Financing an Urban Future: Report from the Conference on Sustainable City Finance

Speakers

Rohit T. Aggarwala, PhD

New York City Mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability
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Rohit T. Aggarwala is director of the New York City Mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability. This office was charged with the creation of "PlaNYC A Greener, Greater New York," a comprehensive sustainability plan consisting of 127 separate initiatives to make New York City greener. Aggarwala is now charged with implementing the plan and supporting other efforts related to the sustainability of New York City. Under his leadership, the City has begun implementing over 90 percent of the 127 initiatives in PlaNYC, including regulations to make the City's taxicabs and black car fleets clean, planting a million trees throughout the five boroughs, and overseeing the investment of $80 million a year to reduce the City's greenhouse gas emissions.

Al Appleton

Former Chief of NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection
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Al Appleton is an international consultant on issues of watershed management, water utility management and financing, regional land use, demand side services strategies and on establishing payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs. He is a senior fellow at the City University of New York Institute for Urban Systems, where he coordinates their programs on sustainability and on creating new 21st century water resource and regional landscape management institutions and strategies. As NYC's Commissioner of Environmental Protection in the 1990s, he designed and initiated the world-renowned New York City- Catskill watershed protection program.

Harvey Bernstein

McGraw-Hill Construction
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As vice president of global thought leadership and business development, Bernstein has responsibility for McGraw-Hill Construction's (MHC) green building initiatives, including the first ever landmark SmartMarket Reports (SMR's) documenting green market research trends in healthcare, education, America, the residential and commercial sectors, and the global green building marketplace. Bernstein also instrumental in the launch of MHC's award-winning GreenSource, the magazine of sustainable and in the creation of MHC's China Green Building and Energy Efficiency International Conferences he serves as an organizer and moderator. He also regularly speaks on green building trends and different parts of the globe including China, Australia, India, and the United Kingdom.

Somsook Boonyabancha

Asian Coalition for Housing Rights
e-mail | web site

Somsook Boonyabancha is secretary general of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights and director of the Community Organizations Development Institute in Bangkok. For the past 20 years, Boonyabancha has headed ACHR, a regional organization of NGOs, community-based organizations, and professionals working on human settlements. Working with the Thai government, Boonyabancha helped to establish the Urban Community Development Office in 1992 and bring participatory development to more urban poor neighborhoods. In 2000, this organization was merged with the Rural Development Fund to become the Community Organizations Development Institute of which Boonyabancha is the director. Boonyabancha has also worked as a consultant and adviser to various United Nations programs including the UN Development Program, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and UNHabitat. Her work has been published in many journals and conferences, such as "Upgrading Thailand's Urban Informal Settlements" (The World Bank, 2008).

Ian T. Brown

Gallup Institute for Global Cities
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Ian T. Brown is an analyst and consultant for Gallup Global Polling. Since joining the company, Brown's primary area of expertise has been in spearheading Gallup's new research practice for the Gallup Institute for Global Cities. In addition to research and business development, he regularly contributes as a writer to www.gallup.com, particularly on topics related to foreign and economic policy. He has presented Gallup research at a number of conferences. Prior to joining Gallup, Brown interned for the U.S. Department of State, handling economic and public diplomacy portfolios at the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius. Brown also worked for the U.S. Census Bureau, where he was a supervisor for the 2006 census test. As a policy research team leader for a nonprofit organization in Austin, Texas, he is the coauthor of a study on community and economic development in East Austin. Brown received his bachelor's degree in history and Italian from the University of Texas at Austin (UT). He received his master's degree in public affairs with a specialization in international affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at UT. The recipient of a Fulbright fellowship to study in Italy, he is fluent in Italian.

Nicolas Buchoud

Urban Development in the Office of the President of Ile de France
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Nicolas Buchoud is senior policy advisor for Urban Development in the Office of the President of Ile de France, his country's largest region. Including the City of Paris, the region has 12 million inhabitants. A regular speaker and guest lecturer at international urban development conferences, he is also serves as expert consultant to UN-Habitat, the European Investment Bank, Metropolis. He has published several books about the practical and theoretical urban development issues, in both a European and global perspective. His most recent book is Strategic City, Planners for the XXIst Century (2008). A member of UN-Habitat Professionals Forum, he is in charge of designing a global charter of urban development professional organizations, to be released at the World Urban Forum V in Rio (Brazil), March 2010. He was appointed in 2009 as a member of Steering Committee for the 2010–2015 UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign.

