He is a recognised expert and visionary on creating sustainable destinations through multi stakeholder collaboration and co-creation. In 2015 Guy launched the Global Destinations Sustainability Index to accelerate the development and performance of sustainable business tourism destinations.

From 2006 to 2018, Guy was the Sustainability Director of MCI, the world’s largest association management, communications and events agency. He launched a CSR program across the corporation’s 60 offices, developing a business strategy that positioned MCI to be an award winning sustainability champion, and the organiser of over 1000 events about sustainable development, Smart Cities and energy.

Guy is a passionate and outstanding communicator, who has delivered over 440 keynote presentations and facilitated workshops engaging over 40,000 participants in more than 40 countries. He teaches Regenerative Leadership at Esade Business School, and is a visiting lecturer at various universities around the world.

Previously, Guy was the Managing Director of MCI in Spain, on the management board of MCI Group, President of the Green Meeting Industry Council and worked for HP as a Technology Consultant for 11 years.

When not working, you can find Guy cycling or climbing in the Pyrenees, planting vegetables in his organic garden in Barcelona, cooking up a feast for friends or dancing Swing.

She fuels her mission with wisdom acquired by working in Danish business and leisure tourism for 11 years. During her time with VisitAalborg and Inspiring Denmark she naturally migrated towards sustainability. This journey was further nurtured by her employers’ participation in the GDS-Index. With a renewed and enlivened career focus on people and planet, Inge went freelance. For the last 2,5 years she supported SMEs and destinations with sustainability certification. This is a boon she brings to GDS-Movement and the GDS-Index in particular. Having been through the benchmarking process herself, Inge knows first-hand what destinations experience in their progressive journey towards greater regenerative destination management, and how to help them get there.

In her spare time, Inge enjoys her garden, cooking, good food, family, and friends. Her biggest wish is for green fuel to become readily available so she can travel long-distance again.

See her latest Changemaker Check-in here

She is also an experienced event creator and content curator specialised in conceptualising and presenting at transformation events about sustainability and regeneration. Examples of her work include co-creating Sustainable Brands Cape Town 2016, event host and presenter at Sustainability Week South Africa and being MC at the inaugural Sustainable Brands Oceans event in Porto, Portugal in 2019.

During her career Melissa was the editor of Green Home magazine, The Green Economy Journal and is the founding publisher of South Africa’s first conscious lifestyle publication and website – Life in Balance.

Melissa is a published poet, inspiring presenter and lecturer, editor of business books, academic papers, opinion pieces and an expert in crafting sustainability strategies and narratives relating to social, environmental, and economic regeneration.

Previously, Khalisah was a Digital Project Manager and Digital Editor at Dubai Tourism (DTCM) in their MICE and Retail Festivals teams and has worked in various tech startups in Dubai such as Namshi.com and Tajawal. 

Growing up between the US, Malaysia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, Khalisah has developed a unique worldview and set of interpersonal skills and brings a multicultural approach to her work with travel actors and Destination Management Organizations. She enjoys co-creating a more regenerative future by greening travel and tourism with the GDS-Movement team and expanding her knowledge at this intersection of travel, sustainability, and policy. 

When she’s not at work, you can find her boxing, reading, or waxing poetic over her love of croissants.

See her latest Changemaker Check-in here.

She has managed the social, economic, and environmental impacts of in-person, digital, and hybrid events.

She consults to event clients on behalf of GDS-Movement, helping associations initiate and develop the vision, actions, measurement, and evolution of their event’s sustainability strategy, impact, and communications.

Previously Milda was a Strategic Project Manager at TNW (a Financial Times company), navigating the ever-changing tech start-up ecosystem. Prior to that, she held an integral role managing education and sustainability projects at the IMEX Group for its two leading exhibitions, IMEX America and IMEX Frankfurt.

Born and raised in Lithuania, Milda has travelled widely, and lived in Norway, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. She currently resides in Amsterdam, where she actively embraces her love of yoga, sustainable living, and volunteering.

