Julie Ward
Co-Chair of Urban Economy Forum & Former British Member of European Parliament

Julie was a Labour and Co-operative Party Member of the European Parliament for the North West of England, covering Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire and Greater Manchester. As such she was a member of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and, in turn, part of the second largest group in the European Parliament, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Julie served on the Parliament's Culture & Education Committee, the Regional Development Committee and the Committee on Gender Equality and Women's Rights. She is also a member of the the Labour Party's Policy Commission on Education and Children. Julie is an active campaigner for equal rights and social justice, and was previously an organizer for One Billion Rising, the global movement to raise awareness of violence against women and girls. First elected in May 2014, Julie previously had a long career in the cultural sector, working with marginalized communities using arts as a tool for wellbeing, empowerment and social change. Prior to being elected as an MEP, Julie had been working with partners in the EU and beyond for more than a decade. For instance, she was involved in an international delegation to Belfast to participate in an all-party discussion about the role of the arts in peace-building processes.

Frank D’hondt
Secretary General of ISOCARP 

Frank is founding member and director of the Territorial Capital Institute, a knowledge-based platform to exchange theory and praxis of integrated territorial development and placemaking, drawing upon his experiences on localizing the New Urban Agenda and the International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning. Frank has worked 15 years in the European Union, mainly on cross-border and transnational planning issues, followed by another 15 years outside the EU, including Kosovo, Palestine, Nepal, Afghanistan, Arab Emirates, Kenya, Myanmar, China, Japan, the Caribbean, Timor-Leste, The Gambia and Somalia. Frank is specialized in national urban policy, metropolitan planning, post-conflict/disaster planning and participatory visioning and placemaking. With UN-Habitat, Frank published a book on ‘Visioning as Participatory Planning Method’ and drafted the handbook for the implementation of the International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning (IGUTP). Frank contributed to several ISOCARP World Congresses, co-organized and reported UPATS in Gaza, Palestine and Whan, China, and also contributed to several ISOCARP Review publications.

Goshtasb Mozafari
Secretary General of Asian Mayors Forum

Julie Di Lorenzo
President of Diamante Urban Corporation and Civic Development Corporation & Board Member of Canadian Civil Liberties Association

She is an experienced entrepreneur and real estate developer and city builder for over 35 years, with a reputation for excellence and best in class, in multiple disciplines including land acquisition, visioning, negotiation, re-development, development, zoning, master planning, financial analysis and financing, construction execution and delivery of multi unit residential projects of scale. She has demonstrated full circle expert experience in real estate development from start to finish experienced Board Member for non-profit and for profit entities and government advisor on economic development and business. She is skilled in negotiation, construction and development, retail, entrepreneurship, and venture capital. She was educated at York University. She recently completed GPLLM Masters of Law at University of Toronto. 

Yvonne Yeung
Manager of Urban Design of City of Brampton-Canada

Yvonne Yeung joined the City as Head of Urban Design in 2019, leading the cross-commission development of Precinct Plans to implement the Brampton 2040 Vision with a focus on unlocking the value of Transit-Oriented Communities through City-led Participatory Design Excellence. She is the recipient of the American Society of Landscape Architects Honour Award and the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management Award. She is a founding board member of the OALA Ground Editorial and past member of the City of Toronto Public Art Commission, the Canadian Standards Association Design Standards Committee and the Green Building Certification Institute LEED Review Committee.

Appointed as Vice-chair of the Urban Land Institute SDRC Product Council, board member of ULI Toronto District Council and the ULI WLI Women’s Leadership Initiative Champions, Yvonne leads the strategic engagement across the region and North America, promoting progressive city-building practices and collaborations between public and private sectors. Her participatory-design work has been profiled at the Design Exchange and is now further evolved to Precinct planning as an interdisciplinary tool to deliver the Brampton 2040 Vision and Transit-Oriented Communities globally

Massoud Ghandchi
President and Founder of Ghandchi Organization

Massoud is the Founder and President of Mer/Ax Investments and Development. He has been involved in numerous multi-million dollar real estate project of various kinds. With over 15 years of experience in commercial and residential real estate, Massoud specializes in applying his expertise and market knowledge around Greater Toronto Area to successfully guide local, national and international clients with their commercial and residential real estate transactions; obtaining the ability to provide the necessary solutions with the client’s interest first. Massoud’s extensive experience in powerful negotiations, commitment to honest communications and intelligent use of the latest technology in real estate are examples of some of his ingredients to a successful career in real estate.

Michelle Chantal Dubois
Health transformation advisor and project development consultant for Gambler First Nation

Michelle Chantal has a passion for the transmission of information and targeted audience messaging that she likes to marry with her abilities in research, qualitative & quantitative analysis, and results-based management.

During the last two decades, she acted as an analyst and advisor for several organizations, including: the Assembly of First Nations (AFN); the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC); the Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO). She also acted as a lead strategist for several high profile clients in needs of assistance with strategic planning and/or crisis management, both for the public & private sectors.

Her research and analytical works have been published in several formats and platforms, including: public reports; fact sheets; political briefs; public presentations; parliamentary budgets submissions; and the like. Her work has been used in the context of public education campaigns; lobbying; UN conferences and meetings; Chiefs’ Assemblies; parliamentary question periods; punctual media operations; public commissions; and various election campaigns.

Yunqing Xu
Director, University Research Centre for Urban Environmental Studies Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University 

She has worked in an international organization, university/school and private companies in China, UK and Africa. She would like to devote her contribution to researching, teaching, consulting, strategy-building and policy-making on urban sustainable development issues at local, regional and international levels.