Robert Buckley

Rockefeller Foundation
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Robert Buckley is a managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he helps develop the Foundation's approach to addressing urbanization issues in developing countries. Prior to Rockefeller, he served as an advisor at the World Bank, where he led the development of new approached to understanding the ramification of rapidly increasing urbanization in the developing world. During his years at the Bank, he had the opportunity to work all over the world helping to prepare projects and undertaking studies. The studies have been published in more than 30 academic articles and in a number of Bank studies on development effectiveness, housing policy, and urbanization in transition economies. Buckley also served as the chief economist for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and has taught at a number or universities including Johns Hopkins University, the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Barry H. Caldwell

Waste Management, Inc.
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Barry H. Caldwell is responsible for leading Waste Management's government affairs, communications, community relations, and public sector services activities. He is a member of the company's senior leadership team and reports to Waste Management chief executive officer, David Steiner. Waste Management, Inc. is North America's leading provider of comprehensive waste management and environmental services. Based in Houston, Texas, it is a FORTUNE 200 company with revenues of approximately $13 billion and more than 47,000employees.

Tim Campbell, PhD

Urban Age Institute
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Tim Campbell is chairman, Urban Age Institute; former leader, Urban Programs, World Bank Institute; advisor to cities, national governments, international agencies; author, "Beyond Smart Cities: The Janus Face of City Learning in an Urban World (2010). Campbell has worked for more than 35 years in urban development—with experience in scores of countries and hundreds of cities in Latin America, South and East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. His areas of expertise include strategic urban planning, city development strategies, decentralization, urban policy, and social and poverty impact of urban development. Campbell retired from the World Bank in December of 2005 after more than 17 years working in various capacities in the urban sector. Campbell has authored several books. The Quiet Revolution, explores decentralization in Latin America from 1983-1995 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003) published in Spanish by Alfaomega, Bogotá. A second book, Leadership and Innovation (World Bank, 2004), examines the innovation process in leading local governments in Latin America. He holds a BA in Political Science from U. C. Berkeley (1966), a Masters in City and Regional Planning from U.C. Berkeley (1970), and a PhD in Urban Studies and Planning from M.I.T. (1980).

Armando Carbonell

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
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Armando Carbonell, Lincoln Institute for Land Policy's senior fellow and chairman of their Department of Planning and Urban Form, is an urban planner. His areas of expertise include city and regional planning, property rights and regulation, and land use and the environment. He also teaches planning at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his appointment to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Carbonell was the founding executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, a regional planning and land use regulatory agency. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Carbonell received his A.B. degree from Clark University and was a Doctoral Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University and a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.

Andrew Carman

Siemens Financial Services
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Andrew Carman is senior vice president and general manager of Siemens Financial Services Inc. (SFS). He is currently responsible for Siemens' Equipment Finance Group; specializing in equipment and corporate finance solutions for all commercial and industrial customers including the aviation, maritime and transportation sectors. Carman, who has over 18 years experience in equipment financing, joined SFS as part of an executive turn-around team during which time SFS has experienced tremendous growth. He is also responsible for having expanded SFS' product offering by establishing a corporate finance, leverage lending group focused on industrial sectors. Prior to joining SFS, Carman spent 10+ years with GE Capital in a variety of leadership roles: international mergers and acquisitions focused on Brazil and Japan, commercial equipment financing and healthcare equipment financing. Prior to GE Capital, Carman spent time with Chase Manhattan Bank and Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Nancy Rutledge Connery

NextGen Infrastructure
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Nancy Rutledge Connery of NextGen Infrastructure formerly served as executive director of the National Council on Public Works Improvement, a joint Presidential/Congressional study commission, which produced a series of highly regarded reports on the state of the nation's infrastructure in the late 1980s. Prior to that, she helped create the Washington State Public Works Trust Fund, which has provided nearly $3 billion of low interest loans to support local renewal projects throughout the state. Connery has served on various boards at the National Academies, Harvard Kennedy School and the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (New York University) and in 2000 was appointed by the U.S. Senate Majority Leader to the Amtrak Reform Council, a Congressional oversight commission. She currently writes, lectures, and consults on a variety of projects to advance dialogue, cut across boundaries, and pioneer new ways of thinking about and creating sustainable urban infrastructure systems.

