It’s not their technical skills or experiences that matter most, it is their ability to partner and forge deep connections. We want to share this wisdom with the world to help people build more meaningful lives and change the lives of others for the better.
Our deep connections shape who we are and have a profound ripple effect on everything we do, supporting us to achieve more, withstand anything, and amplify positive impact. These enduring partnerships are the foundation of a meaningful life as well as the backbone of any successful organization and collaboration, including many of humanity’s greatest accomplishments.
Hyper-individualism has created an environment of fear, division, and domination, which has crushed our ability to relate meaningfully to each other and diminished our capacity to innovate and collaborate.
We want to spark a relationship reset, helping move us from a hyper-individualistic world to a hyper-connected world.
Guided by a belief that deep connections of all kinds can help people to achieve something bigger, Jean Oelwang and a great group of partners formed the not-for-profit initiative, Plus Wonder.
Over the last 18 years, we’ve interviewed 60 extraordinary partnerships like President and Rosalynn Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Leah Tutu, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, and a host of others you will be delighted to meet.
They hosted us in their living rooms and selflessly and honestly shared their heartbreak and failures as well as their successes.
After collecting thousands of pages of transcripts from our open conversations, we began to notice recurring patterns in all the diverse partnerships. Their beautiful insights helped us to uncover a unique framework, The Six Degrees of Connection, which can help everyone build deeper relationships, find their true purpose, and make a difference in the lives of others.
We’ve also found this framework to be at the center of most successful large-scale collaborations, including some of humanity’s greatest collective achievements, such as closing the ozone hole and ending apartheid.
We’re excited to share these frank, eye-opening, and humbling real-life stories with you, and invite you to join us in a global movement towards cooperation and purpose, one that positively impacts the world around us.
We are a collective of friends who have philanthropically funded Plus Wonder to get this Deep Connection wisdom into the world as widely as possible. Any proceeds from books or other activities will all be donated directly back to Plus Wonder to spark meaningful connections.
Leadership
Operations & Partnerships
Program Director
Education
Education
Community Engagement
Jean is the Co-Founder of Plus Wonder, a not-for-profit initiative she was inspired to set up due to her deep and long-standing passion for the power of partnerships of all kinds.
She spent two decades with partners to lead the incubation and start-up of several collaboratives global initiatives, including The Elders, The B Team, The Carbon War Room, Ocean Unite, The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, 100% Human at Work, The Virgin Unite Constellation and The Branson Centres of Entrepreneurship. She also played a key partner role in the incubation of many other initiatives such as The Audacious Project.
She is also the founding CEO and President of Virgin Unite, a non-profit foundation set up to unite people and entrepreneurial ideas, Jean has helped corporations put the wellbeing of people and the planet at their core. She’s worked with more than 25 Virgin businesses across 15 industries to help embed purpose in everything they do. She also served as a Partner in the Virgin Group leading their people strategy.
Prior to Virgin, Jean spent 18 years working in six continents to start and help lead mobile phone companies in South Africa, Colombia, Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US. She was the joint CEO of Virgin Mobile in Australia before starting Virgin Unite.
Jean has long explored the overlap of the business and social sectors, including working for the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife in Australia. She’s also worked in numerous volunteer roles, such as a year-long stint as a VISTA volunteer where she worked with and learned from homeless teens in Chicago.
Jean holds a number of Advisory Board roles, including The Elders, The NewNow, the Sara Blakely Foundation and sits on the Boards of Rocky Mountain Institute, The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, Ocean Unite, Ocean Elders, Penn State Board of Visitors, AID Live, Unite BVI Foundation and Just Capital. She is also a B Team leader.
Lisa leads the operations of Plus Wonder. Driven by a deep understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, Lisa connects the Plus Wonder Partnerships, board, and teams. With foundations in sport and the Olympic Movement, Lisa thrives when creating environments that allow others to reach their full potential for the most significant collective impact in and on the world. Lisa is a mother to twin daughters, a Labrador, and a Boston Terrier. She lives in Park City, Utah.
Renee has lived in the Pacific Northwest for the majority of her life, and enjoys her home in a desert community in Washington State. She enjoyed a long career in sales, marketing and product development at a premier health insurance company in Oregon. In 2009, she began her boutique consulting firm working with many bestselling writers including Susan Cain, Author of QUIET and Rebecca Skloot, Author of THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS. Renee has a devoted husband, two adult children, and a beautiful grandson who she visits as often as possible. She enjoys traveling, photography and reads over 100 books per year.
Lindsay is originally from Indiana but spent most of her adult life being nomadic. She has degrees in Art History, Studio Art, and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing.
