Beloved Economies Co-Authors

Jess Rimington

From 2015 to 2019, Jess served as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Global Projects Center, co-leading an ambitious research effort with more than 50 collaborators and cases across the U.S. In applying this research, she has co-led several multi-stakeholder co-creation processes amongst finance, philanthropic, government, small business, and community actors focused on developing new models of economic interaction grounded in emerging, next system values. The research will be shared in the forthcoming book Beloved Economies: Transforming How We Work (2022) and a podcast series. You can learn more about Beloved Economies here.

For over a decade, Jess has supported nonprofit and business enterprises in transforming their internal work practice to be in alignment with their justice-oriented missions. Her applied work has been informed by eleven years of experience leading two global nonprofit organizations. As both an Executive Director and Managing Director, she built cross-cultural staff teams with innovative work cultures rooted in post-capitalist frameworks.

Today, Jess’s work is focused on awakening the economic imagination of individuals and groups, cultivating their ability to step out of the current system and into a more resilient next paradigm by transforming the way they work. She also supports the documentation and translation of next economy cases and ideas into accessible media and tools for mainstream audiences. She is a Co-Creator and Executive Producer of The Light Ahead  podcast.

Jess’s collaborative, grassroots research is housed in the Lab of Possible Futures. She also offers practical resources and hosts learning conversations through the School of Possible Futures.

Her early career was spent in popular education, creating curriculum, rubrics, guides, and training.

Jess is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Joanna L. Cea

Joanna Cea is an advocate, researcher and practitioner of funding practices that lift up the wellbeing of all. She has worked in community-driven efforts to stop destructive investments, as well as to build solutions that reimagine investment and the role we each play in defining the economic futures of our communities.

With Beloved Economies, Joanna serves as a co-director of the research and campaign, and co-author on the book.

Beginning in 2006, Joanna led the human rights organization International Accountability Project for eight years, and she subsequently served as founding director of the Buen Vivir Fund with Thousand Currents. Alongside this work, starting in 2015 as a Visiting Scholar with Stanford University’s Global Projects Center, Joanna co-facilitated a research initiative with more than 200 collaborators to identify co-creative practices that build next economies.

Joanna has been drawn to the interconnection of human and environmental wellbeing since childhood, and now as a mother herself, her awe at the interconnectedness of all life continues to deepen. You can learn more about her work here. She lives with her husband and young son in Waianae, Hawaii.

Interview Host

Maggie Nichols

Maggie Nichols joined the Eureka! Ranch in 1999 after graduating from Miami University’s Farmer School of Business. After reading an article about the Ranch during an Entrepreneurship class, she decided that the Eureka! Ranch was the place where she was going to work. Months and dozens of pestering visits later, Founder, Doug Hall, finally acquiesced and Maggie’s been part of the ranch ever since.

She started as an Apprentice Inventor working on innovation projects alongside Doug Hall and the team. After a short stint working on internet strategy at a large corporate bank, she moved to Oxford, England where she supported Eureka!‘s European efforts. In 2005, she returned to the US as Vice President of R&D while also, continuing to oversee innovation projects. During those years she helped to pioneer the development of Innovation Engineering.

In 2009 Maggie was named President & Chief Operating Officer – not only leading the team at Eureka! Ranch and the Innovation Engineering Institute, but helping C-Level Executives around the world guide their employees and teams through innovation. She has served as an innovation coach and educator to some of the world’s largest companies and non-profits including American Express, Humana, March of Dimes, and P&G. In Summer, 2018 Maggie was named CEO & President of Eureka! Ranch.

Maggie is a Miami University (that is Ohio) graduate who is married to her college sweetheart, Brian. They live in Cincinnati, Ohio with their two kids