Yacnoy Abreu Dutour is a visual artist, dancer, choreographer, and performer with Afro-Cuban roots. Passionate about dance, he discovered in painting a powerful language, commensurate with his bodily commitment. A state graduate in contemporary and modern dance, Yacnoy Abreu Dutour finds in visual art a logical development of his career. The line is an extension of the gesture, the drawing becomes the trace of the dance.
by Marie Darrieussecq, writer
Thibaud Coudriou is a Sport and Fitness executive at 24 Hour Fitness with international background and expertise in Strategy, Marketing, Revenue Management and Business Development. He began in Amaury Sport Organisation, the company that owns and organizes the Tour de France, to further grow the brand internationally. He also launched the Women’s race of the Tour de France.
In 2015, Thibaud moved to Los Angeles to oversee the Operations of the Tour of California. He also started and grew Salty Home in the US, an online furniture company inspired by the surfing culture.
During the pandemic, he was hired by 24 Hour Fitness, a leading fitness chain in the US with 300 clubs across 11 states, to lead Strategy, Innovation and Revenues.
Ramón is a painter and art instructor living in Los Angeles.
He studied drawing and painting under Will Weston, Glenn Vilppu and Adrian Gottlieb while earning a BA at USC. He subsequently spent a year in Washington DC studying figure painting with Robert Liberace.
He has taught and lectured at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, Safehouse Atelier, California State University- Long Beach, DreamWorks Animation, the Society of Illustrators, Emile Cohl Atelier, the University of Lisbon- Faculty of Fine Arts, Art Center College of Design and Grand Central Atelier.
Marti Malloy is an American judoka who has been practicing the sport for more than 30 years.
She is a 2012 and 2016 Olympian, a 2012 Olympic Bronze medalist, and a 2013 World Championships silver medalist.
Marti is currently serving on the Board of Directors for USA Judo and recently relocated to Los Angeles to join LA28, the Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee for the 2028 Games, as a Marketing Manager.
Aditi Mayer is a visual storyteller, sustainability activist, and frequent speaker on topics of social and environmental justice. Her work explores the intersections of style, sustainability, and social justice. Seeing the fashion industry’s disproportionate on people of color globally, Aditi seeks to understand the historical and sociopolitical underpinnings that allow the fashion industry to function in a colonial manner, rooted in exploitation and extraction of both labor and the natural environment. Since then, she has become a voice in the larger sustainability movement, approaching her work from multiple domains: from grassroots organizing in Downtown LA’s garment district to educating folks on the importance of diverse perspectives. In 2020, she was named a Fulbright x National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow and spent 2022 in India documenting the intersections of agriculture and artisan culture in relation to fashion. Her work has been celebrated in the likes of Vogue, National Geographic, The UN, The Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, and more.
Alex Mitchell is the Senior Vice President Unlocking Innovation, where he oversees all founder-facing efforts, including recruitment, all incubation programs, as well as investments of the company. He joined LACI from Groupe PSA in Paris where he was Vice President of Corporate Strategy, co-leading the company’s acquisition of Opel from General Motors and leading the company’s work on autonomous mobility.
Alex is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA from the School of Arts and Sciences as a Fellow of the Lauder Institute Global MBA program. He holds a BA from Stanford University.
Patt Morrison is a journalist, author, and radio-television personality. Originally from Ohio, she is a 1974 cum laude graduate of Occidental College. Her work has spanned national politics and stories from the Los Angeles riots and earthquakes and the Space Shuttle to the Super Bowl, and the death of the Princess of Wales.
Morrison has a share of two Pulitzer Prizes as a longtime Los Angeles Times writer and columnist. As a public television and radio broadcaster, she has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards.
Her nonfiction books, “Rio L.A., Tales from the Los Angeles River” and “Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper,” were both bestsellers.
Yann Perreau is a writer, journalist and art critic. As a sharp observer of Californian society, he has written articles for Libération, Art Press, Beaux-arts magazine and LeMonde.fr.
He has also published in 2005 a series of portraits of Londoners entitled “Londres en mouvement” for Autrement’s editorial company. He has published essays by Jacques Rancière, Jean-Luc Godard, etc. in a collection for an Anglo-Saxon publisher.
He was deputy cultural attaché at the French Consulate General in Los Angeles until 2010.
Emmanuelle Rienda is a sustainability and vegan fashion expert renowned for producing historical concepts shifting the paradigm of thought that defines how we view fashion, emphasizing its often-overlooked cultural and environmental impact. Rienda’s philosophy made headlines globally and is creating systemic change in the fashion industry. Her work resulted in $60M+ in media impact value, inspiring a global trend and elevating the sustainable fashion narrative in the fashion industry. After studying fashion business and Art in Paris, she opened her first public relations firm in Los Angeles in 2008. She led a revolution within the fashion industry in 2018 by creating Vegan Fashion Week®. A leader and a connector, she triggered an aesthetic earthquake of great ethical value. Rienda is now considered the world’s leading vegan fashion expert and has worked with luxury and mass brands, emerging creatives, celebrities, and large institutions.
Meghan Sahli-Wells provides strategic policy consulting at the intersection of mobility, housing and environmental justice. She became the national Board’s Secretary of the Sierra Club in May 2022.
She is first woman to have served two terms as Mayor (in 2013 and 2019), and the fifth woman to have been elected to the City Council, in the history of Culver City. The “Biking Mayor” led the city’s transition to 100% renewable energy and to craft the city’s first bicycle and pedestrian master plan, among other achievements.
She holds a Graduate Certificate in Diversity Equity & Inclusion from Claremont Lincoln’s University, and two bachelor’s degrees from UCLA where she majored in World Arts and Cultures, and in French.
Asher Simon is a Development Associate at Century Affordable Development, Inc., a 501(c)3 not-for-profit developer of affordable and permanent supportive housing in Southern California.
He holds a Master in City Planning from MIT (‘2022), where he focused his studies on housing, community and economic development. He also holds a Bachelor’s in Geography from UCLA (‘2016). Prior to working in housing development, Asher worked in public accounting and corporate finance and holds an inactive CPA license in the state of California.
Sasha Suslina (she/her) is a classically-trained dancer with 20+ years of experience with a master’s degree in French Studies with Interdisciplinary Specialization in Dance from the Ohio State University.
Sasha and her dance partner, Jackson Xia, both believe in the sacred nature of dance and exploring Hustle as a healing dance that connects people. They have taught at Soulful Sundays and at Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world.
Jackson Xia (he/him) is a digital producer and street dancer of 14 years who was a former Arts & Media Coordinator at Sunrise Movement, Education Ambassador at Oceanic Global and Sustainability Coordinator for film sets at Earth Angel.
Jackson and his dance partner, Sasha, both believe in the sacred nature of dance and exploring Hustle as a healing dance that connects people. They have taught at Soulful Sundays and at Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world.