From Wall Street to Main Street: Who Owns the Regenerative Future?
From Wall Street to Main Street, who should own our regenerative future? This panel from our 2026 Old Salt Festival explores why keeping food, farms and wealth in local hands matters. Through the conversation with panelists from across the agricultural investing spectrum, we learn alternative ways to make our dollars work hard for us OFF of Wall Street and how we can use our money instead to help our local economies thrive.
Panelists:
Emma Ractliffe, Cofounder & Chief Investment Officer, World Within
Emma Ractliffe is the cofounder and CIO of World Within, a nonprofit dedicated to building an economy that keeps wealth and power in the hands of local communities.
The organization pursues this mission by combining direct investments in community-owned models with storytelling that amplifies their impact. Her background is in impact investing, including work with family offices and foundations deploying capital into regenerative agriculture. She previously served as COO of Sara’s Organic Food in Egypt. Emma serves on the advisory council at the Cornell School of Agriculture and is the host of the Agrarian Futures Podcast.
Ryan Anderson, Chief Operating Officer, Steward
Ryan Anderson is the chief operating officer at Steward, a private lender that provides regenerative farmers and food system businesses the capital they need to grow. From 2011 to 2018, he owned and operated ACRE, an urban farm in Detroit. During this time, he also founded the Corktown Farmers’ Market, which exclusively features local producers.
Ryan previously held senior roles in progressive politics and government. A former chief of staff in the U.S. House of Representatives, he consulted on congressional, state and national political campaigns and represented national grassroots organizations on Capitol Hill, advocating for a more progressive foreign policy.
Tim Crosby, Cofounder and Chief Systems Strategist, Natural Systems Capital, Inc.
Tim Crosby is a cofounder and the chief systems strategist at Natural Systems Capital, Inc., which provides advisory services to help investors, funds, corporations, foundations, public institutions develop investment strategy into natural systems, ensuring sound returns and real system transformation for resilience. He is also a principal at the Thread Fund, focusing on investing multiple forms of capital to generate social and environmental returns alongside financial returns.
Tim's previous work includes cochair for the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders, director of Slow Money Northwest, and 15 years as a professional photographer and graphic designer.
Chris Miller, CEO, National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3)
Chris Miller is CEO and a founding board member of the National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3), a 501c3. Among NC3’s goals are empowerment of ordinary citizens and strengthening local economies through community investment and ownership.
Chris has worked on community and economic development for more than 20 years across a variety of roles: From an elected and appointed official; to an on-the-ground economic developer; to a community investment innovator operating on a national level. In 2013, Chris led the creation and passage of Michigan’s investment crowdfunding law which became a national model. Chris is an EDA Economic Innovation Fellow and created NC3’s Community Capital Accelerator.
Moderated by Kayuri Bhimani, Dir Community Ownership Fund, World Within
World Within is a nonprofit that invests donated capital into community-owned businesses — cooperatives, mutual banks, and worker-owned enterprises — that conventional finance ignores. The organization also produces documentary films and journalism about the communities they invest in.
