Meet the leaders transforming our cities

Gil is a prolific and globally recognized voice reconceptualizing cities as places designed to support the health and wellbeing of people. During the city’s cycling revolution in the mid-90s, he was commissioner of parks in Bogota, and most recently he was runner-up in the 2022 Toronto mayoral election. He is the founder and chair of the board of the Canadian non-profit 8 80 Cities, is an academic chair at the Norman Foster Institute for Sustainable Cities, and an Expert Advisor to the International Society for Urban Health. He has worked for governments in over 350 cities.

Parent and practitioner, Ankita is the Director of Climate at Capita, a US-based think tank, leading work to frame the interrelationship between early childhood flourishing and climate adaptation for government policymakers. Ankita has worked for a decade on the leading edge of urban design that addresses the needs of children and caregivers, with the Global Designing Cities Initiatives’ Streets for Kids program, and later as the Knowledge for Policy Director at the Van Leer Foundation.

Jan Gehl is an architect, professor, and consultant on urban design, who has focused his career on improving the quality of urban life by reorienting the city’s design towards people. His influential thinking has been published in his classic books Life Between Buildings” and “Cities for People,” translated into over 40 languages. He has been awarded the ”Sir Patrick Abercrombie Prize for exemplary contributions to Town Planning”, the key to the City of Sydney, and honorary doctor degrees in Edinburgh, Toronto, Varna, and Halifax. He is a honorary fellow of the architectural institutes in Denmark, the UK (RIBA), the USA, Canada, Scotland, and Ireland as well as the planning institutes in Australia and Ireland.

Anna is the co-founder of Polish Smog Alert, a social movement leading 50 grassroots groups working to raise public awareness and demand government action for clean air in Europe’s most polluted country. For children and adolescents, air pollution causes low birth weight, asthma, reduced lung function, respiratory infections, and allergies. Policy changes that they have influenced include a country-wide support program for the replacement of solid fuel boilers worth 25 billion euros, and the installation of Poland’s first low-emission zone in Krakow.

Amanda M. Burden is a Principal at the consultancy service Bloomberg Associates. Serving as the New York City Planning Commissioner from 2002 to 2013, she spearheaded the largest planning effort in the city since 1961, initiating comprehensive rezoning plans for 124 and catalyzing significant new housing opportunities in diverse communities throughout New York City’s five boroughs.  A champion of design excellence, Burden emphasized community consensus-building in helping to improve the City’s built environment, reclaim the waterfront, and create dynamic public spaces including the East River Esplanade and the High Line.

Before her city appointment, Burden assisted in the launch and administration of the Midtown Community Court in Times Square. From 1983 to 1990, she served as Vice President for Planning and Design at the Battery Park City Authority, developing design guidelines for all buildings on the 92-acre site and supervising the design of the Esplanade and the 30 acres of parkland incorporated in the project.

Ms. Burden holds a Master of Science degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, an Honorary Doctorate in Public Administration from Pratt University as well an Honorary Doctor of Law from Columbia University.

In 2005, Ms. Burden received the Center for Architecture Award; in 2009, she received the JC Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development; in 2011 she received the American Architectural Foundation Keystone Award. She was elected to serve on the Council for Foreign Relations in 2014.

Erion Veliaj was re-elected for his third term as Mayor of Tirana in May 2023. Before his tenure, Veliaj served as a Member of the Parliament of Albania and Minister of Social Welfare and Youth from 2013 through 2015. Before joining the ranks of the Socialist Party of Albania in 2011, Veliaj had a long experience as the leader and founder of the youth movement “MJAFT”, a civic organization that gained huge popularity for inspiring peaceful protest since its creation in 2003. Veliaj has also worked with several international humanitarian organizations in the Americas, Eastern Africa, and Kosovo. Veliaj holds a Master’s degree in European Integration from the University of Sussex and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the Grand Valley State University.

