© Wilneida 2025
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Dr. Wilneida Negrón

I believe there are more of us who want dignity, freedom, and belonging — for our families, and our communities.

For two decades, I’ve worked at the intersection of technology, labor, financial markets, and democratic governance, guided by one question: how do we make powerful institutions accountable to the people they serve?

I’ve spent my career in the room where these fights actually happen. I founded the Startups & Society Initiative and the Future of Workers Initiative to bring workers, unions, technologists, investors, regulators, and business leaders to the same table, to build real rules and accountability. That’s meant advising Silicon Valley founders on responsible innovation, serving on a Fortune 500 company’s ethics and equity advisory council, and building one of the first databases tracking the technologies employers use to surveil, schedule, and underpay workers — now used by unions, journalists, and investigators. I’ve helped shape policy responses to  wage theft, data privacy, AI, and unfair automated scheduling, and worked on public safety, technology, and AI as some of the hardest issues shaping people’s lives.

That work has convinced me strong institutions, transparency, and public trust aren’t abstractions — they’re what a healthy democracy runs on.

 At my core, I’m a builder. I bring people together across sectors and perspectives to solve problems that no one group can solve alone. Whether as a policy leader, founder, researcher, advisor, or advocate, my work has remained focused on helping build institutions, economies, and technologies that expand dignity, opportunity, and belonging for more people.

My first book, “The Human Interface: How Workers Can Step Into the Tech Conversation—and Lead It” is out now. 

My work has been featured at

The Guardian NPR Financial Times Washington Post Stanford Social Innovation Review Newsweek Protocol Fast Company Daily Maverick WiredBBC 4Inc.comThe Register

Personal story/Bio

I was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father. Since the day I was able to speak, I have lovingly frustrated my parents and siblings with endless back-to-back questions on everything from “what is the moon made of?”; “what happens to the cows when it rains? (we lived in the small rural farming community of Palenque); “what happens if I put red chanoti seeds in my ears? (I grew up surrounded by wild A. precatorius plants and made a few trips to the emergency room with seeds in my ears). As I got older, the questions became more complicated and ranged from everything from religion to economics and politics in the US, Puerto Rico, and around the world. To this day, it's my love and curiosity for the world and the people in it that drives my purpose and work.

I began my professional career as a therapist in juvenile detention facilities, jails, and probation departments. I also spent time providing therapy and crisis counseling to marginalized communities in food pantries and churches throughout New York City. Interested in the utility of technology to change the deeply structural issues I encountered at work, I taught myself how to code and began working with human rights and poverty lawyers on developing platforms and apps to increase access to justice. Realizing that technology interacts with society and the economy in unpredictable ways, I began a new phase of my career studying and investigating the socio-economic impacts of emerging technologies (which I wrote about in my 2018 Fast Company's World Changing Ideas article.) Since then, I've studied the impact of technology globally (e.g. Taiwan, Chile, Peru, and Indonesia) and in the US, on topics ranging from democracy/politics, social movements, criminal justice, news/media, labor markets, and the future of work. I also worked at Ford Foundation, where I led cross-team conversations and field-building strategies around responsible innovation.

I am currently the Director of Worker Innovation and Impact at Coworker, Co-founder of the Startups & Society Initiative (SSI) as well as the Founder of the Future of Workers Initiative, and the New Progressives. As part of SSI, I co-founded the Responsible Innovation Founders Summit — an annual event that has attracted 700+ global tech leaders including founders backed by Y-Combinator, General Catalyst, and Sequoia, and published the Responsible Innovation Primer for Founders — a distillation of 100+ interviews of influential tech and civil society leaders about building tech companies responsibly. I am currently boot-strapping my new ventures, Grey Americana, a multi-media company and social community.

After navigating the challenges of palliative and hospice care for my mother, I became an advocate for strengthening holistic, equitable end-of-life care; supporting families and ensuring that every life is honored with dignity.

My current Advisory roles Are:

I have a PhD In Comparative Politics, with a specialization in emerging technologies in East Asia And Latin America, a Masters In Public Administration, and a M.Phil. in International And Global Affairs. Im also a life-long Fellow at the Data & Society Research Institute, Atlantic Institute, and ThirdHouse.

Recent News & Press: