Robert V. Taylor was born and raised in South Africa and sent to the USA in 1980 by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to avoid imprisonment for his anti-Apartheid activism. A graduate of Union Theological Seminary in NYC, Robert was elected Dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle in 1999 as the first openly gay Dean of a Cathedral in the Anglican Communion. He is President of the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, a Fellow of the Disruptor Foundation and an advisor to the Endowment for Equal Justice in Washington State. In Seattle, Robert was an organizer of Seeds of Compassion which drew over 150,000 attendees to an interfaith series of events on compassion during which he hosted a dialog between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. He has founded numerous interfaith outreach programs to help children, shut-in seniors, veterans, those with HIV/AIDS and to end homelessness. He is author of A New Way to Be Human and an essayist in The Way of Peace: Readings for a Harmonious Life with Michelle Obama, Pope Francis, Pema Chodron, John Lewis, Maya Angelou, Thich Nhat Hanh and President Obama.