In 2020, Jessica launched her own consultancy The Tenth Letter to support the tourism, events, and business events sector with developing and implementing strategies for achieving tangible and measurable social change. She believes the future of the tourism regeneration relies on our ability to demonstrate impactful change in communities. Recognition and attribution of social, environmental, and cultural impacts provides much greater value to the tourism sector than economic impact alone.

Jessica is teaching faculty for the Meet4Impact’s ‘Impact Strategy and Management Masterclass’ in the GDS-Academy.

In August 2021, Jessica joined the GDS-Movement team to support and grow our presence in the Asia Pacific region.

She worked diversely in Kyiv for a renowned Ukraine agency with a diverse portfolio from small workshops to national sports events and large-scale corporate meetings. She was also a live television journalist with a top Ukrainian TV channel for a time. During the pandemic, this led to online events and video production.

These activities were interrupted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when her family fled to Barcelona to start a new life.

“This transformational period taught me to be stronger, showed and shared with me new values that are worth moving forward with to bring to the world. I believe that in every bad situation there always something good even if it’s difficult to recognise and that my collective experiences have naturally brought me to sustainability.”

She is excited to apply her meetings and media experience, and her skills of adaption, joy-making, and production to regenerative tourism and events. She supports GDS-Academy as a dynamic coordinator.

A professional with a hybrid profile, she divides her working days between her sessions as a lecturer-researcher at the Faculty of Tourism of several universities and professional training sessions both for tourism technicians of public administrations and private companies. She is a keynote speaker at congresses for the tourism sector.

She also works as a consultant and her main aim is to help to build bridges connecting all tourism stakeholders, facilitating the dialogue between them, looking for meeting spaces for exchange, and the promotion of innovation.

She advocates for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), focusing on the social aspects of destination sustainability, where universal accessibility – which she is an expert in – plays a vital role.

An endless learner, Mònica is currently focused on the role of digital transformation in the tourism industry, particularly Blockchain technology that she feels will be to tourism what the Internet was to the 90s – a total gamechanger.

Born and raised in Barcelona, she is fluent in Catalan, Spanish, English, and French. A lifelong traveller from the age of one, she enjoys her family and friends as much as she does socialising with people from all walks of life.

In her spare time, she mixes her role as beach fan, traveller, wine lover, reader, tireless dancer, and techie explorer.

Mònica joins the GDS Movement team as a senior consultant to contribute her broad vision on the different aspects of social sustainability, bringing her expertise to both consulting and training.

In 2009, she founded SITevents (Social Impact Travel & Sustainable events) a DMC with purpose, working with companies and organisations from around the world to design and produce unique and memorable events and corporate experiences that are also more environmentally and socially responsible.

She was the congress director of the Ship2B Impact Forum from 2017 till March 2023, and a member of the Ship2B Foundation steering committee from 2020 till March 2023. There, she worked to build, foster, and engage the impact community while developing this flagship, Spanish-impact economy congress.

She has mentored impact startups with the aim of accelerating their growth for more than 5 years. Beatriz joins the GDS Movement team to contribute her know-how and expertise in tourism, events, and the impact economy sector.

With a full bundle of qualifications under her belt (ISO 20121, ISO 14001, GSTC, Travelife Auditor, GRI, Biosphere, Sustainable Event Alliance accreditation) and experience in providing sustainability trainings, Rebecca is well equipped to guide the full range of destination stakeholders in their mission to develop and implement a sustainability strategy.

As a multilingual Brit (Spanish, French, German, Catalan) Rebecca has been living in Barcelona for 16 years and working in events for 20. She has thrived in the international Event Management sector, where her roles in Trade Fair Management, Event Production, Meetings, Incentives and Congresses have all allowed her endless opportunities to learn, grow and meet people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Rebecca supports the GDS-Index with a mission to drive the sustainability performance of destinations.

In her spare time Rebecca enjoys recharging batteries with good food, good company and the great outdoors.

Having graduated from The University of St Andrews with a MA in Sustainable Development, he worked for the GDS-Index, and now the GDS-Movement, since 2019.