Ron Dembo, PhD

ZeroFootprint
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Ron Dembo is the founder and CEO of Zerofootprint, an organization dedicated to a mass reduction in global environmental impact. Prior to Zerofootprint, Ron was the founder, CEO, and president of Algorithmics Inc., growing it from a startup to the largest enterprise risk-management software company in the world, with offices in fifteen countries and over 70% of the world's top 100 banks as clients. Algorithmics was consistently voted as one of the top 50 best-managed companies in Canada. Dembo has published over sixty technical papers on finance and mathematical optimization, and holds a number of patents in computational finance. Dembo is the author of three books. In May 2007, Dembo was made a lifetime Fields Institute Fellow. Dembo's alma mater, the University of Waterloo, honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. He is a member of the University of Waterloo's Deans Advisory Council in the Faculty of Environment, and a member of the Board of Advisors to the President at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. Dembo is the chair of the Information Technology committee of the Board at Mount Sinai Hospital, and is a member of the Board of Governors of University of Toronto's NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) program.

Steven Dreyer

Standard & Poor's
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Steven Dreyer is managing director – lead analytical manager, U.S. Utilities & Infrastructure Ratings, overseeing a group of analysts providing credit ratings and research on investor-owned electric, gas, and water utilities, independent power producers, gas pipelines, project finance, and public-private infrastructure partnerships. He also leads S&P's initiative to apply Enterprise Risk Management to the credit analysis process for corporate ratings globally, and is the U.S. lead on an initiative to improve transparency in global carbon markets. From 2000 to 2006, Dreyer was North American practice leader for Insurance Ratings. He joined Standard & Poor's in 1990 with its acquisition of ratings firm Insurance Solvency International, Ltd., whose U.S. subsidiary he managed. Previously he was responsible for insurance industry forecasting at Chase Econometrics. Dreyer earned a B.A. in Statistics from the University of Delaware and did graduate work at Drexel University. He completed executive development programs at the University of Virginia (1996), Columbia University (2005) and INSEAD (2007).

Brian English

CHF International
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Brian English is an urban planner who specializes in housing, infrastructure and economic development. Currently, English is the country director for CHF International, India, based in Bangalore where he manages the implementation of CHF's Slum Communities Achieving Liveable Environments with Urban Partners (SCALE-UP) program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This program undertakes slum upgrading projects in Pune, Nagpur, and Bangalore, India while providing capacity building assistance to NGO and government partners. Before joining CHF, English worked for PADCO/AECOM as an urban planner and program manager where his clients included USAID, UNIDO, World Bank, IFC, Reliance Industries and Jafza International. From 2004–2006, English was based in Kingston, Jamaica where he served as program manager for the USAID Caribbean Regional Community Revitalization Program, which implemented disaster recovery and development projects in six islands of the Eastern Caribbean. Countries of work experience include: Antigua, Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Dominica, Ghana, Grenada, India, Iraq, Jordan, Jamaica, Pakistan, People's Republic of China, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago.

Gordon Feller

Urban Age Institute
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Gordon Feller, CEO of Urban Age Institute and conference chairman, assists leaders to design and implement strategies for creating more sustainable cities. Urban Age was founded, initially as a magazine, inside the World Bank—and later spun off as an NGO. Urban Age brings together recognized innovators to help leaders inject innovative solutions into their urban projects, to design innovations that are scalable, and to create lasting partnerships for those projects. With Toyota, Feller created and convenes the annual "Meeting of the Minds" conference. Feller's writing has appeared in more than 400 newspapers and magazines, in 12 languages and on all continents. His first book was published during his undergraduate years at Columbia.

Pegeen Hanrahan

Mayor, City of Gainesville
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Pegeen Hanrahan is in her twelfth year of elective service with the City of Gainesville, and was re-elected as Mayor in March 2007. Support for her elections has been broad and bipartisan, and has included endorsements from diverse groups such as the Sierra Club, the Human Rights Council of North Central Florida, the Gainesville Sun, the Alligator, Satellite Magazine, the Iguana, and the North Central Florida Labor Council. During her Commission service, by vote of her peers, she was elected to serve as Mayor-Commissioner Pro Tem for three years. In addition to her public service, Hanrahan is a registered professional engineer. She currently is a consultant to the Trust for Public Land in their Conservation Finance Program, and has spent five years with Terra-Com Environmental Consulting, a groundwater remediation firm where, in 2003, she was promoted to senior vice president.

