Team

UP QUOTES

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.”

H.E. Luccock

James Norris

UP TEAM

James Norris

All his life, James has been searching for the best ways to change himself and change the world. He started as an entrepreneur at age 6 and since has co-founded or helped build 9 businesses and 16 organizations, including the global conference series for the effective altruism movement, the world’s first global lifehacking event series, Southeast Asia’s first social innovation hackathon series, and a university for today’s Leonardo da Vincis. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin as a triple major/quadruple minor. He’s spent 20+ years unsystematically upgrading himself.

Thi Ho

UP TEAM

Thi Ho

Thi’s professional experience ranges from consulting for the world’s leading financial institutions to managing strategy, growth, and operations for early-stage startups in the US and HK. She is on a perpetual quest to acquire knowledge, better herself and implement her learnings to make an impact. Thi is deeply passionate about self-improvement, the healing arts, and serving the greater good. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Political Science.

Thi Ho

UP TEAM

Zian Bonoan

As someone in the early stages of her career, Zian is eager to seize every opportunity for self-development. She is building on the foundations of her professional life and remains open to changes in her character, perspective, and motivations as she progresses through this period of growth. Zian finds fulfillment in working towards the greater good, learning through various mediums, and both creating and appreciating visual design. She holds a degree in Economics from Ateneo de Manila University.

Coaches

Paul Rohde

Senior UP Coach

Paul Rhode

Paul is a senior coach with 6+ years of experience. His past educational and professional experiences center around management, economics, communication, data science, and psychology. He has worked with c-level managers, scientists, management consultants, venture capitalists, and many others. His coaching style leans toward directiveness, pragmatism, action bias, fast pace, data, experimentation, scientific evidence, thinking in systems, and growthful discomfort. Paul’s coaching mission is to empower bright minds to lead their fields and industries for the greatest good while taking care of themselves and their beloved ones.

Mushfiqa Jamaluddin

Senior UP Coach

Mushfiqa Jamaluddin

Mushfiqa is a Foresight Strategist and Leadership Coach who supports leaders around the globe. Her work is guided by her core desire to move the needle on a world that operates from fear, scarcity and contraction to one that operates from love, enoughness, and expansion. At the individual level, she has supported sustainability and social change entre/intrapreneurs, Fortune 500 senior leaders, PhDs, medical doctors, transdisciplinary designers and creative geniuses. At an organizational level, she has worked with the UNDP, IAEA, Disney, Summit Series, and one of the largest social media platforms in the world. She has also facilitated workshops on topics ranging from entrepreneurial leadership to embodied storytelling and gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Sebastian Schmidt

UP Coach

Sebastian Schmidt

Sebastian is an impact and truth-oriented coach for impact-driven people – from founders to researchers at Oxford. Enabling his clients to flourish and maximize their lifetime impact is aligned with his purpose. When he’s not doing his best as a coach, he’s the co-lead at Future Academy – an ambitious educational experiment for altruistic talent who want to contribute to a flourishing future with their careers and character. Before becoming a coach Sebastian worked in biosecurity research at Stanford (M.D.), co-founded Effective Altruism Denmark, co-authored a book during his undergrad, and created a course for 1,000+ students. Most importantly, he’s a mediocre salsa dancer.

Tee Barnett

UP Coach

Lee Mason

Lee’s mission in life is to help people lead optimally healthy, happy and meaningful lives. As a physical therapist, he worked in rehabilitation centers, a university hospital and a hospice for the terminally ill. As a teacher, he taught university courses about well-being and self-development. As a coach, Lee helps clients to achieve meaningful personal and professional goals, such as developing healthy exercise habits, increasing productivity and effectively managing stress. He created an online course about human flourishing, designed to help people optimize well-being and transform unproductive thoughts, emotions and beliefs into constructive behavior. He also wrote a book about sustainably achieving important goals. In addition, Lee hosts regular online self-development workshops for international audiences.

Dave Cortright

UP COACH

Dave Cortright

Dave helps clients discover their true life and supports them to live it. He is a certified professional coach drawing from several coaching approaches to craft a personalized program best-suited to each client. He previously spent 25 years at Silicon Valley tech companies (Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Venrock, etc.) as a designer, manager and IT director. He has been a serious philanthropist since 2004 and an effective altruist since 2017, supporting animal welfare, environmental and well-being causes. He is a member of the International Coaching Foundation (ICF). He also has extensive training and experience volunteering as a crisis counselor (Crisis Text Line) and is a top-rated compassionate listener (7 Cups). He has lived experience with anxiety, depression, procrastination, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome. Dave has a Masters in Computer Science from Stanford and a Bachelors in Engineering Physics from Michigan.

Michelle Raffanti

UP COACH

Michelle Raffanti

Michelle has built growth strategies for all manner of start-ups, nonprofits, and social enterprises across many different industries and locations. Throughout her career, she has focused on coaching, consulting for, and supporting women and indigenous populations. She holds a BA in International Relations from DePaul University in Chicago and an MA in Sustainable Development from The New School in New York. Originally from Chicago, she has lived in the UK, Colombia, China, and now resides in Mexico City.

Expert Network

Berta Raspall

UP EXPERT

UP Network

We build tailored UP Teams from our database of 300+ agencies, job boards, and specific experts and assistants, depending on the needs of the client. These UP Teams are generally composed of 2-15 people and may include a coach, executive assistant, psychotherapist, physician, exercise physiologist, registered dietitian, financial advisor, publicist, and personal stylist, among others. Some operate for short periods and some for longer.