Erica Williams Simon is on a mission to change how we tell our most important stories. She blends the soul of a seeker with the savvy of a cultural architect, using storytelling as her tool for transformation. As founder of Soul Story Lab, a collective and media lab for culture-forward, digital spiritual voices, she’s equipping a new generation of leaders and storytellers to fill a world in crisis with faith, wisdom, and authenticity. She’s spent her career pushing boundaries across media, tech, and social impact to do just that.

In Washington D.C., Erica crafted innovative engagement programs on crucial social issues at Center for American Progress and Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. In L.A. and Silicon Valley, she built Snapchat’s Creator’s Lab from the ground up to make meaning and hold space for high-performing digital influencers; and for a decade she taught progressive clergy around the country how to amplify their voices in a noisy world. Whether as creative director and senior diretor at Upworthy or host of an independent Rosario Dawson produced experimental talk show, she has always been clear about her mission to tell better stories about “who we are and how we want to live.” She has designed campaigns, made media and created sacred space with everyone from the White House to Kobe Bryant to artists and storytellers whose impact far exceeds their name recognition.

Today, as co-founder of Story Strategy Group, Erica helps mission-driven organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Spotify Social Impact to harness narrative for real-world change. She’s also the author of You Deserve the Truth, a book that urges people to reclaim the power of story to live authentically. Now every thread of her journey from award winning political advocate to digital innovator to faith-rooted narrative and cultural strategist –comes together in Soul Story Lab’s mission to change culture with spiritual disruptors for a new age.

Erica currently serves on the board of Cinereach.org, is a theology student at Princeton Seminary and spends most of her time in deep gratitude for her high-school sweetheart husband and wildly adventurous baby boy.