Jack D. Hidary

SmartTransportation.org
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Jack D. Hidary, after studying philosophy and neuroscience at Columbia University, became a very successful entrepreneur in the finance and technology sectors, and later co-founded SmartTransportation.org, a nationwide organization dedicated to encouraging clean technology in the transportation sector, which has, among other achievements, led a coalition to establish thousands of hybrid taxis in New York and other cities. He also currently serves on the advisory board to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and is board chair of AmericansforCleanEnergy.org.

Abha Joshi-Ghani

The World Bank Group
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Abha Joshi-Ghani heads the Urban Development and Local Government Unit in the Finance, Economics and Urban Development Department of the World Bank's Sustainable Development Network. She oversees the World Bank's work on Urban Policy and the Knowledge and Learning practice of the Bank in the Urban Sector. The Unit provides advisory services to the Bank's regional departments and clients on key urban themes such as urban housing and land, urban planning, management and municipal finance, urban environment, cities and climate change, urban poverty, cultural heritage and sustainable tourism development and local and city economic development. She is also leading the work on the Urban Strategy for the World Bank.

Shankar Raj Kandel

Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office
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Shankar Raj Kandel is the chief of International Relations Secretariat/Public Private Partnership Program of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office. He received a Masters in Economics (MA) from Tribhuwan University in Kathmandu, Nepal, 1979. Prior to his position as chief at the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office he has held assignments at the Task Force for Sustainable Management of Solid Waste of Kathmandu, Kathmandu Metropolitan City; the Task Force for the Formulation of Capital City Act for the governance of Kathmandu City; the Ministry of Local Development, Government of Nepal; Preparatory Group of International Conference of South Asian Mayors and Local Authorities, UNCHS (Habitat)/Kathmandu Metropolitan City; the Solid Waste Management & Resource Mobilization Centre; the Institutional Strengthening Task Force Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office and the Ministry of Housing and Physical Planning, HMG/Nepal.

Gary Lawrence

Ove Arup
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As urban strategies leader for Ove Arup & Partners, the global consulting and engineering firm, Gary Lawrence provides thought leadership for strategic urban development throughout the firm's 87 offices. A locally-grown asset, Lawrence's roots are firmly planted in the Pacific Northwest. As Redmond city manager, Lawrence turned the first shovel of dirt on the development of Microsoft's campus. Then, as planning firector for the City of Seattle, he led development of "Towards a Sustainable Seattle," the first sustainability-focused municipal comprehensive plan in the world. National and international recognition of his work followed and Lawrence subsequently served as advisor to the Clinton Administration's Council on Sustainable Development, the UN's Habitat II, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Brazilian President's Office, the British Prime Minister's Office, the European Academy for the Urban Environment in Berlin, and the Organization for Economic and Community Development (OECD, Paris) on matters of sustainable development and environmental policy.

Jonathan Maxwell

Sustainable Development Capital LLP
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Jonathan Maxwell co-founded Sustainable Development Capital LLP (SDCL) in 2007. Through the process of developing sustainable investment projects, Jonathan has worked with a broad range of key stakeholders such as central and local Government departments in the UK and China, universities and institutes, NGOs, engineers, architects and specialist consultants as well as financial institutions. Jonathan has completed over 40 investment vehicle transactions over the last 12 years involving investment in real estate, infrastructure, private equity and listed securities. During this time he gained exposure to the capital markets in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas.

Jonathan is a member of the Advisory Council to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Green Economy Initiative. He also serves on the Advisory Council for the Clinton Climate Initiative Climate Positive Development Programme.

Jonathan was previously Director of Business Development for HSBC's real estate and infrastructure investment arm, where he managed a diverse range of successful investment transactions, including IPO of the LSE-listed HSBC infrastructure company Limited in 2006 and the launch of the HSBC NF China Real Estate Fund in 2007. Jonathan graduated with a degree in Modern History from Oxford University and is a member of the UK Securities Institute.

