Our Team

Empowering shareholders to hold corporations accountable

Majority Action is a non-profit, 501 (c) 3, non-partisan organization that empowers shareholders to hold corporations accountable to high standards of corporate governance, social responsibility, and long-term value creation.

Board of Directors

Majority Action’s Board of Directors includes Carolyn Laub, Nadira Narine, James Rucker, and Sarah Weintraub.

Meet the Team

Whitney Shepard

CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

  • Whitney Shepard (she/her) (she/her) is the Co-Executive Director of Majority Action. She believes systems change through our interactions with them, valuing campaigns that create opportunities for positive impact and new pathways of systemic engagement. Her background as a campaign strategist, organizer, and researcher shapes her approach to social and systemic change. Whitney has worked on local and national campaigns addressing food insecurity, mass incarceration, immigration reform, workers' rights, and Wall Street accountability. She advocates for the explicit connection to be made between economic and racial justice, and explores how economic structures perpetuate racial bias, harm and inequity.

    Whitney is also a national member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), believing wholly that learning from our past better informs our future.

Bryant Sewell

CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

  • Bryant Sewell (he/him) (he/him) is the Co-Executive Director of Majority Action. Through various roles at Majority Action, Bryant has been pivotal in anchoring the research and strategic decision-making that drives the organization's campaign priorities and asset manager accountability work. Bryant has led and supported efforts to engage elected officials and large asset managers to socialize the understanding that companies engaged in fossil fuel production, consumption, and financing have a long track record of business practices that disproportionately harm people of color in the U.S. and abroad. Bryant has also been the lead author of several of Majority Action's seminal reports, proxy season vote guides, and exempt solicitations that underpin the organization's campaign and investor engagement efforts.

    Bryant is a graduate of Christopher Newport University and earned a Masters of Arts from American University School of International Service.

Divya Sundar

DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH

  • Divya Sundar (she/her) is the Director of Research at Majority Action. Prior to joining Majority Action, Divya conducted investigative, economic, and financial analysis for several groundbreaking antitrust, securities, and mass torts class action cases at plaintiff-side law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. Divya previously served as the Lead Strategic Researcher at East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), where she used strategic corporate research to support campaigns for local labor standards enforcement, hotel worker rights, equitable development on public lands, and worker protections during the COVID-19 emergency. She also served as Research and Policy Analyst for the United Auto Workers' campaign at Tesla’s flagship factory, where her responsibilities included strategic corporate research, lobbying, and political organizing.

    Divya has an M.S. in Economics with concentrations in Financial and Public Economics from Purdue University, an M.A. in Cultural Studies and Graduate Minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Ohio State University, and a B.A. in History from the University of Chicago.

Radhika Durvasula

DIRECTOR OF PROGRAM MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS

  • Radhika Durvasula (she/her) (she/her) is the Director of Program Management & Operations at Majority Action. She brings experience as a project management consultant, managing operations for a variety of businesses. She is passionate about building organizational systems that streamline processes and increase efficiency. She is dedicated to helping Majority Action succeed as the organization scales.

    Prior to consulting, she started her own e-commerce business called Jiva More Life, worked at GE Healthcare managing multi-million dollar sales, and has B.S. in biomedical engineering a from Case Western Reserve University. Radhika is based in Long Beach, CA.

Jason Opeña Disterhoft

DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

  • Jason Opeña Disterhoft (he/him) is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at Majority Action. Jason works with investors to strengthen their proxy voting practices and policies to mitigate systemic risk from climate change and racial inequity. Jason comes to Majority Action from Rainforest Action Network, where he led engagement with the biggest U.S. banks on their fossil fuel lending and underwriting. Prior to that, he worked on business and human rights at Amnesty International USA.

    Jason holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree (in philosophy) from Tufts University.

Our Founders

Eli Kasargod-Staub

CO-FOUNDER & ADVISOR

  • Eli Kasargod-Staub (he/him) is the Co-Founder and advisor of Majority Action. He has worked at the intersection of corporate governance and corporate accountability for his entire career and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) designation.

    Previously, he developed engagement strategies for Majority Action's predecessor organizations 50/50 Climate Project and the Climate Majority Project, as well as led research and corporate governance initiatives at the Service Employees International Union and the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

James Rucker

CO-FOUNDER

  • James Rucker (he/him) (he/him) is the Co-Founder of Majority Action. As a technologist and entrepreneur turned activist, he leverages technology to strengthen the voices of everyday people in creating political and social change, with an emphasis on racial and social justice. James is the co-founder and former executive director of Color of Change, an online community of more than a million people amplifying Black America's political voice. James also co-founded Citizen Engagement Lab (CEL), which incubates similar initiatives for underrepresented communities. Previously, he served as Director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn.org, playing a lead role in technology and organizing strategy.

    James serves on the boards of Color of Change, Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, MoveOn.org, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.