He has spearheaded our marketing and sales arm, managed the development of our online data platform (OMNI), and is the main contact for benchmarking queries. From helping to run workshops, and co-facilitating our online webinar series (Feeling the Pulse), to speaking and representing the GDS-Movement at international events (e.g. of the UNWTO and UNFCCC), Noah is core to both internal management and external outreach.

If you are a destination that wants to participate in the GDS-Index, or wants to be part of the GDS-Movement, get in touch with Noah. Chances are he will be able to help you with most of your questions.

In his personal life he is passionate about nurturing the people around him with good food, and himself by practising yoga and listening to Jazz.

Based in Barcelona, Spain, and speaking English, Spanish, and French, Bella is a Relationship Manager for a variety of European destinations participating in the GDS-Index. She provides direct support for benchmarking assessments (which measure destinations’ sustainability performance) as well as advising clients on sustainability programmes and operational practices year-round.

Prior to joining GDS-Movement, Bella owned a travel agency providing hospitality services in Armenia and Georgia. She has also lived in Beijing for 2 years, an indispensable experience that helped her develop intercultural communication and interpersonal skills.

Bella is a versatile and dynamic person who loves connecting with people from around the world. When not working, you might find her dancing, playing tennis, or enjoying the beautiful landscape of Catalunya. What brings her the most immense joy, however, is seeing her work have a positive and long-lasting impact on communities.

Bella has a Master’s degree in Destination Management and holds a Professional Certificate in Sustainable Tourism issued by GSTC (Global Sustainable Tourism Council). Bella is also an Advisory Member at Best Cities Global Alliance.

She started her marketing career with VisitDenmark. She specialises in copywriting, video, web, and content production, advising and executing paid marketing campaigns, targeted sales, and promotional efforts. She is equally skilled in event and webinar management, staff training, and speaker coaching.

As an experienced event manager, she has organised everything from exhibitions for 5000+ people to smaller workshops and industry conferences. In the past couple of years, Anne has planned, executed, and consulted on webinars and hybrid events.

Throughout her career Anne provided external consulting services, delivering strategic marketing, project management, and conference organising. Her projects include The European Sustainable Events Conference, the ICCA Scandinavia Sustainability Index, and the Nordic Organic Food Fair.

Anne is a native Danish speaker, fluent in English, with a good command of Scandinavian languages.

Her portfolio features creative work used in a broad range of media and applications, from print to pixel, mobile to video. With a focus on clarity and originality, her speciality is compelling messaging; her advantage is that she cares.

She cut her teeth as an arts journalist covering live, original music with authenticity and integrity. She moved into supporting the creative arts more strategically, dabbled in events coordination, and broadened her focus to responsive and responsible tourism and events.

Along the way she learnt how to bend algorithms and blend best practice and combines it all with natural networking to share good ideas with good people.

If the medium is the message, she manages both with the certainty that positive engagement is key to growth, health, and balance, in any organisation or ecosystem.

She is the Global Destination Sustainability Movement’s Marketing and Communications Manager.

Currently a master’s student in Tourism Management with the Faculty of Tourism at the University of Girona, Jun is the newest addition to GDS-Movement’s communication team. He aspires to using his creativity and bad, bad humour to transform sustainability into a fun and sexy practice.  

Jun started his journey in tourism as a travel writer, crafting stories to inspire fellow wanderers to explore the better parts of Southeast Asia. He then upgraded his craft to visual and digital marketing to better promote his content. But, most importantly, he is an award-losing photographer, and drone pilot; taking and editing pictures is his favourite way to escape reality. 

His current focus is delving deeper into sustainability storytelling, studying the sustainable development goals, and producing meaningful photography – while trying to graduate from his master’s programme! He loves to connect with like-minded people who can inspire him to be better. If you are one of them, his email is just one click away (see the bottom left corner of this window). 

In his free time, you can occasionally find him gasping for air after a long hike or sneaking into some unknown alley to take photos – but most of the time, he is thinking about what he should cook or read next. 

She has worked for large hotel chains like Hilton, JW Marriott, and Fiesta Americana and in DMC agencies in Cancun, Riviera Maya, and Los Cabos. Additionally, she has ecotourism experience with tour operators and theme parks.