Peter J. Miscovich

Jones Lang LaSalle
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Peter J. Miscovich is managing director in Jones Lang LaSalle's Strategic Consulting Group. Since 1985, Miscovich has developed and executed solutions for global Fortune 500 companies involving corporate real estate, enterprise sustainability, HR, finance, technology, operations, procurement, security, outsourcing, and strategic planning functions. Miscovich is a former partner with both Deloitte Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Long term corporate clients include Accenture, American Express, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, British Telecom, Cisco, Citigroup, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Hewlett Packard, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Merck, Pfizer, Time Warner, UBS, and Viacom. He serves as an advisor to the CERES Environmental NGO, SYNERGOS, and the Obama Administration Clean Technology and Sustainable Business Advisory Committee.

Peter V. Murphy

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services
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Peter V. Murphy is a senior director at Standard & Poor's Ratings Services. He is the public power ratings sector spokesperson. Murphy joined Standard & Poor's in 1993 as a public finance ratings analyst. He has extensive credit experience in assessing the credit quality of public power, infrastructure, and general government bonds. In the public power sector, Murphy has covered most major issuers, including Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Colorado Springs Utilities, Southern California Public Power Authority, Seattle City Light, WA, Nashville, Platte River Power Authority, and Huntsville, AL. Murphy's tax-backed experience includes the cities of Los Angeles, and Detroit; Nassau County, NY, and the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Idaho. Murphy has published over 60 articles on various public finance topics.

Jan Olbrycht, PhD

European Parliament-URBAN Intergroup
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Jan Olbrycht is a lecturer, expert, politician, and social activist. He is former mayor and president of one of the Polish regions, and is active in many European local and regional government organizations. Olbrycht is a regional policy and urban development expert. He regularly speaks at international conferences on urban related issues. He as been a member of the European Parliament since 2004, and was vice-chairman of its Committee on Regional Development from 2004–2009. He is also a founding member and chair of the European Parliament's Intergroup URBAN—a cross-parties and cross-committees grouping with a horizontal approach to discuss urban related issues. Olbrycht has a PhD in sociology.

Thierry Paulais

Cities Alliance
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Thierry Paulais is an urban planner and economist. He joined the Cities Alliance secretariat in 2008 to lead a research/publication program on the financing of African cities. He began his career in consulting firms. Later he served as an advisor to local authorities on investment strategies and financing in France, Africa and Asia. He then joined the Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC), the French financial institution that is collecting savings, and financing social housing and land development. At CDC he was in charge of a credit line for municipalities in financial difficulty. In 2000 he joined the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD), to establish the Urban Development Division, which has been involved notably in financing cities directly and through intermediaries.

Neal Peirce

Citistates Group; Washington Post Writer's Group
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Neal Peirce is a leading syndicated columnist and a leading voice on metropolitan regions—their political and economic dynamics, their emerging national and global roles. With Curtis Johnson, he has co-authored the Citistates Reports on compelling issues of metropolitan futures for leading media in 25 regions across the nation. In 2004-2006, Peirce took a lead role in conceptualizing and launching the New England Futures Project, starting with a six-part monthly Peirce-Johnson series—printed by 27 newspapers—focused on how that historic six-state region deals with its 21st century energy, transportation, growth, higher education, broadband and health challenges.

Yan Peng

Clean Air Initiative-Asia Center (CAI-Asia)
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Yan Peng is China representative of CAI-Asia Center and assumes overall responsibility of CAI-Asia Center activities in China. She works closely with Chinese government agencies and top professionals with mandates in transport, environment, energy, and climate change issues. Before joining CAI-Asia in 2005, she worked for DFID and ERM with managerial and technical roles for 10 years, particularly on environment policy analysis and social impact assessment. She has a Master of Law degree from Peking University and studies with Johns Hopkins University–Nanjing University Joint Center in China and University of Toronto in Canada.

Sophie Sabine Punte

Clean Air Initiative-Asia Center (CAI-Asia)
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Sophie Punte is the executive director of the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia) Center in Manila, and works with government agencies and their stakeholders to improve air quality, with an increasing focus on the link with climate change. Through previous positions with UNEP and the accounting firm KPMG, she gained extensive experience in energy and GHG management and corporate social responsibility with industry in Asia and multinational corporations. Punte holds a Master of Science (Biology) and a Master of Environmental Management from the Netherlands.

