He/They/Theirs

Aquib S. Yacoob is a community organizer, strategist, and "fixer," utilizing the arts and culture as vehicles to (re)claim power in communities oppressed by difference.

Aquib grew up in a small sugar plantation community in Guyana. He went to bed scared most of his childhood - jumping awake each time a mango fell on his rusty zinc roof. When his family immigrated to NYC in 2001, mangos on the roof were replaced by bullets in the night sky.

From age 14, in a passionate search for safety and security, he began developing human rights campaigns and training organizers with Amnesty International. A decade later, he joined Women's March, mobilizing millions and transforming our country. When his childhood neighborhood saw 30+ shootings in 2019, he joined forces with a local organizer and, together, scaled her community-led gun violence solution to the White House.

However, after each win, he returns to the same realization: the non-profit model alone cannot create the structural, root-level changes his communities need. Aquib is currently a Consortium and ROMBA Fellow at Rice University's Jones School of Business, experimenting with new and innovative models for social impact work.