As a director of Evensus, she provides training to companies and professionals. Since 2017, she has trained more than 500 professionals as an instructor of the first Sustainable Events Certificate Course in Spanish (CES).

In addition, she is the first Latina to join the Global Destination Sustainability Movement at an international level, supporting DMOs (Destination Marketing Organisations), Convention Bureaux, and association events to co-create their sustainability strategy and improve their performance.

She has a master´s degree in Sustainable Tourism from the University of International Cooperation of Costa Rica (UCI) and is a Sustainable Events Professional certified by the Events Industry Council.

She loves meditating, being with her cats, listening to music, volunteering in an animal shelter, visiting local communities, camping and being around nature.

As part of the team at GDS-Movement, Alejandra supports the Latin America Tourism and events sector to improve its sustainable performance towards regeneration.

Her ethos comes from a place of personal experience. Although she graduated from Simon Fraser University, she found her best education has been her life experiences of global travel and working abroad in Africa, Colombia and the Philippines. Tourism is a very powerful tool to help solve global inequality and enact environmental change. But can be detrimental to communities and the environment if not managed properly.

Therefore, she co-founded ConnectSeven Group – a project management firm focused on social and sustainable tourism projects including sustainable tourism development, social procurement, environmental analysis, sustainable event production and destination development.

She graduated from Simon Fraser University with honours from the Bachelor of Business Administration program with majors in Finance and Management Science. She is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada and is the North American GDSM Changemaker.

When not working, you can find her sailing, at the dog park or on trying to pull together a last minute international trip.

Emma is the co-founder of ConnectSeven Group – a project management firm primarily working with social and sustainable development projects that enact global positive change. They focus on social enterprise supply chain integration, environmental analysis, sustainable event production, destination development, and producing large conventions enacting social and sustainable change. They work with the likes of the United Nations, TED, Buy Social Canada and Destination Canada, and integrate the Sustainable Development Goals into everything they do. The close alignment between ConnectSeven and the GDSM, have made Emma a great representative for the Movement in North America.

With over 15 years experience in the event world, previously Emma was the Director of Operations for MCI Canada and worked with the global Sustainability Director to implement sustainable policies into their North American events and operations. She was also a key member of the TED production team, and was a lead project manager on the Dalia Lama’s Canadian tour. She has been on the board of MPI and ILEA and was recognized as top 40 under 40 in North America by CollaborateMeetings.

Emma lives on beautiful Vancouver Island, and in the rare moments she has to herself you can find her doing yoga or on her paddle board – followed by a local craft beer or glass of wine.

He is the author of ‘Only Planet – a flight-free adventure around the world’ a book about his circumnavigation of the globe without getting on a plane. Ed’s core talent is to take the complex, interconnected, interdependent nature of the many urgent challenges the world faces, from climate change to disruptive innovation, and make common sense of them for non-specialist audiences in a pandemic world.

He started his career as a marine biologist and has worked and lived all over the globe, including in Jamaica, the Orkney Islands, Australia and New Caledonia.

Professionally Ed is known for his own unique brand of authentic ‘insultancy’ – being strategically and playfully cheeky to clients, with judicious wit and wisdom to inspire them to greater heights and aspirations.

As well as the Resident Futurist at the GDS-Movement, Ed is a facilitator with the Forward Institute for responsible leadership, a Director of Greenpeace UK, a Trustee of Ecolibrium, co-founder of the pioneering Change Agency Futerra, and a founder investor and former Chair of pioneering online rail ticketing business ‘Loco2’ now rebranded as Rail Europe. He is also an investor in pioneering slow travel agency Byway and deep work start-up Flown. Ed co-hosts Itunes chart-topping podcast ‘Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts’ and ‘The Great Humbling’. He is a regular media contributor from the BBC to the Guardian (for whom he wrote a regular column during his flight-free navigation of the world – ‘The Slow Traveller’) to Conde Naste (‘How to embrace a travel mind set while staying at home’)