Bill Reinert

Toyota Motor Sales, USA
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Bill Reinert is national manager of advanced technology for Toyota Motor Sales, USA. His primary function is to coordinate Toyota's various research, development, and marketing activities related to alternative-fueled vehicles and emerging technologies. He is currently working on several advanced hybrid electric products, direct hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, reformed fuel approaches for hydrogen, full-featured electric vehicles, city electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid concepts, ethanol fuels and sustainable transportation systems.

Eduardo Rojas

Inter-American Development Bank
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Eduardo Rojas is a principal specialist in urban development. He joined the Bank in 1989 and has worked in housing, municipal and urban development loans and technical cooperation projects. His current responsibilities comprise policy and strategy formulation and best practices research and dissemination in the urban sector including housing sector reform and low income housing programs, urban heritage preservation, and integrated urban development.

Jonathan F.P. Rose

Jonathan Rose Companies
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Jonathan F.P. Rose leads Jonathan Rose Companies LLC, a multi-disciplinary green real estate development, planning, consulting and investment firm. He is a thought leader in the Smart Growth, national infrastructure, green building, and affordable housing movements. Rose is a frequent speaker and writer. He chairs the MTA's Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Change, and is a trustee of several organizations including: the Urban Land Institute and co-chair of its Climate and Energy Committee; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Enterprise Community Partners. He also serves on the leadership councils of both Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the School of Architecture.

Ellis Rubinstein

The New York Academy of Sciences
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Ellis Rubinstein is president and CEO of the 192-year-old New York Academy of Sciences, home of over 24,000 scientists in 140 countries. He served as editor of Science magazine from 1993–2002. He was editor of The Scientist, senior editor at Newsweek, and managing editor of Science 86 and IEEE Spectrum. Over his 3 decades as a journalist and editor, his work garnered 3 National Magazine Awards, the Pulitzer Prizes of the periodical industry. He was the first westerner to interview Jiang Zemin and first science journalist to interview then-President Bill Clinton. Additionally, he wrote the most complete investigative report of the Three Mile Island nuclear power accident and an acclaimed report on the true derivation of the cell line in which the AIDS virus was first grown. In the last decade, he has established groundbreaking international initiatives like Scientists Without Borders and has created alliances with ministries and funding agencies, municipalities, foundations, universities and corporations the world over.

Michael Serafino

Zipcar, Inc
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Michael Serafino is general manager of FastFleet by Zipcar, a solution that enables fleet operators to leverage Zipcar's technology and experience to address complex fleet management, sustainability, risk, and compliance issues. He has spent nearly two decades solving complex business issues through the application of technology solutions. Michael has held positions in engineering, support, operations, sales, consulting, and management at technology companies serving medical imaging, biometric security, user experience, ecommerce, and IT management markets. Prior to joining Zipcar, Michael was general manager of enterprise software solutions at Aware, Inc., and regional sales director at Tealeaf Technologies. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of New Hampshire.

Tokumbo Shobowale

NYC Economic Development Corporation
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Tokumbo E. O. Shobowale is the chief operating officer of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), the City's primary vehicle for promoting economic growth in each of the five boroughs. NYCEDC works to stimulate investment in New York across industry sectors and broaden the City's tax and employment base, while meeting the needs of businesses large and small. Shobowale previously served as an Executive Vice President overseeing strategy and policy, business development, and energy and telecommunication policy. Prior to joining NYCEDC, Shobowale was a strategy consultant for Dalberg Development, a firm strengthening global public institutions (e.g. UN and bilateral aid agencies) and also for McKinsey & Company, a global consultancy. He was previously Honduras program director for a small not-for-profit organization facilitating rural enterprise and energy development. He serves on the boards of the Dodge YMCA in downtown Brooklyn, the Excellence Charter School of Bedford Stuyvesant, and is chair of the board of the Leadership Prep Charter School in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Shobowale earned his bachelor's degree from Stanford University, an MIA at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and an MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management, earning each degree with academic distinction. He was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN.

