Hanna’s career has revolved around an urgent sense of possibility—that we can become more able to co-create the thriving world we can dream of.

Beginnings in South Africa
Hanna grew up in apartheid South Africa, with a clear social caste system that still reverberates in inequitable practices that harm everyone. Living there, she witnessed how patterns of oppression perpetuate in our own bodies and in the social fabric, one generation after another.

Moving from design to social transformation
Around 2010, Hanna left the world of design and strategy to learn about social transformation. She embarked on a different mission: to transform herself and share what she learned with others, “so we can get good at the collective work of healing, repairing, and re-weaving.”

Hanna has co-hosted dozens of spaces of transformation—gatherings of change leaders, student cohorts, entire organizations. She has been an artist, a dancer, a writer, and performed improv on stage.

Hanna’s persistent driving question throughout these years has been:

Living, dying and writing with ALS
In March of 2023, Hanna was diagnosed with ALS, a degenerative neuromuscular disease that slowly robs the body of its functions. She has committed this time to writing, and we are thrilled to have some of her work in development.

Learn more, learn how to help
Hanna’s community of care has a home at okaythen.net/hanna. You can see some of her past writings, follow her story through updates, and see ways we can all support her through this time.