About
Vanessa Wruble lives in Morongo Valley, California with her partner Hunter Vurbeff and an uncountable number of animals at their immersive animal and art sanctuary, Kaleidoscope Desert. Previously she was one of the founders and leaders of the 2017 Women’s March On Washington, and then went on to co-found and lead March On, the organization that grew out of the March. March On, and its youth arm Future Coalition, have been behind some of the largest mass mobilizations and GOTV efforts in the country, including March On For Voting Rights, where she had the honor of organizing alongside Martin Luther King III and Arndrea King, the 2019 youth Climate Strikes, March on the Polls, Vote With Us, Earthday Live, and the youth Walkout To Vote. Okayafrica, the company she started with Questlove (of The Roots) and business partner Ginny Suss, is now the largest media company focusing on a forward-thinking, nuanced view of Africa today.
Some more deets if you wanna know:
Wruble first arrived in Africa to work in humanitarian aid for an NGO in Sierra Leone, but quickly turned from neo-colonial development to deep emersion in the many, and unique, cultures overflowing on the continent. During her extensive time living and working in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gabon, Sao Tome & Principé, Equatorial Guinea, and Somalia, Wruble found herself representing some of Africa's biggest music stars. That lead her to the great honor of working with the family of Fela Kuti to re-release his music, assist in the production of Fela! on Broadway, and reignite the legacy of Fela as an anti-colonialist, political revolutionary in the collective global consciousness.
Wruble graduated Cum Laude from Williams College where she studied Women’s Issues, Psychology, and Fiction Writing. She holds Master’s Degrees from from The New School for Social Research in Psychology and from NYU in Interactive Media, where she focused on using technology to enable rich human interaction. As an echoing green social entrepreneurship fellow, Vanessa focused on women in the media.