For seven years, Lindsay worked at THINK Global School, the world’s first nomadic high school, in various capacities: first and predominantly as the Media Specialist, later as a Curriculum Developer, and finally as an Educator of multidisciplinary project-based learning.
After returning stateside in 2018, she worked as the Digital Literacy Coordinator for Community College of Denver and supported adult learners by managing tutors, grants, and faculty in their implementation of digital programs. She continues to run her production company, Nomaddermedia LLC, and spends her free time reading, writing, traveling, and gardening.
Sierra Quitiquit is the Communications Manager for Plus Wonder.
She is a professional skier turned activist with a passion for campaigning for the causes she cares about. Born and raised in the mountains of Park City, Utah, Sierra’s passion for protecting nature is deeply ingrained.
Sierra is a graduate of the Cambridge CISL Business Sustainable Management Program, the co-founder of Plastic Free Fridays, and the founder and director of Time for Better, a climate communications agency. She loves to spend time in nature skiing, surfing, skateboarding and enjoys cooking for her friends in her free time.
Stephanie is the Head of Digital at Plus Wonder.
Based in London, she previously worked for Virgin Management and Virgin Red, and is now also a freelance writer and hypnobirthing instructor.
When she’s not looking at a screen, Stephanie can be found with her nose buried in a book, on the basketball court or chasing her two children around the park.
Coming from a diverse background in fashion, lifestyle, entertainment, technology and financial communications, Mich Ahern is a Senior Communications professional with expertise in sustainability. As an advocate for ethical business, over the last 15 years Mich has focused her efforts on CSR and sustainability communications to develop and drive corporate profiles and reputations to align with “good business”. Her professional expertise and her unfailing passion for “doing her part” in promoting a better, more responsible way of doing business has led to the creation of multinational corporations, NGOs, and CEO international profiles and leadership which, in turn, has influenced positive change. Her experience spans the luxury, sport, and lifestyle sectors, including Gucci, the Kering Group, Stella McCartney and PUMA, and in the not-for-profit world, including The B Team, Peace One Day, and One x One.
Andrea is currently the Director of Empathy, for Empathy Arts and an Executive Producer on a show runner TV series for Apple TV, Paramount TV and Anonymous Content. Andrea previously served as a long-term positive impact producer for Riley Productions—a film company that has used entertainment as exposure to and shared resources with start-up initiatives devoted to social justice efforts with a focus on youth education, cultural understanding and mental health care. Additionally, Andrea worked for a decade producing and researching arts, intercultural cooperation, and human-interest documentaries for Telecom Staff, Japan’s leading production company. She was involved in The Elders and The B Team as part of the advisor start-up team and instrumental in the UN Peace Day Puma-Adidas reconciliation and Peace One Day non-conflict intercultural education resource pack for UK & USA secondary schools. Now serving as a Founders Circle member for Plus Wonder, a board member of Empathy Arts Foundation, she also felt honored to have served on the advisory boards of Virgin Unite, The Long Run, and Media Ethics Magazine. She is an ardent advocate for investment in Jamaica.
Todd has twenty-five years of experience collaborating with CEOs and their leadership teams to forge fresh futures—starting with a clear purpose, then igniting everyone around it. He is a design thinker, with a deep practice in developing original, daring ideas—harnessing the creative genius in every individual—to further meaningful change in the world. He has helped to shape and design brand experiences at IBM, Brand Jordan, and Gap, just to name a few. He is equally passionate about education. Todd has helped build innovative curriculum in Systems Thinking and Entrepreneurship at Avenues The World School, helped launched the XQ Super School initiative, led the education non-profit The Future Project, and served as the Chief Knowledge and Experience Officer for Millennium.Org. He has also served on the board of directors at Marin Montessori School, the Drew School, as well as the Oberlin Dance Company where he helped to launch the new ODC Dance Commons for greater access to all creative talent in San Francisco.
Uzodinma Iweala is an award-winning author, filmmaker, medical doctor, and entrepreneur dedicated to promoting a new narrative and investment in Africa. He is currently CEO of The Africa Center. Uzo is the son of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, world-renowned economist and Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance, now Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Together, Uzo and Ngozi are also one of our Plus Wonder partnerships.
Ellie has worked in the entertainment industry as a Talent Agent, Casting Director and Producer and Director. During this time, she was responsible for casting the television pilots for hit shows including Friends, Sex and the City, and Drew Carey, along with many series’ and movies. As a Director, she’s led television episodes of shows including Boston Legal, Dead Zone, and Greek.
