About us

Evan has been a longstanding leader at the intersection of startup-driven disruption, policy, and democracy. Evan served as the CEO of Helm through the 2020 and 2022 political cycles, helping pro-democracy and cross-partisan issue advocacy groups to organize voters in powerful new ways, and serves on the board of Represent.us today.

Evan was the cofounder and CEO of 1776, where he worked with startups around the world tackling important challenges in areas such as education, health, energy, transportation, and food. As an angel investor and seed venture capitalists, Evan has invested in more than 50 startups with world-changing ideas, from Silicon Valley to Nairobi. His book Regulatory Hacking: A Playbook for Startups (Penguin Random House, 2018) was named by Inc. magazine as one of the Ten Best Business Books of 2018, and continues to serve as an important guide to frontier tech startups today.

Evan received his B.A. and M.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University, where he won the George Webb Medley prize.

Lara Stein, a distinguished leader in the field of idea-sharing and community engagement, is currently Chief Creative Officer at The Future US.

She is renowned for founding TEDx under the TED Conferences umbrella, where she innovatively led the program to license independent TED-like events globally. This initiative saw remarkable growth under her guidance, resulting in over 40,000 talks at 8,000+ TEDx events across 1,200 cities in 133 countries by December 2013. Stein's vision extended to TEDxWomen and youth-focused initiatives like TEDYouth and TEDxYouth, further diversifying TED's impact.

In addition to her role at TEDx, Stein co-founded and served as CEO of Boma Global, and was the Executive Director of Women’s March Global. Her professional journey includes significant roles at MIT, Microsoft’s MSN division, managing broadband programming and business development, and producing programming for Lifetime Television, Simon and Schuster, and WGBH-PBS.

Starting her career as a documentary filmmaker, Stein has also directed several documentaries, gaining industry-wide recognition for her contributions.

Lara possesses an extensive background in board participation, encompassing roles on both for-profit and non-profit organizations, with notable contributions to several esteemed entities. These include Equality Now, The Lung Cancer Research Foundation, We are Family Foundation, Lalela, Sherlock AI, and Boma Global.

Miles previously served as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and was the Head of Advanced Technology & Security Strategy at Google.

He has published two New York Times best-sellers -- A Warning and Blowback -- and in 2020 launched a campaign of ex-officials to shine a light on presidential misconduct. He’s worked as an advisor in the George W. Bush administration; on Capitol Hill; appeared as a regular contributor on CNN, MSNBC, and BBC; and is the cofounder of a DC-based charter school and multiple democracy-reform groups.

Taylor received his MPhil in international relations from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar and BA from Indiana University as a Harry S. Truman scholar.

Few system-change entrepreneurs have been as effective as Xander Schultz in recent years. Organizations he’s founded include Fast Company World-Changing Idea Winner Defeat By Tweet, the powerful donor network One For Democracy, the scaling-solutions gathering The Convening, and celebrity advisory Real Wins. He also recently supported MLKs family in launching the Drum Major Coalition, helped secure Senate victories via Win Both Seats, and partnered with Vote Save America to create F*ck Bans Action Plan in response to the overturn of Roe v Wade. Before focusing on America’s civic challenges, Xander was a VC and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He graduated Summa Cum Laude at the University of San Francisco.