Ross Douglas is a South African entrepreneur who started his career as a nature documentarian and filmmaker. He collaborated with William Kentridge to produce 9 Films for Projection, which was performed in New York’s Central Park, London’s Barbican Centre and Berlin’s Guggenheim New York. After starting an art event company he created the FNB Joburg Art Fair (2008), the world’s first African contemporary art fair and a key gathering for the African art community.Concerned about global...

Nico Larco is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Oregon, Director of the Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Sustainable Cities Initiative, a nationally and internationally awarded, multidisciplinary organization that focuses on sustainability issues as they relate to the built environment. Professor Larco’s research focus includes sustainable urban design and the impacts of emerging technology on cities. The Urbanism Next...

The #CitiesFirst Advisors + Podcast is excited to launch our quarterly webinar series, with an all star lineup of guests and speakers. This webinar episode, "Women in Shared and Active Mobility" features mobility experts Sandra Witzel and Alex Carroll. Here's a sneak peek into the episode, which is all about women in shared and active mobility: 👇👇👇 ✅Please share recent shared mobility business models & success stories ✅What are the policy implications of active and shared mobility ✅Tell...

Dr. Laura Narvaez Zertuche is an architect, urban designer, and a spatial scientist. She is a Partner in the Urban Design Group at Foster + Partners, where she leads people movement and data analytics within the firm since 2015. Her work incorporates evidence-based and research-led design that combines informed decision-making with simulation-powered design tools and strategic development of methodologies with their application to architecture and urban design. She has +17 years of experience...

Where some see forgotten places, Rik Adamski sees extraordinary opportunities and is dedicated to supporting extraordinary places where people thrive. As the President of ASH+LIME, Rik has consulted on over 50 projects across 35 towns and cities, focusing on downtown and neighborhood planning, local economic development, support for small developers, and deep stakeholder engagement. His approach is bottom-up and incremental, providing communities with tools and resources to achieve...

Accomplished public official, economist, and administrator, Enrique Peñalosa completed his second term as Mayor of Bogota, Colombia in December 2019. While mayor, Peñalosa was responsible for numerous and radical improvements to the city and its citizens. He promoted a city model giving priority to children and public spaces and restricting private car use, building hundreds of kilometers of sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways, and parks. After organizing a Car-Free Day in...

Veronica Vanterpool is the Federal Transit Administration’s Acting Administrator, assuming that role on February 24, 2024. Before that, she had served as Deputy Administrator since May 2022. She first joined FTA as Senior Advisor in August 2021. As Acting Administrator, Ms. Vanterpool helps advance the goals of the Biden-Harris Administration related to equity, climate, innovation, safety and workforce development. She oversees policy priorities and objectives along with day-to-day operations...

On the founding team at Lime, the world's largest electric micromobility company operating in over 250 markets globally, Andrew Savage helped lead the company from its inception through expansion across more than 30 countries while raising over $750 million in investment. Serving on the company’s executive team, Andrew built an organization which led Lime’s market development, government relations, and policy strategy before creating and leading the sustainability function at the company....

Thijn is based in Amsterdam and is a Venture Capital Investor at No Such Ventures and is responsible for portfolio management, fundraising, LP relations, internal operations, deal making, and deal flow management. Thijn is also the Founder of Check and led efforts across the organization such as operations (local, central, markets, analytics, hardware, launch), corporate development and legal. Thijn also currently advises and invests in Dockler B.V. and other startups. He was previously VC at...

Andrea Learned is the Founder of LEARNED ON, LLC. She is a sustainability-focused writer and communications strategist specializing in digital thought leadership. Her early career success in marketing to women, culminating with the publishing of her book, Don’t Think Pink, gives her current sustainability and leadership work an underlying gender lens as well. After a year serving as a We Mean Business Coalition social engagement strategist around COP21, Andrea has returned to her independent...

Daniel is Founder & Owner of Urban Dynamics - design | planning | research | reflection (Porto and Amsterdam) and Director of the Future Design of Street - association, a platform for street design - improving streets as a social, natural and mobility space. Daniel works as an urban designer, planner and researcher at several spatial and urban assignments, projects studies, this from the level of a street to regional planning. Daniel has a PhD in Architecture – Dynamics and Urban Forms...

Jerome's vast industry expertise include leading TransitCenter's strategies around increasing representative leadership and inclusive decision-making in the transportation field, change that is essential to advancing TransitCenter’s mission to improve transit in ways that make our cities more just and sustainable. Prior to that, Jerome was with IndyGo and Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning, where he worked in roles concentrating on proactive community engagement and the rider...

Alex is Founder and Managing Director at Full Turn Capital, where he invests in early-stage companies innovating at the intersection of cleantech and mobility. Previously, Alex was the SVP of Market transformation at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), where he oversaw LACI's technical priorities, multi-stakeholder programs and initial pilots and deployments. He joined LACI from Groupe PSA in Paris where he was VP of Corporate Strategy, co-leading the company’s acquisition of Opel...