Ellie shared her experience by co-authoring two books on auditioning, and has also co-created a children’s board game focused on safety called The Game Plan Game, which teaches life skills. She supports Plus Wonder with her directorial skills, filmmaking expertise, as well as offering general guidance. Ellie is also involved with the non-profit organization Medicine for Humanity.
Joann’s visionary work in education includes the creation of THINK Global School; a not-for-profit project-based traveling boarding school, in which culturally diverse high-school students travel with their teachers through 12 countries. Joann founded Re-Imagining Education together with Big Change, she executive-produced the documentary “A Cure For The Common Classroom”, she is a founding member of The B-Team and 100% Human At Work. She supports education innovators HundrEd, as well as Brookings Institute.
Jean is the Co-Founder of Plus Wonder, a not-for-profit initiative she was inspired to set up due to her deep and long-standing passion for the power of partnerships of all kinds.
She spent two decades with partners to lead the incubation and start-up of several collaboratives global initiatives, including The Elders, The B Team, The Carbon War Room, Ocean Unite, The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, 100% Human at Work, The Virgin Unite Constellation and The Branson Centres of Entrepreneurship. She also played a key partner role in the incubation of many other initiatives such as The Audacious Project.
She is also the founding CEO and President of Virgin Unite, a non-profit foundation set up to unite people and entrepreneurial ideas, Jean has helped corporations put the wellbeing of people and the planet at their core. She’s worked with more than 25 Virgin businesses across 15 industries to help embed purpose in everything they do. She also served as a Partner in the Virgin Group leading their people strategy.
Prior to Virgin, Jean spent 18 years working in six continents to start and help lead mobile phone companies in South Africa, Colombia, Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US. She was the joint CEO of Virgin Mobile in Australia before starting Virgin Unite.
Jean has long explored the overlap of the business and social sectors, including working for the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife in Australia. She’s also worked in numerous volunteer roles, such as a year-long stint as a VISTA volunteer where she worked with and learned from homeless teens in Chicago.
Jean holds a number of Advisory Board roles, including The Elders, The NewNow, the Sara Blakely Foundation and sits on the Boards of Rocky Mountain Institute, The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, Ocean Unite, Ocean Elders, Penn State Board of Visitors, AID Live, Unite BVI Foundation and Just Capital. She is also a B Team leader.
Greg Rose is Content and Communications Director at Virgin, where he leads strategy, development and delivery of the brand and Richard Branson’s integrated communications, content and social media. Greg is also a fiction writer who previously worked as a sport journalist, news reporter, music writer, and footballer. Greg is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Shannon is CEO of the Bridgeway Foundation, the charitable giving arm of Bridgeway Capital Management. The Foundation works to restore peace and reconciliation in international communities suffering from oppression, genocide, and other human rights violations. She is a well-known strategist engaged in promoting peace and ending human atrocities across our globe. As an attorney, activist, and passionate advocate for social justice and international human rights, she has guided Bridgeway Foundation to pioneer solutions to combat these issues.
Prior to joining Bridgeway, Shannon served as Vice President of Geneva Global and was the Director of Public Affairs at the International Justice Mission. She is currently a board member of several organizations within the US and abroad including The Elders, Humanity United, and TOMS, and charity: water.
John joined private equity investment firm Terra Firma in 2007 as a Non-Executive Director of the group’s Guernsey-based entities. He worked with professional services company Accenture for 23 years working as a strategic, financial, change, and IT consultant with major clients across most sectors. John is a Non-Executive Director of INPP plc and previously served as Chairman of JT Group (formerly Jersey Telecom). Since moving to Guernsey in 2001, he has also been Managing Director of Guernsey Enterprise Agency and a Non-Executive Director/Advisor with Aurigny Airlines, Jersey Electricity plc, and Ogier Group.
He’s also a Governor of More House School, a Trustee of New Philanthropy Capital, and a former President of Rotary Guernesiais. John is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, and a Member of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants.
Kelly is the Founder, Board Chair, and Director of Fun for the Living Peace Foundation, which focuses on supporting people and projects that advance compassion, collaboration, and peace. She’s served on many philanthropic boards and is a founding and current member of the Plus Wonder Board and the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Program Ubuntu Council. She’s also on the Advisory Board of American Friends of Big Change.
Keith is dedicated to using creativity as a powerful catalyst for change. For two decades, he has led SYPartners, a practice that collaborates with CEOs and their leadership teams to build companies and organizations that have a positive impact on the world. He has worked with leaders at Activision Blizzard, Apple, eBay, Emerson Collective, Facebook, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Oprah Winfrey Network, Nike, and Starbucks, Target Corporation, among others. From 2009 to 2011, Keith served as The Charles and Ray Eames Brand Fellow at IBM, working to build a culture of design across the organization.