Xoli is a Founder of Black Girls Rising and an Environmentalist who has led groups for over a decade, always guarding and guiding the younger ones. She spent more than 15 years successfully educating intergenerational groups about environmental issues, developing school programs that inspire learners to make thoughtful choices, and helping older youth discover their power. Today, as a Director of Black Girls Rising, a Black-led youth-focused organization that aims to raise holistic, well-informed, embodied girl leaders to be at the forefront of climate action, focusing on building Emotional well-being and trauma-informed Afrocentric awareness around climate advocacy. Xoli is also a Board Member of the African Climate Alliance and Zero Waste Association of South Africa. She is inspired to grow a future defined by environmental and social justice.

Tim Gill is an independent scholar, writer, and consultant based in London and a global advocate for children’s outdoor play and mobility. He is the author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities (RIBA Publications) and No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk-Averse Society (described in the New York Times as “a handbook for the movement for freer, riskier play”). Tim is a UK Design Council Ambassador. His consultancy clients include corporates, public bodies, and NGOs from throughout the UK and around the world, and he has spoken to audiences in over 25 countries across six continents. A former director of the Children’s Play Council (now Play England), he was seconded to the UK civil service to lead a government review into children’s play in 2003. Tim is a Churchill Fellow who has studied child-friendly urban planning in North and South America, the Middle East, and Europe. He holds degrees in philosophy and psychology from Oxford and London Universities, and an honorary doctorate in education from Edge Hill University. He is also an honorary patron of the UK Forest School Association. Tim writes for the mainstream media, trade, and academic publishing, and appears regularly on radio and television.

Believing that play environments can, and should, be better (and riskier), Meghan researches how the design of play environments impacts the physical health and social behaviour of children and caregivers. To date, she has collected data on over 60,000 people in 100 play environments around the world. The Philadelphia-based landscape architect designed over 30 play environments across the US and provided play design, safety, and risk guidance for over 40 play installations and children’s museums around the world.

Sam Bloch has worked as a journalist for more than a decade, focusing on climate adaptation in cities as well as on the business, environmental, and cultural aspects of the food industry. In 2019, he wrote an article about shade as an important civic resource and a requirement for health in public spaces, which sparked a conversation that continues to this day. 

He wrote for Slate, The New York Times, Places Journal, CityLab, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Art in America, and L.A. Weekly, among other publications, and was a staff writer at The Counter. He is currently working on a nonfiction book about shade and climate inequality to be published by Random House. Sam is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and a former Emerson Collective Fellow and MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow.

Laís Fleury has 20 years of experience as a social entrepreneur. She co-founded the NGO Associação Vaga Lume, dedicated to delivering libraries to rural communities in Amazonia and training teachers to be “Reading Mediators,” to support the literacy of children and expand their opportunities for personal development.

Laís serves as the Head of Partnerships at the Alana Foundation, advocating for the right of every child to connect and have access to nature. She is credited as the signatory of the argument for the film “The Beginning of Life 2: Outside”, holds the position of Co-chair US for the global movement #Natureforall, is part of the executive council of ISGA and the Expert Advisory Panel of the Earthshot Prize.

Dr. Sudeshna Chatterjee is a globally recognized urban practitioner, researcher, evaluator, educator, and published author. She advocates for children and youth to be included in urban planning and focuses on enabling inclusive, resilient, and child-friendly cities.

Sudeshna founded a research-based practice Action for Children’s Environments focusing on how environment, development, and urbanization relate to children and young people and action research to improve their living, learning, and play environments. Dr. Chatterjee co-led the first evaluation of UNICEF Work for Children in Urban Settings and a compendium of 50 case studies acting on behalf of UNICEF, WHO, and UN-Habitat. Currently, she serves as a Program Director at the WRI-India Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities.

Founder and CEO of Rozmanita, an NGO focused on helping schools in Slovakia to work with children and their communities. Rozmanita aims to increase inclusion in one of the most segregated and poorly performing education systems in the OECD, thus increasing societal coherence and innovation. Previously, Anna co-founded Teach for Slovakia, a member of the Teach for All network. She has taught children from disadvantaged backgrounds in London and Nepal, studied international education systems at the University of Oxford, worked as an analyst for UNESCO and as a leader on various education-related projects in India, Thailand and Columbia. She lives in Bratislava with her wife and three children.

