Empowering working class economists to build a better world.

Ryan is currently an economist at a small trade union in the NHS. Here he focusses on workforce analysis, policy development and in particular, the impacts of inflation on health provision. This follows a career spent at small trade unions and briefly the Civil Service, focussing on labour market analysis, trade impacts of COVID-19 and Brexit, after his MA in Global Political Economy at City, University of London.

He is an avid student of economic history and prefers to see himself as a political economist rather than an ‘economist’. His non-work economic interests include the Preston Model of community wealth building, the Green New Deal and pre-industrial economic history.  

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George has worked at the Economic Change Unit since Summer 2020 and writes a weekly Digest: New Economy Brief. Prior to that, George worked as a researcher on various community wealth building projects across the country for the Centre for Local Economic Strategies. Originally from Merseyside, George holds a first class BA in philosophy, politics and economics and an MA in social and political thought, both from the University of Leeds.

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Geena Whiteman is a Ph.D. Researcher at Cardiff University researching youth digital-social entrepreneurship in transition economies. She works as an Hourly Tutor at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School and as a Research Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University Business School, whilst volunteering for the European Student Think Tank Youth Employment Group and Deputy Co-Chairing Remembering Srebrenica Wales. Her main areas of interest are youth entrepreneurship and employment, as well as gig economy employment, transition and post-conflict economies, and socioeconomic mobility. When not working, she is an avid runner, hiker, gym-goer, and terrible (but practicing) cook, and likes to find the cheapest flights out of the country to explore new places.

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Kaustav K. Sarkar is a PhD student at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. He is from a small town named Cooch Behar which is situated in one of the eastern states, West Bengal. He completed his M.A. in Economics from the University of North Bengal, Darjeeling, India. He has published in several national and international journals -in Sage Social Change, Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Brill Perspectives on Global Development and Technology. He also writes blogs on contemporary social and development issues. His areas of interests are development finance, financialisation, heterodox economics, Marxian theories, rural credit and microfinance.

Jessica Mann is a social research consultant specialising in social policy. She currently works across a range of interest areas including food poverty and sustainable food systems, just transition and labour markets, the circular economy, and equalities/social justice. Jessica's work is informed by an academic background in Sociology and an MA in Social and Political Theory from the University of Warwick, as well as past experiences in third sector roles. Recently, she also joined the Co-production Network for Wales, advocating for the importance of genuine cooperation and representation in research and policymaking.

Jessica joins the WCEG with an interest in democratising access to economic and political education. Her outlook has been influenced by growing up in South Wales, and working across the Welsh devolved political landscape. She is passionate about the role that the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act and the concept of the Wellbeing economy can play in influencing a more progressive economics, for the benefit of people and planet.

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