Cohort 3 (2019-2020)

Yichen Feng is a business builder, educator, and finance professional with over 12 years of experience mobilizing resources to solve hard problems and create beautiful things. She has developed a wide-ranging toolset that includes starting a public primary school in Hayward, California, advising tech companies like Yahoo! and Snap at Goldman Sachs, co-founding a small-batch tea company, and most recently as a private equity investor in ed tech and future of work companies, and many other pursuits that integrate the personal and professional. In October 2022, she joined the Center for Economic Democracy (CED). 

At CED, Yichen continues to build as an educator and strategist in the role of Managing Director of Capital Strategies, helping individuals and institutions see past our current systems and self-limiting beliefs to invest in a just economy by integrating Social Movement Investing frameworks, Solidarity Economy principles, and her experience as an investment banker/private equity investor. 

Yichen currently lives in Oakland, California. She spent her formative years split between Shanghai, China where she was born and the multicultural and working class communities of East Los Angeles.  

Reflecting on JEI’s core values — Community, Interconnectedness, Transformation — which value speaks to you most, at this moment in time? Why? 

All are precious. Transformation is particularly appealing to me at this moment because of the possibilities it awakens. The possibility of changing my mind, of growing, of being differently, of moving from discomfort to sense-making, and finding a new comfort from understanding, of evolution. It also means forgiveness and grace are possible. The idea that I can change and that people can change, and that we can change… I can’t think of something more hopeful than that possibility.  

What are a few things about you that would surprise other people? 

In no particular order: 

I’m at the boxing gym almost every day.  

I’ll never say no to fishing or a dance floor.  

My first business was selling grapefruits and my favorite business venture was running an online vintage clothing store.  

My last art show was in 2019. 

I taught at a middle school when I was an investment banker. 

I’d love to talk to you about covenant economics.  

What movements for a just economy, past or present, inspire you? 

My grandparents were revolutionaries, organizing and fighting against Japanese imperialism in their youth. They taught me about political economy and social theory at a very early age. They showed me theory without practice is empty; practice without theory is blind.  

The UTLA teachers who educated me and created movement ecosystems within each classroom. Thank you for encouraging me to protest and organize against the military industrial complex in my youth. Thank you for teaching me that I could turn pain into love.  

The LUNAR giving circle, which is being created at this moment (and birthed in JEI).  

Zapatista Women. Thank you for the light.  

Will Culler-Chase is an investment professional focused on food and agriculture. He sees finance as a powerful tool in shifting the food system away from extractive, linear models to ones that create long-term value for a broader set of stakeholders. He recently founded a specialty finance company, Multistrata, serving small and mid-sized organic farms. Working with downstream partners in the supply chain, it provides low-cost working capital financing to a customer base that has been neglected by traditional capital providers. Previously, Will held various roles with investment management firms in the US and in Europe. Most recently he was based in Paris, helping Prudential Private Capital grow its private credit platform internationally. He is a board member and investor at Slow Money Northern California, where he helps organize events that promote the work of local food system entrepreneurs. Will holds a degree in art history from Brown University in Providence, RI.

Stu manages strategy, capital deployment, business development, and relationship management for RSF’s Climate & Environment portfolio of social enterprises. He also oversees RSF’s Regenerative Economy Fund, a smaller fund with an emphasis on climate justice and the circular economy. Stu is on the board of Idle-Free California and the young professionals board of Huckleberry Youth Programs. Prior to RSF, Stu worked at the High Meadows Fund, an environmental foundation in Burlington, VT. Stu holds a BA in Human Ecology from Middlebury College and lives in San Francisco, CA.

Sabrina Wu (she/her) is a Senior Program Officer at East Bay Community Foundation, leading the Foundation’s work on building a just and inclusive economy. In this capacity, she supports increasing access to fair capital for BIPOC entrepreneurs, grassroots equitable economic development, and moving grant and impact investing resources in more participatory and collaborative ways. She is also a co-founder of LUNAR, a cross-racial solidarity funding initiative for Asian Americans to support movements for Black and Indigenous lives.

Petr Johanes is an investor, researcher, educator, and storyteller originally from the Czech Republic and currently based in Silicon Valley on a mission to build socio-technical infrastructure that powers prosperity, sovereignty, and positive legacy for all. Petr worked as a nanotechnology researcher in startups and at Stanford before transitioning to finance as an infrastructure investment analyst at the World Bank and then as a frontier, early-stage technology venture capital investor at Khosla Ventures and Uprising Ventures. Afterward, Petr co-founded his family’s investment group and led the venture and impact investment arm, Metatron Global. Petr is finishing his PhD at Stanford at the intersection of artificial intelligence, philosophy, and education. As part of his education work at Stanford, Petr stood up an educational big data infrastructure, created a digital graphic novel, worked on the Stanford 2025 project to imagine the future of Stanford, and led the Learning Analytics research group. He has won multiple awards for his engineering, research, and teaching, while frequently speaking at academic and business conferences and publishing in academic journals and business magazines. Petr is now joining Gravity Accelerator, an early-stage accelerator focusing on disruptive technologies that advance new governance and economy models, where he is leading due diligence and architecting the financial systems to power this acceleration ecosystem and beyond.

Pete Borum is the Founder and Managing Partner of Squint Labs LLC, a venture fund and start-up accelerator investing in companies, teams and products that help combat “fake news” and media manipulation. Prior to starting Squint Labs, Pete was the Co-Founder and CEO of Reelio, a data-driven influencer marketing platform connecting advertisers to social media influencers. After selling Reelio to a subsidiary of AT&T Warner Media in 2018, Pete served as VP of Corporate Development for the firm, collaborating on strategic investments, M&A activity, and post-merger integrations across one of the world’s most valuable media portfolios. Pete’s early career spans the public and private sector, with roles in private equity, government, political campaigns, startups, nonprofits, and a public sector labor union. Originally from a small farm town in Kentucky, Pete received his Bachelor of Arts in Music and Computer Science at Stanford University and got his MBA in Finance from the Wharton School. He was selected by his Stanford peers as Class Co-President and by the administration at Wharton as a member of their “40 Under 40” list in 2018. Pete currently lives in San Diego, CA with his wife Stacy. They are expecting their first child in October.