Atsani is an international development leader, supporting the philanthropic industry in the area of global children and youth health. Recently, he became director of child and youth health for the FIA Foundation in London, an independent charity supporting activities promoting road safety, the environment and sustainable mobility, as well as funding motor-sport safety research. Previously, he managed Fondation Botnar’s child road-safety challenge, spanning 13 cities, and was also the lead for VicRoads International, the road authority for the State Government of Victoria in Australia, responsible for winning and implementing international projects. He holds a Master of Commerce from Melbourne University and a double degree in International Trade and Management.

Dr Beverley Barnett-Jones has held a variety of managerial as well as frontline practice roles during her 30 years’ experience in children’s social care. Beverley is the associate director for the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which produces data to improve outcomes for children and families going through the family courts. Beverley is also an advisor to the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and has recently been appointed as a trustee for the charity Kinship, supporting kinship carers who are caring for their friend or family member’s children when the parents can’t. She has very recently been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Essex in recognition of her work in child protection, family justice, and in setting up and promoting the Family Drug & Alcohol Court in the UK.

Bronwen is a leading global authority on walking and pedestrian-friendly communities, giving the topic of ‘walking’ a voice on the international stage. She has extensive experience in strategic transport planning, community and political engagement, on-street analysis, and policy and project delivery with a focus on equitable and sustainable transport. As CEO of Walk21 she ensures walking is part of the solution for climate change strategies, road safety and public health. She particularly enjoys working in creative partnerships where she can inspire policymakers and practitioners on the value of walking and build momentum for investment by national governments and multilateral agencies. Bronwen is also chair of the Africa Network for Walking and Cycling.

Dinah Bornat is an architect, urban designer, researcher, engagement specialist and co-director of ZCD Architects. As a leading expert on child-friendly cities, she has been involved in developing policy and guidance, designing best practices and promoting youth engagement. Her work has had a significant impact locally, in London, the UK and internationally. Dinah is a former Mayor’s Design Advocate for the Mayor of London. She has co-authored several books and reports that support architects, planners and developers in designing for and engaging with children and young people. She was recently invited to present to Prince William on the importance of children’s access to green spaces, and has been commissioned by the Royal Institute of British Architects to write a book about child-friendly housing in the UK.

Since starting Capita, an independent think tank, in 2018, Joe has developed initiatives that explore how cultural, global and social transformations affect children and communities. From the impacts of climate change to parental loneliness, social disconnection and economic insecurity, Capita’s work catalyses the creation of new solutions to some of the most pressing global challenges impacting families. Joe also serves as a senior advisor at the consulting firm Openfields and is a board member of Book Harvest and the Felician Center in South Carolina. Previously, he was the executive vice president of the Institute for Child Success, leading pioneering work in helping governments pay early childhood service providers for outcomes. He has also spoken about the social impact of finance at the White House and many other forums and conferences.

As founder and board member, Kamila has spent the last four years actively shaping and driving forward the social movement Rodzice dla Klimatu (Parents For the Future Poland). She has organised numerous impactful campaigns and engaged stakeholders from diverse social, political and professional circles to advocate for children’s health, clean air, safe transport, sustainable mobility, and climate, media and health education. A mother of three sons, an ecofeminist and a passionate social anthropologist by nature, Kamila holds degrees in African Studies, International Relations, Film Directing, and has also graduated from the Political Leadership School.

Mayor of Bratislava, co-founder of Vallo Sadovsky Architects and member of the music group Para. His goal is to make Bratislava a strong and resilient, green and transparent city fighting corruption, with quality public spaces, accessible public transport and help for disadvantaged groups. He stands behind Team Bratislava, a platform for people to actively engage in public affairs, particularly on a local level. For his efforts to transform Bratislava into a greener city with quality public space, he was awarded a World Mayor Future Award. He is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship at Columbia University in New York as well as a place in the Bloomberg Philanthropies and Harvard University Leadership Initiative, which is exclusively offered to just 40 mayors across the world. He lives in Bratislava with his wife Linda and son Jonatán.

