Craig Simmons
Lord Mayor of Oxford, United Kingdom

Lord Mayor Craig Simmons was elected to Oxford shire County Council in 1997, successfully holding the first Green County Council seat (previously been won by Caroline Lucas). He served as a County Councillor for 12 years, standing down in 2009. He was elected as an Oxford City Councilor in 2002. As a City Councillor, he has served the people of East Oxford for more than 20 years. He Chaired Scrutiny Committee from 2014 to 2016 and Finance Panel (2014-now). He still sits on the Scrutiny Committee which gives the Greens, and other opposition parties, significant influence over Council decisions. Chairing the Finance Panel means that Greens have a direct and noticeable influence on the Council City budget. For example, during his time as Chair, Oxford became the first Council in the UK to divest from fossil fuels.

Lisa Helps
Mayor of City of Victoria, Canada

Lisa Helps became the 52nd Mayor of Victoria when she was elected on November 15, 2014, and was sworn into office for her second term on November 1, 2018. Prior to being elected as Mayor, she served as a Victoria City Councillor for one term, from 2011 to 2014.

Mayor Helps works hard at City Hall and in the community to ensure that the city is prosperous, affordable, sustainable, and ready for the future. Taking a long-term, big-picture perspective, she looks both around the city and around the world for innovative solutions to the pressing challenges facing us including climate change, lack of affordable housing, and growing social isolation and loneliness, especially among youth and seniors. Mayor Helps believes that the best way to address complex challenges is to bring people from a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and experiences together and to truly listen to each other. In her experience, listening deeply with empathy and generosity and taking in new information can enable us to change our minds or at least to broaden our perspectives.

Don Iveson
Mayor of Edmonton, Canada

Since his election as Edmonton's 35th Mayor in 2013, Mayor Iveson has led Edmonton's transformation into a more uplifting, resilient, and globally competitive city. Alongside his remarkable partner Sarah Chan, they both serve our community while raising two young children, working to make things better for all our kids and grandkids. Harnessing a new confidence among Edmontonians, he is focused on the priorities of growing an opportunity economy, building a more family-friendly city, accelerating our leadership on energy and climate, and planning for a million people - all while strengthening integrity and performance at City Hall.

Prior to entering public life, Iveson studied Political Science at the University of Alberta, then served as president of Canadian University Press in Toronto. He returned home to a city that appeared to be exporting young, smart leaders, thinkers, creators, and entrepreneurs faster than it could attract them. As a proud Edmontonian, the challenge of attracting and retaining more people inspired Iveson to run for City Council in 2007. As a result, one of his key performance indicators - as both a Councillor and Mayor - is to build the kind of city that, when the time comes, his children will never want to leave.

Silvia Ganzerla
Policy Director, EUROCITIES

As Policy Director for EUROCITIES, she is responsible for urban policies related to economic development, innovation, employment, education, migration and social inclusion.  She is leading on the implementation of European Commission grants for policy change and mutual learning (peer-reviews, study visits, urban innovation labs, co-creation), as well as for policy oriented research (analysis of good practice, trends and challenges). She is a member of the European high-level and multi-stakeholders platform on SDG. Regarding policy areas, she is responsible for: jobs and skills, life-long learning, inclusive labour market, housing & urban regeneration, health and well-being, place marketing & city branding, innovation, start-ups, industry 4.0, EU funds, public procurement

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.

Mohammad Hassan Malekpour
Architect

Mohammad Hassan Malekpour has 20 years of experience working as an Architect at Mosaed Malekpour Architects.

Jyoti Hosagrahar
Deputy Director of UNESCO World Heritage Centre

Jyoti Hosagrahar is Deputy Director for the World Heritage Centre at UNESCO. Among other responsibilities, she leads the implementation of the Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation, the Cities Programme, policies for cultural and natural heritage for the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda, the Earthen Architecture Program, and the World Heritage Fund as well as the development and implementation of Thematic Indicators for Culture in the Sustainable Development Goals across the Culture Sector. From May 2016-November 2018, she served as Director of the Division for Creativity at UNESCO. Prior to joining UNESCO, she was a professor and Director of the SUI Lab at GSAPP, Columbia University, New York; UNESCO Chair in Culture, Habitat, and Sustainable Development at Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology in Bangalore, India where she was also Chair of the Ph.D. program; and Founder-Director of Sustainable Urbanism International (SUI), an NGO in Bangalore, India. She has a Ph.D in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of California, Berkeley.

Angelika Poth-Moegele
Executive Director of European Affairs of Council of European Municipalities and Regions

Ms Angelika Poth-Moegele, of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions has over 20 years experience representing local and regional governmental interests at European level

Rafael Tuts

Director of Global Solutions Division, UN-Habitat

Raf Tuts is Director of the Programme Division at UN-Habitat, based at its Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. He is overseeing the work of UN-Habitat’s seven thematic branches and four regional offices. Earlier assignments with UN-Habitat included coordinator of the Urban Planning and Design Branch, focusing on promoting compact, integrated and connected cities that are inclusive and resilient to climate change. He was also Acting Coordinator of the Housing and Slum Upgrading Branch, Coordinator of the Cities and Climate Change Initiative and Chief of Training and Capacity Building Branch. He started his work at UN-Habitat as Manager of the Localising Agenda 21 Programme, working on strategic and action planning in secondary cities in Kenya, Morocco, Vietnam and Cuba. He further coordinated UN-Habitat’s engagement in formulating the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG-11. He is Honorary Professor at the Department of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Leuven, Belgium.