Manoel Antonio A.A. da Silva

ARCADIS Logos Ltda
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Manoel Antonio da Silva is CEO of ARCADIS Logos in Brasil. ARCADIS is an international engineering, design, consulting, and management services company, with 15,000 employees worldwide. Manoel is a partner of Logos Holding. He has an engineering degree (from Escola Politecnica USP) and Master of Science degree (from MIT). Manoel is a Board Member of Biogas Energia Ambiental SA and he serves as chairman of the board of Novo Gramacho Energia Ambiental SA. These are the companies who own biogas powerplants in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Michael Singer

Michael Singer Studio
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Michael Singer is a classically trained artist with works in major museums and public gardens throughout the world but is now better known for his leading role in transforming public art, architecture, landscape and planning projects into successful models for urban and ecological renewal. In 1993, The New York Times chose Singer's design of a massive waste recycling and transfer station in Phoenix as one of the top eight design events of the year. In recent years, Singer has been involved in a variety of landscape and outdoor environment, planning and infrastructure projects in the United States and Europe, including Troja Island Basin in Prague, Czech Republic, New Hampshire Cogeneration Power Facility, Denver Airport, and The EcoTarium in Worcester, Massachusetts. Michael Singer Studio is currently working with the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County on a new (3000 ton per day) Waste-to-Energy Facility utilizing the guidelines developed in Infrastructure & Community, a white paper he produced and published in collaboration with Environmental Defense.

E. Sarah Slaughter, PhD

MIT Sloan School of Management
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Sarah Slaughter brings her business and civil engineering background to focus on issues of sustainability and disaster resiliency in infrastructure and the built environment. Based on her work on innovation in the design and construction of capital facilities, Slaughter is currently exploring the effective development and implementation of strategies to reduce organizational risk and improve performance through addressing the relationship between organizational capital facility assets and environmental restoration, economic development, and social equity, particularly in complex infrastructure systems (such as water and waste water treatment), healthcare, and advanced manufacturing facilities. Slaughter currently coordinates the Sustainable Business Laboratory (S-Lab) and the Sloan Sustainability Initiative.

Vickie A. Tillman

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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Vickie A. Tillman is senior vice president, Global Sustainability Business Development. Vickie is responsible for implementing a strategy to develop business opportunities. Prior to assuming her current position in 2009, Tillman was executive vice president of the Standard & Poor's Global Ratings Services business since May 1999. Standard & Poor's is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Tillman was executive managing director of Structured Finance Ratings, a position to which she was appointed in 1994. Previously, Tillman led the municipal utilities and revenue bonds groups, co-managed the Public Finance Department, and was ultimately named executive managing director of Public Finance in 1988. Tillman joined Standard & Poor's in 1977 as a municipal analyst, and has had diverse analytical and managerial responsibilities in all phases of credit analysis and criteria development. Past experience includes lead analyst for Standard & Poor's Municipal Utilities and Revenue Bonds groups, co-manager for S&P's Public Finance Department, and executive managing director of public finance.

Helcio Tokeshi

Estruturadora Brasileira de Projetos, S.A.-EBP
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Helcio Tokeshi is the managing director of EBP—Estruturadora Brasileira de Projetos, a joint venture of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and several private banks that help Brazilian government entities in the development of infrastructure projects. Before EBP, Tokeshi was an associate principal at the São Paulo office of McKinsey & Co., having also worked at the New York office. Tokeshi also worked as an economist at the World Bank and had two stints at the Ministry of Finance in Brazil during 1990 and more recently from 2004 to 2006 as the head of a competition agency (Secretariat for Economic Monitoring – SEAE).

Keshav Saran Varma

The World Bank
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Keshav Varma had an exceptional and pioneering record of achievement as the municipal commissioner of Ahmedabad, India, a city of over six million, where he was credited with rejuvenating the organization with a much enhanced public image, high staff morale, and a well-defined strategic approach. During his tenure, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation received an AA (SO) credit rating, and issued the "Ahmedabad City Bond," the first municipal bond issued in South Asia without central or state government guarantees. Varma is the founding president of the City Managers' Association of Gujarat. In 1996, he was awarded two national level awards: the Innovative Manager of the Year by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) Alumni Association and the Outstanding Manager of the Year Award.

