About

My name is Steve 승준 Joneslee. I started this consulting practice in January 2022, but the craft underneath it started long before. Most of what I do for clients now I have been doing in some form since I was sixteen: sitting with people who share a problem, asking questions they haven't quite been asked before, listening all the way through, turning what they said into something they can act on together, and something funders would actually fund.

I was a child rights advocate first, with UNICEF. Between 2009 and 2012 I represented Canadian children at international forums including the G8 Summit, COP15 in Copenhagen, and Rio+20. I learned that the people with the loudest positions are rarely the people carrying the room, and most of the work that matters happens in the side conversations rather than the plenaries.

In 2012 I founded Finance Engage Sustain (FES), a youth-led Canadian charity, and led it for the next eight years. Between 2017 and 2019 I drove 160,000 kilometres to deliver the 3% Project: a tour that visited 500 schools across 400 towns and all 338 federal ridings. I met and listened to 100,000 students. The listening became three reports, which anchored the lobbying campaign that followed: 167 Members of Parliament engaged directly, 79 one-on-one meetings, and a place on The Hill Times's list of the most active lobbying groups in July 2020.

In 2020–2021, I was elected to lead the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) at the United Nations, representing children and youth in sustainable development policy processes. In 2023, the United Nations Youth Office commissioned me to draft Policy Brief 3 on Meaningful Youth Engagement: institutional guidance for how the UN system listens to and works with young people.

Clients of this practice include the United Nations Executive Office of the Secretary-General, the United Nations Youth Office, Edmonton Community Foundation, Clean Economy Fund, Environment Funders Canada, Georgian Bay Land Trust, GreenPAC, and Apathy is Boring.

I live in Toronto with my wife Stephanie and our newborn daughter Rae. Stephanie and I co-founded Safe Pathways, which helps Canadian churches become the safest places in their communities.