Oumar Sylla
Director of Regional Office for Africa, UN-Habitat

Since January 2020 ,Oumar Sylla has been acting as Director for the Regional Office for Africa in the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat). Before this, he was Branch Coordinator, Urban Legislation, Land and Governance in UN Habitat and, from September 2015, Head of UN Habitat’s Land and GLTN Unit. Prior to joining the Land and GLTN Unit, Oumar served as a Senior Advisor in UN Habitat’s Regional Office for Africa and focal point to support urban policies development and sustainable urbanization in francophone countries. From 2009 to 2014, he was Chief Technical Advisor for UN Habitat’s Land Programme in DR Congo and he also has experience with the European Union framework, which he gained as a Land Policy Advisor in South Sudan and Burkina Faso (2006-2008). From 1999 to 2005 he was a Research Fellow in the Laboratory of Legal Anthropology in Paris 1 Sorbonne, mainly working on land and decentralization policies in West Africa. In Senegal, he operated as a junior researcher within the ILRI/ ISRA institutional cooperation framework (1998-1999) dealing with land and natural resources.

Vincent Tong
Chief Development Officer of Toronto Community Housing

Vincent Tong was appointed Chief Development Officer on January 15, 2018. Vincent joined Toronto Community Housing in 2010 as an Associate Development Manager and subsequently became a Development Manager, Senior Development Manager and Development Director. He has been the lead on three revitalization projects and is currently responsible for oversight of Toronto Community Housing's real estate and development program. Vincent has more than 13 years of experience in planning, development, construction, marketing, policy development and community engagement. He has previously worked in the private sector as a planning consultant working on a broad spectrum of projects across the Canada. Vincent graduated from Ryerson University with a degree in Urban and Regional Planning.

Femi Adewole
Former MD of Shelter Afrique & CEO of Family Homes Funds

Mr. Femi Adewole is a housing finance professional and chartered architect with over 25 years experience leading housing initiatives across Sub Sahara Africa and the United Kingdom. Before his appointment as the MD of Family Homes Funds, he was MD of Shelter Afrique. He has also served in some of the largest housing companies around the globe such as First World Communities Ltd, Watford Community Housing Trust, Notting Hill Housing Group, and Lagos HABITAT 2011 Project. Mr Adewole is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School and Warwick Business School.

Richard Barkham
Global Chief Economist & Head of Americas Research of CBRE

Richard is a specialist in macro and real estate economics. He joined CBRE in 2014 as Executive Director and Global Chief Economist. Prior to taking up his position with CBRE, Richard was a Director of Research for the Grosvenor Group an international business with circa $10bn of capital under management in real estate. He was also a non-Executive Director of Grosvenor Fund Management where he was involved in fund strategy, risk analysis and capital raising. Richard is the author of two books and numerous academic and industry papers. In 2012 he published ‘Real Estate and Globalisation’ (Wiley Blackwell, Oxford), which explains the impact on real estate markets of the rise of emerging markets such as China and Brazil. He has extensive consulting experience and is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Construction and Project Management at the Bartlett School, University College London. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Reading where he taught, in the Departments of Economics and Land Management, between the years of 1987 and 1998.

Gowri Shankar
Chief of Innovation & Business Solutions of United Nations Office at Nairobi

Gowri Shankar has over twenty five years of industry experience in Knowledge Management, Program Management, Project management, Enterprise Architecture, Account management, Business Analytics & Reporting and Process management (Six Sigma consulting) for software development and implementation. Specialized in IT Governance, Risk and Compliance.

Monica Mee
Senior Manager at KMPG

Monica is a senior advisor at Pure, and has over 18 years of experience as a manager, where she has worked with business development, sales management, strategy and innovation from the IT and finance sector. With 10 years of management experience from Nordea and a member of Nordic management teams, Monica has extensive experience from working with financial directives, compliance and governance, and has, for example, great expertise in working with EU, UN and OECD standards and guidelines from a strategic and implementation perspective. Since 2007, Monica has been a driving force for sustainable development in the financial industry. She has worked with topics such as climate and environment, circular economy, civil society, human rights, ethics and governance. She has several roles in the industry association for responsible and sustainable investments, and participated in several working groups under the auspices of Finans Norge, including the Roadmap for green competitiveness in the financial industry. By virtue of her role as chair of the Academy Committee in Norsif, she has had a dialogue with the largest universities and colleges to ensure students' learning base on sustainable development. She sits on an Advisory Board for Economics with a focus on sustainability at NMBU, and is also an active contributor to the EU Horizon 2020 project SMART, which focuses on barriers and drivers for market participants' contributions to the UN Sustainability Goals.