What if we dared to build something better?

Briana Pegado has never been afraid to disrupt. From the day she helped create the University of Edinburgh’s first Black History Month in 2010, she has carried an unshakable belief that culture should belong to everyone.

You could say her work began with that one act of claiming space. But it didn’t stop there. In 2014, Briana became the first Black woman elected President of Edinburgh University Students’ Association in its 130-year history. Some called it ground breaking. She called it necessary.

When she founded the Edinburgh Student Arts Festival, she wanted young and emerging artists to feel what she once craved. That their voices mattered. The festival won the Inspiring Youth Enterprise Award, and by 2015, Briana was named one of Scotland’s Top 10 Social Innovators. But titles were never the point. What mattered to her was building places where creativity and justice could meet.

Over the years, she has woven her commitment to equity through everything she touches, from consulting for Creative Scotland to leading organisations like Creative Edinburgh and the Young Women’s Movement. Whether she was designing data-driven programmes for Tesco Bank, producing shows for Visual Arts Scotland, or shaping policies on culture and fair work, Briana kept asking the same questions: Who is missing? Who is left behind?

Behind her long list of achievements is something quieter. A deep understanding of grief and change. In 2022, she created The Artist Is Mourning, a multimedia piece exploring loss and ritual in the digital age. Standing in the gallery, watching her own voice blend with found footage, she reminded herself that making good trouble sometimes starts with making space to feel.

In boardrooms, she is the voice urging organisations to face hard truths about racism and inequality. In workshops, she is the mentor guiding teams through discomfort into action. In her writing, she is the author who shows that disruption is an energy you can choose to harness.

Her first book, Make Good Trouble: A Guide to the Energetics of Disruption, was published in 2024 and has already reached readers across languages and countries. But Briana’s story is not just about big platforms. It is about a woman who has spent her life proving that change is possible. If you are willing to show up, speak up, and start.

And for every young person wondering if their voice is too small, she offers a quiet reminder: you are already enough to make good trouble.''