Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught microeconomic theory, and occasionally urban and public economics, since 1992. He has served as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He has published dozens of papers on cities economic growth, law, and economics. In particular, his work has focused on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1992. His books include Cities, Agglomeration, and Spatial Equilibrium (Oxford University Press, 2008), Rethinking Federal Housing Policy (American Enterprise Institute Press, 2008), Triumph of the City (Penguin Press, 2011), and Survival of the City: Mass Flourishing in an Age of Social Isolation (Penguin Press, forthcoming in Fall 2021).

Liz Zeidler is Chief Executive, Centre for Thriving Places. She is an internationally recognised leader in sustainable wellbeing with nearly 30 years of experience in connecting, challenging and supporting change-makers across four continents. She has been a key part of the development of all Centre for Thriving Place’s wellbeing economy measurement tools and approaches. She is a globally in-demand speaker and advisor on  place-based approaches to measuring, understanding and improving wellbeing in all sectors and putting people and planet at the heart of local decision making.

Tony Venables is professor of economics and research director of The Productivity Institute University of Manchester, and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford.  He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the Regional Science Association and the British Academy.  Former positions include professor of economics at Oxford University, chief economist at the UK Department for International Development, and professor at the London School of Economics. He has published in international trade, economic geography, and natural resources.  Publications include The spatial economy; cities, regions and international trade, with M. Fujita and P. Krugman (MIT press, 1999)

Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE was sworn-in as Mayor of Freetown in May 2018 with a commitment to transform Freetown using an inclusive, data-driven approach to address challenges in the city. The 3-year Transform Freetown plan details 19 concrete targets across 11 sectors and covers issues ranging from tackling environmental degradation to facilitating the creation of jobs in the tourism sector. A finance professional with over 25 years of private sector experience in strategic planning, risk management consulting and project management, Mayor Aki-Sawyerr’s public sector engagement began with her work during the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic and her subsequent role as Delivery Team Lead for the second phase of a multi-stakeholder programme to drive socio-economic recovery in Sierra Leone post Ebola. Mayor Aki-Sawyerr is a Chartered Accountant and holds an MSc in Politics of the World Economy from the London School of Economics and a BSc Hons in Economics from Fourah Bay College. She was recently recognize in the BBC 2020 100 Women list.

Interim Chief Executive, Birmingham City Council

After gaining a degree in politics, she began her career in 1984 with the London Borough of Newham, before moving to Birmingham City Council where she worked on major regeneration projects and gained a master’s degree in economics. 

Moving to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council in 1996 as Head of Policy, Deborah gained a second master’s in management, before taking up a two-year secondment with the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions as Local Government Advisor to the Ministerial Team.

In 2003, after being appointed the Audit Commission's Best Value Service Lead Inspector for the London region, she became Chief Executive at St Edmundsbury Borough Council, before becoming Chief Executive of the East of England Development Agency.

Deborah was Chief Executive of Suffolk County Council from 2011 to 2017 and has also been interim Chief Executive of Waveney District Council, Babergh District Council and Mid-Suffolk District Council.

She is a trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Trust and Joseph Rowntree Housing Foundation and as a dedicated and passionate female advocate at the forefront of the public sector, Deborah recently won the First Women Award for Public Service.

Deborah is listed in Local Government Chronicle’s ‘100 Most Influential in the Sector’ and was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to local government.

Simon is Arcadis City Executive for the Midlands, with over 500 staff in the Midlands office in Birmingham. With 30 years property, construction, regeneration and asset experience he helps clients make the best of their built and natural assets in relation to achieving their vision, strategy and key priorities. He has led and delivered a range of projects across the public, private and infrastructure sectors and has a deep understanding of the development, housing and regeneration arena. He is currently on the advisory board of City Redi at the University of Birmingham, a Board Member of Women in Property and a trustee and Board Member of Malvern Theatres. Simon is a former board member of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership and former Chair of the Curzon Enterprise Zone Board.