Based in San Francisco, Roger Spitz is an international bestselling author, President of Techistential (Strategic Foresight & Sustainable Futures), and Chair of the Disruptive Futures Institute. Roger has given over 100 keynote talks globally, frequently contributes across leading media, and has guest lectured at many of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions.Roger has two decades of leading investment banking and venture capital businesses, advising CEOs, founders, boards,...

Carmen Mays, MPA is an urbanist and creative entrepreneur that believes in the balance of thought leadership and implementation. She affirms that all people have value, and each place holds invaluable stories. Carmen employs a place-based approach that facilitates agency and self-determination to develop blueprints that industry leaders successfully leverage.Carmen served as the Neighborhood Revitalization and Public Safety Administrator for the mayoral transition team in the City of...

For our inaugural episode, we covered the topic of "Decarbonization of the Transport Sector", and were joined by industry experts Tiya Gordon (Co Founder & COO of itselectric), Jennifer Lenhart, PhD (Global Lead at WWF Cities), and Stephen Lorimer (Head of Clean Energy Cities at Centre for Net Zero (part of the Octopus Energy Group)). Here's a sneak peek into the episode: 👇👇👇 ✅How can we transform the transport sector to meet our decarbonization goals ✅What modes will get us to net zero...

A first in many spaces Selika Josiah Talbott is known by her colleagues as an influential agent for positive change who leads with confidence and approaches the most difficult and complex challenges with perseverance and a commitment to success. As the Founder and CEO of Autonomous Vehicle Consulting Selika is a leading industry voice for responsible investment, engagement, and preparation for New Mobility including robot delivery, autonomous and electric vehicles, and self-driven freight....

Augustin Friedel is a Mobility Transformation Expert and Advisor and was previously responsible for the intermodality strategy at Volkswagen AG. Intermodality services at Volkswagen are defined as customer centric offerings in the three segments of Vehicle on Demand (VoD), Mobility on Demand (MoD) and Logistics. Before joining Volkswagen, Augustin was responsible for building and developing several MoD (e.g. Uber, ioki) and logistics (e.g. Zipjet) services in European cities. He is the...

Ryan Russo is Principal at Together Projects, LLC. Widely recognized as an urban innovator, Ryan most recently served as the first Director of the Oakland Department of Transportation (OakDOT), where he led the new agency through its inaugural five years of operation. Under Ryan's leadership, OakDOT quickly became a national model for incorporating equity into transportation planning, policy, programs and operations. A start-up in government, OakDOT was formed to pursue a vision of a more...

Jeral Poskey is CEO and co-founder of Swyft Cities, a transportation solution that revolutionizes mobility and transforms real estate, enabling more vibrant and sustainable communities. Prior to Swyft Cities, Jeral was the project executive in charge of transportation planning for Google’s real estate division, where he was tasked with finding sustainable, cost-effective means to move tens of thousands of employees, and in the process, create more livable spaces for their corporate campuses...

Peter Griffiths helps people see and imagine cities differently. As an urban thought leader and city strategist, he most recently explored how the shared #micromobility sector can transition from start-up to critical infrastructure. 🛴🚝🚌🧑‍💻📈 Before this, he worked for The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) on the future of cities, supported The World Bank's Global Platform for Sustainable Cities, and consulted to cities across the UK and Europe on maximizing investment and...

For this episode, we’re interviewing Guillermo Campoamor, CEO and Co-Founder of Meep. Guillermo has experience in the public sector, legal, and international commerce industries. Background in OEM with expertise in sales and business development. Builds and grows relationships with both public and private companies. Degrees in law and economics. We'll be discussing a wide range of burning topics, such as: #Maas, #Ticketing #PublicTransit, #ArtificialIntelligence, and #BigData. Here's a sneak...

Lukas Neckermann is COO of Splyt and Managing Director of Neckermann Strategic Advisors. He is a strategist, advisor, researcher, and keynote speaker on Smart Cities and Smart Mobility. After coining the term, “The Mobility Revolution"​ in his 2014 book, Lukas followed up with three more books: "Corporate Mobility Breakthrough 2020", "Smart Cities, Smart Mobility", and "Being Driven". Lukas is an Advisor to Flock Cover, NEXT Future Transportation Inc., MSCI, SNRG, and other companies, as well...

Carol Schweiger, President of Schweiger Consulting. Carol has over 40 years of experience, and is nationally and internationally recognised in transportation technology consulting. She has wide-ranging and in-depth expertise in several specialty areas, including technology strategies for public agencies, public transport technology, traveller information strategies and systems, and systems engineering.We discussed a wide range of burning topics, such as: #PublicTransit, #Equity,...