Jason Kelley

Co-founder

Jason Kelley is a creative and event planner in Washington, DC. With a scholastic background in public relations and journalism from George Mason University, Jason spent five years working at the Cable News Network (CNN) in Atlanta, Georgia where he also began his involvement in events. While giving tours of CNN by day and working in nightclubs by night, Jason began to understand the desire to create events that were filled with high caliber people, while also providing a comfortable environments. With that as motivation, along with friends in Atlanta, Jason began hosting more events, connecting old friends with new along the way. Upon moving back to the Washington, DC area in January 2015, Jason connected with friends from his college years while also making new friends through his Atlanta connections enriching his social network. In March of 2016, while attending a brunch with friends the idea of "The Wave" naturally occurred out of a conversation with Greg Jackson, in creating the space for friends to exchange ideas and information. With intention and effort through friends across the country, "The Wave" has since grown to become a hub for events and information nationwide, connecting like minded professionals one city at a time.

Jason@thewaveusa.com

Greg Jackson is a community organizer, campaign strategist and experienced issue advocate in Washington, D.C.  Greg most recently serves as the National Field Director and managed a team of over 2,200 staff at the first ever collaborative organizing effort built between labor unions and climate change leaders, called “For Our Future” Political Action Committee.  Immediately prior to his director role with “For Our Future”, his efforts focused improving the local Washington D.C. community through his service as Mayor Bowser’s Director of Community Relations & Services, after surviving an act of gun violence in 2013.  After his six month recovery from gun violence, Greg began doing a great deal of local mentoring, community organizing, while starting to bring together young black professionals for informal gatherings to plan community initiatives, celebrate birthdays, accolades and simply create a space where folks could kick their shoes off and be social without any pressure busy bars and shallow selfies holding overpriced drinks.  These “kickbacks” grew from ten to twenty to eventually hundreds of attendees on nearly a monthly basis.  After combining efforts with other like minded individuals like Jason Kelley, Yves Zamar, Anthony Small and others, it became clear that there was a clear need to build a social space for young professionals to socialize without the pressures of the city nightlife culture.  Out of these kickbacks, inspired the idea of creating “The Wave”, a space where young professionals come together to plan events, promote activities, serve the community, socialize and address major community issues with fellow like minded young professionals.
 

Greg@thewaveusa.com