Arcadis is the leading global Design & Consultancy firm for natural and built assets. Applying our deep market sector insights and collective design, consultancy, engineering, project and management services we work in partnership with our clients to deliver exceptional and sustainable outcomes throughout the lifecycle of their natural and built assets. We have knowledge and expertise to improve the quality of life in rapidly growing cities around the world.  

Dr Fiona Bull MBE is the Head of the Physical Activity Unit at the World Health Organization Headquarters providing global leadership on physical activity and supporting country implementation of the Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030. Work includes developing capacity, extending global partnerships and policy coherence across intersecting areas and developing global guidelines, standards and technical tools, based on the latest scientific evidence and best practice experiences. With a focus on supporting low- and middle-income countries, the overall goals is to increase the opportunities and supportive environments that enable people of all ages and abilities to be regularly active. Before joining WHO, Fiona was Professor of Public Health and Physical Activity at the University of Western Australia, Director of the Centre for Built Environment and Health and previously Director of the National Centre for Physical Activity and Health in the UK. Her professional career spans over 30 years and covers developing global and national policy on physical activity, epidemiology of physical activity and health, digital innovations, and systems and settings approaches to national action on increasing physical activity.

Nathalie Röbbel is the Lead for WHO’s work on Urban Health at the WHO, in the Department on Social Determinants of Health. Prior to this she was leading WHOs work on air pollution and housing in the Department for Environment, Climate Change and Health. One of her main areas of work was the development of WHO Housing and Health Guidelines and WHO’s efforts to address slum upgrading through housing policies and other social policies and interventions. Before joining WHO HQ, she worked as a technical officer at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, in Bonn and Copenhagen, where she was responsible for environmental health performance reviews and involved in several urban health related projects. Ms Röbbel holds a Ph.D. from the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany.

Francis is an environmental scientist with wide ranging interests in the atmospheric sciences, human health and sustainable cities. He trained as a physical chemist and he uses this fundamental knowledge to develop novel instrumentation and probe systems of interest. 

Francis has active research projects in the broad areas of air pollution, climate change, fundamental aerosol chemistry and microphysics, and city resilience. He leads the ‘A Systems Approach to Air Pollution (ASAP) East Africa’ which is taking a multi-disciplinary approach to tackling air pollution in the study cities of Nairobi, Kampala, and Addis Ababa.  

Currently, Raquel Ortega-Argilés holds the Chair in Regional Economic Development at the department of Strategy and International Business and the City-REDI research institute at Birmingham Business School, The University of Birmingham, UK. Her current research work focuses Productivity, Innovation, Regional development, SMEs, entrepreneurship and industrial dynamics and on regional and European Policy.

Richard has been with IWG for 7 years leading the growth, operations and performance of IWG in the UK where it offers flexible workspace through a unique national network of 300 locations across 120 towns and cities through 8 different brands.

Giles Clifford is a partner in the public sector and urban regeneration teams at global law firm Gowling WLG, and heads the firm's rail team.  Giles has more than twenty-five years' experience in supporting the structuring, delivery and operation of complex projects in the built environment, including transport and other infrastructure, public facilities and social housing, as well as commercial and industrial uses.  His work is almost always at the interface between the public and private sectors, and has included a significant number of public-private partnership projects.  Giles has been at the forefront of Gowling WLG's thought leadership activities for a number of years, contributing to programmes exploring future mobility, smart and sustainable cities, and the interaction of technology, transport, built environment and the lives of citizens.

Alice Preston-Jones is Senior Programme Manager at The Prince’s Foundation. Alice has an academic background in Architecture, Urban Planning and International Development. Previously, she worked as a consultant for UN-Habitat at their headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya in the Climate Change Planning Unit of the Urban Planning & Design Branch. At The Prince’s Foundation, Alice is primarily responsible for the development and implementation, in education and practice, of the Rapid Planning Toolkit for Urban Expansion. Alice also supports the Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Initiative which is promoting a Call to Action for Sustainable Urbanisation across the Commonwealth and working towards the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda 2022. She is also working on the Building a Legacy initiative, which looks to engage landowners and the associated professionals, developers and builders in creating mixed-use, mixed-income, walkable communities. Alice is also a licentiate member of the Royal Town Planning Institute. 