He is also an author and essayist on leadership and design, with work published in the Harvard Business Review and several journals. With an MA in organizational behavior and a BA in quantitative economics from Stanford University, Keith has lectured at the Yale School of Management, Stanford Business School, and the Jack F. Welch Leadership Center. Keith was an on-air commentator with Maria Bartiromo on the CNBC global primetime series, The Business of Innovation. Keith and his partner, Todd Holcomb, are also Plus Wonder Partners and members of the collective helping to shape Plus Wonder to be as impactful in the world as possible.
Ash is an embodiment educator, a dedicated practitioner of spiritual wellness, and a conduit for greater human connection
Combining science with spirituality, Ash is the founder of The MoveMe Method: a new form of transformative embodiment that unlocks the body’s self-healing wisdom through meditation and movement. In running corporate workshops with companies including Uber, Hornet Animations, and Sparks and Honey, Ash inspires a shift from constant movement to conscious movement.
She’s also a content creator and lead coach for the LightUp Lab, a hub for mindfulness experiences rooted in neuroscience and positive psychology. Formerly a Co-Founding Member and Director of THINK Global School, Ash developed InsideOut, a holistic social-emotional wellbeing curriculum, which offers youth tools for self-discovery. She’s also a certified yoga instructor with 300+ hours of training and holds a Master’s degree in Psychology in Education: Spirituality, Mind, Body from Columbia University.
Nick is a global educational consultant, curriculum architect, and school culture coach
Nicholas J. Martino is an expert in innovative education with a strong focus on the human aspects of teaching and learning. After teaching and leading global learning expeditions for a decade, Nicholas now works to implement higher-level educational change. His mission is to utilize high-quality educational models and approaches to make a positive change both locally and globally. His work as a consultant aims to develop thriving learning ecosystems, where all learners and stakeholders are valued. Through his consultancy, Nicholas has designed curricula for BIT School in Mexico City and the Changemaker Curriculum for THINK Global School. Martino trains and empowers learners, administrators, and educators through dynamic workshops and speaking events. These workshops range from well-being and social-emotional learning, sustainability and impact education, personalized learning, mentorship and coaching, Project and Place-Based learning, and entrepreneurship. Nicholas currently sits on the advisory boards of innovative programs Ecuador and Kenya, is a certified National Geographic Educator, and the country lead for education innovation for HundrED in Mexico. As CEO of Meta Learning, he is working to develop a new educational paradigm that aims to break down the barriers between education and society, and to offer a truly personalized education experience to each learner In 2011, he was recognized as Washington Post Teacher of the Year and Virginia’s Stafford County Teacher of the Year. In 2009, he was awarded the title of Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction. In 2021, he was named one of the top 100 Visionaries in Education by the Global Forum for Education and Learning.
Breanna Morsadi is deeply committed to helping students own their learning. She works with teams in reimagining education to be learner-centered and equitable. She is an advocate for agile learning design with integrated, supportive systems that nurture connection, agency, and authenticity for all. As a published writer across platforms such as Huffington Post, Getting Smart, Education Reimagined, Future Schools Alliance, and Age of Awareness, Breanna is fully engaged in the global conversation around 21st century education. She is the Head of Learning Design & Integration for Job’s For America’s Graduates (JAG) where she delivers learning solutions promoting student career pathways across industries to 75,000 youth. Breanna is a strategic thought-partner for Headrush, where she collaborates with schools to elevate their agile learning practices. She founded Morsadi Inc. in 2018 to embolden educational leaders positioned to make a difference and to catalyze systemic change through the power of student-centered learning. Her primary areas of practice include impact strategy, learning design, participatory leadership, equity of opportunity, and educational technology. As a former World Literature teacher at THINK Global School, the world’s first traveling high school, Breanna designed place & project-based curricula and organized local learning opportunities in 30+ countries for international students. Breanna is an Apple Distinguished Educator, Fulbright Scholar, and holds a BA in Secondary Education English at Arizona State University and a M.Ed in International Development at Boston University, where she was a graduate fellow.
Hannah is a Bay Area native who has called New York City home for the past six years. She’s currently pursuing her MBA at Columbia Business School, specializing in growth-strategy and marketing.
Prior to business school, she’s spent the majority of her career in the healthcare space, working in both the public health and digital health fields and focused on increasing access to healthcare.
When she’s not studying or working on PlusWonder campaigns, she can be found exploring the New York restaurant scene or performing as a vocalist in her six-person band.