Maya is a communications and advocacy specialist with 20 years of experience in campaigning, strategy, policy, and coalition building for social and climate justice. She is focused on advancing high-impact, inclusive, influencing strategies in the global climate movement. Maya is the co-director of Our Kids’ Climate, a global network that catalyses and supports parent-led and intergenerational climate organising in some 55 countries. She is also the co-founder of the UK-based initiative Mothers Rise Up, which runs some of the most creative fossil fuel finance campaigns. Previously, Maya was the head of humanitarian policy and campaigns at Oxfam GB, where she led teams of campaigners and policy experts in working to shine a spotlight on and protect civilians in humanitarian crises.

Dr Nikhil Chaudhary is an assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He has completed a Ph.D. and postdoctoral research in which he examined the behavioural and cultural adaptations of hunter-gatherer societies in Africa and Asia, and he has been working with the BaYaka community from Congo over the last decade. His current research aims to better understand our vulnerability to mental health problems from an evolutionary perspective. He is particularly focused on exploring how collaborative childrearing practices in hunter-gatherer and industrialised societies impacts the psychological wellbeing of mothers and children. Dr Chaudhary is an executive committee member of the Evolutionary Psychiatry working group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK.

Skye Duncan is a pioneering figure in global urban design. With 20+ years of experience, she is a major proponent of transforming “Streets for Kids”. Her team developed the award-winning Global Street Design Guide, shaping safe, inclusive streets worldwide. Skye’s mantra, “Change streets, change the world,” embodies her commitment to scaling tactical urbanism projects globally. Her accolades include being named one of TUMI’s Remarkable Women in Transportation.

Petra Marko is an acclaimed architect and placemaking expert dedicated to creating people-centric cities and public spaces. She serves as CEO of the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava, driving strategic architecture, urban planning, and participatory placemaking initiatives to enhance quality of life. She’s known for leading a placemaking practice in London and campaigning to unlock London’s small sites. An advocate for greener cities and active commuting, Petra has contributed to VeloCity and Meanwhile City. After two decades abroad, she returned to Bratislava to effect positive change.

Dagur B. Eggertsson, Reykjavik’s longest-serving mayor, has an impressive record of service, including a decade-long stint as mayor from 2014-2024. His contributions have extended to the international community, with a focus on inclusive growth. His efforts have honed in on public health initiatives and youth wellbeing. A physician by training, Dagur also holds a master’s degree in Human Rights and International Law from Lund University, Sweden. He has served as chairman of the OECD Champion mayor. He is married to Arna Dögg Einarsdóttir, a fellow medical professional, and they are parents to four children.

A renowned policymaker and consultant, has spent over two decades in social development policies and programs. Cecilia notably served as Ecuador’s Coordinating Minister of Social Development introducing policies benefiting children, youth, women, and indigenous communities. Currently, Cecilia is the Senior Advisor to the Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority, leading cutting-edge research on play and care service design in the Middle East. With her extensive expertise and dedication, she continues to positively impact social development globally.

An experienced urban leader, Maria Vassilakou is dedicated to creating open, inclusive and green cities. Serving as Vienna’s Vice Mayor from 2010 to 2019, she led urban planning, traffic & transport, climate protection, energy, and public participation. Her work contributed to Vienna’s top ranking in international livability. Now, as an independent advisor on urban transformation, she uses her expertise to develop strategies for livable, sustainable cities. She is also a member of the EU Horizon Mission experts board on Climate-neutral Smart Cities.

Patrin is the founder of thinkfeelchange, a consultancy aiming for social change at the intersection of cities, climate, children, and equity. She has worked with the Clean Air Fund and the International Society for Urban Health, spearheading the Accelerating City Equity Starter Kit. Previously at the Bernard van Leer Foundation, she initiated their work on air pollution and contributed to the Urban95 program for thriving cities. Now based in the UK, Patrin is an active member of her local antiracism group.

Andrew is the founder and editor-in-chief of Monocle, a magazine dedicated to urbanism and creating better cities. He was beyond the creation of all Monocle editorial projects including Monocle Radio and its transition to book publishing. Andrew also presents a weekly podcast about city living, The Urbanist, and writes a weekly column for the digital Weekend Editions. He is interested in the impact of architecture on people, and therefore only begins to follow architecture when people start using it. At the Start with Children, Andrew will moderate a mayoral panel discussion with Erion Veliaj (AL), Dagur Eggertsson (IS), and Matúš Vallo (SK).