Ruth is responsible for the adoption of leading-edge learning technologies, supporting the innovation, design, and production of award-bearing, accredited and fully online programmes of study as director of development at the University College of Estate Management (UCEM).  Ruth has over 25 years’ senior leadership experience in developing and delivering outstanding further and higher education.  She has a passion for digital pedagogy, providing open access education and life-long learning for all.  As an educational disruptor, she is advocator for the modernisation of teaching, learning and assessment.  Ruth has led the implementation of ground-breaking institution-wide changes to teaching, learning and assessment design, development, and delivery as part of UCEM’s Student Success Project.  Ruth’s collaborative approach is supporting work with organization such as JISC, GuildHE,  the Princes’ Foundation and the Climate Action Group sharing knowledge and insight on a range of topics on learning technologies, digital pedagogy and education at a distance. 

Dimitra Babalis is Associate Professor in Urban Planning and Design at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, (DiCEA), University of Florence and an Architect-Engineer. She is a Visiting Professor at various European Universities, Co-ordinator and Chair of Erasmus Programmes and Workshops. She has been involved in several funded European Research Projects. She is the Founder and Chair of INTEGRO UAD (International Group on Urban and Architecture Design). 

Her research interests have focused on sustainable urban design, urban regeneration and masterplanning, preservation and transformation of cultural heritage, innovative design of heritage urban space  and micro-spaces in shaping change. E’ author of several scientific publications, author and editor of books, chapter of books. She is the Series Editor of “Cities,Desig&Sustainability. The New Series”. She is member of several scientific associations, institutes, and societies such as UDG, ICOMOS, ICOMOS/CIVVIH, TICCHI, AIPAI, INU.

Bryce Julyan is an urban planner and Senior Technical Director at Beca, a NZ-owned consultancy covering the Asia- Pacific region.  He is a Beca Technical Fellow, recognising his expertise in urban and strategic planning.  His primary areas of work are integrated transport and urban development, but also adaptation planning in response to climate change, particularly in island nations.  He provides planning advice for many major urban planning and transformation projects particularly for clients in central and local government, with a focus on transport, housing and urban development. Bryce is currently Deputy Chair of the Tamaki Makaurau Design Alliance (TMDA), a collaborative, cross-discipline forum that seeks to achieve better design outcomes for Auckland.  

The immediate-past Chair of the NZ Planning Institute (NZPI), a Fellow of the NZPI, and Honorary Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia, Bryce is also the current Commonwealth Association of Planners (CAP) Vice President for NZ (and Pacific champion).  He was convenor of CAP’s 2016 Sustainable Development Conference in Fiji which saw the launch of the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community Rapid Urbanisation Toolkit.  He has contributed and presented at many planning events including the UN Habitat Pacific Urban Forum (Fiji 2019) and World Urban Forum (Malaysia 2018).  In 2018 year he was one of three practitioners from CAP member organisations who reviewed and reported on planning methodologies in the eastern Caribbean (post hurricane Irma/Maria), as part of a Commonwealth Foundation project. 

Luke is Mott MacDonald’s leader for Net Zero advisory services in Cities and the Built Environment across Europe and was one of the core authors of the UK Net Zero Infrastructure Industry Coalition’s 2021 publication “A Place Based Approach to Net Zero”. With 20 years’ multi-disciplinary consultancy experience, Luke is both a Chartered Environmentalist and Chartered Engineer and provides meaningful and creative consultancy advice in the built environment across a wide range of sectors, clients and decision makers. A strategic thinker with a strong interest in low carbon and sustainability and an eye for the detail,  Luke is also an experienced writer and speaker on topics including Net Zero, climate resilience and city adaptation. 

Anushma Sharma has been a town planner for the Department of Town and Country Planning for 4 years. With a Bachelor in Urban Development (Urban and Regional Planning), and a Masters of Arts in Governance, Anushma’s experience with the department includes assessing land developments throughout Fiji, as well as partake in strategic planning projects.  Currently, she is part of the planning team working on the Strategic Master Plan and Concept Master Plan for Greater Suva, Nadi and Lautoka.