience with social impact management and community design.

Today on the podcast, Joseph Heathcott grew up in the Industrial Midwest, and has worked as a dish washer, fry cook, roofer, carpenter, lumber yard grunt, and community organizer. He also has a background as a photographer and radio announcer and producer. These days he is the Chair of Urban and Environmental Studies at The New School, exploring cities within a global, comparative perspective.

Much of Joseph’s work over the past decade has been to connect humanities and social sciences with practice fields such as architecture, planning, policy, and urban design. He is the author of Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic, which just came out, and with Angela Dietz he wrote Capturing the City: Photographs from Streets of St. Louis.

In addition to his scholarship, Joseph is a practicing curator and artist, and has exhibited his work at the Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum, MIT Galleries, Town Hall Galleries in Stuttgart, and the Museo Banco de México in Mexico City. He has also held numerous visiting positions, including: the U.S. Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the United Kingdom; Senior Visiting Scholar at the London School of Economics; the Mellon Distinguished Fellowship in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities at Princeton University School of Architecture; Senior Visiting Scholar at L'École Urbanine, Sciences Po; and Distinguished Fellow at the Advanced Research Collaborative, CUNY Graduate Center.

Heathcott is past President of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, and currently serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association.