Harry Verhaar

Philips Lighting B.V.
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Harry Verhaar has over 20 years of experience in the lighting industry, with his current role being Senior Director Energy & Climate Change. He also heads the Philips Lighting Sustainability Initiatives team. He has in the past six years been the architect of the lighting strategy on energy and climate change, which has resulted in a pro-active industry position on phasing out of old lighting technologies for street-lighting; non-residential buildings and homes. This program has over the last years obtained significant global media exposure, and has been included in the EU Climate Change package of March 9th 2007, as well as in the Energy Independence & Security Act in the USA. The Philips call to phase-out incandescent lighting (made in December 2006) has generated global support (by the European Commission; the International Energy Agency, and UNEP, in addition to a growing number of countries and states, i.e., Australia; USA; EU27; Korea; Russia; Argentina etc). Verhaar is also an active member of a number of partnership networks, including the WBCSD; WorldGBC; Prince of Wales Corporate Leadership Group on Climate Change; and The 3rd Industrial Revolution, as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the Lisbon Council.

Sheila Watson

FIA Foundation
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Sheila Watson is director of environment at the FIA Foundation, a UK-based charity committed to promoting sustainable mobility across the world. An economist, with many years experience as an advisor and consultant, her most recent role was as senior special adviser to the Labour government at the UK's national government's Department of Trade and Industry, the UK's national government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and more recently the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. During the 10 years she spent at the heart of government, she specialized in a range of environmental and resource protection issues from sustainable farming and food production to international climate security. Her former roles include deputy director of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, and policy researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Michael Wilkins

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services
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Michael Wilkins is a managing director and head of global carbon markets for Standard & Poor's Ratings Services based in London. In this role, he has responsibility for leading and developing the firm's global business opportunities in the carbon and environmental finance sectors. Prior to assuming this role in February 2009, Wilkins was leading the integration of Israeli ratings agency Maalot following its acquisition by Standard & Poor's in early 2008. Wilkins' experience at Standard & Poor's includes seven years as Head of Infrastructure Finance Ratings, the analytical group within Standard & Poor's which covers utilities, project finance, PPPs and transportation in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Wilkins was also co-head of the Corporate Securitisation group. He joined Standard & Poor's in London in January 1994 and has also worked in the Melbourne and Hong Kong offices.

Thomas Wright

Regional Plan Association
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Thomas Wright is the executive director of Regional Plan Association (RPA), the nation's oldest private regional planning organization. Wright is a visiting lecturer in public policy at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; and the New Jersey Institute of Technology School of Architecture. He has served as a resource team member for the Governors Institute on Community Design. Previously, he was the deputy executive director of the New Jersey Office of State Planning, where he coordinated adoption of the New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan (2001) and wrote the Executive Summary of the State Plan. From 1991 to 1993, he was Coordinator of the award-winning Mayors' Institute on City Design, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Robert D. Yaro

Regional Plan Association
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Robert Yaro has, for nearly four decades, promoted local, regional and national strategies to balance economic vitality and environmental quality. Yaro has been president of the Regional Plan Association since 2001. Before assuming this role, he served as RPA's Executive Director from 1990 to 2001. Headquartered in Manhattan, RPA is America's oldest independent metropolitan research, planning and advocacy organization. Yaro co-chairs the Empire State Transportation Alliance and is a member of Mayor Bloomberg's Sustainability Advisory Board, which led in the creation of PlaNYC 2030, NYC's long range sustainability plan. Since 2002 Yaro has also been professor in practice in city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses in regional planning and landscape preservation. From 1995–2001 he taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has consulted on a number of urban and metropolitan park plans, including the master plan for Houston's Buffalo Bayou Greenway and the Netherlands' Green Heart preserve. From 1985–1989 Yaro was associate professor of city & regional planning at UMass Amherst and founder and director of the UMass Center for Rural Massachusetts. In this role he created and led Growing Smart in Massachusetts, the nation's first smart growth initiative. His 1988 book, Dealing with Change in the Connecticut River Valley, received several national awards.

Nicholas You

Office of the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT (Kenya)
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Nicholas You is senior advisor of policy and strategic planning at the Office of the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT–Best Practices and Local Leadership, Kenya. After working in design in Europe in the 1970s, he participated in implementing housing and urban development projects in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He joined UN-Habitat in 1982 to help establish municipal training and leadership development programs worldwide, with a particular focus on public-private partnerships, financial management and environmental planning and management. In 2005, You was appointed as the Special Advisor for Strategic Planning for UN-HABITAT and in 2007 as Senior Policy and Planning Advisor. He is the author/editor of 5 books and numerous articles on housing, urban management and sustainable development and from 2000 to 2004 a visiting professor at the University Federico II in Naples. In 2004 he was commissioned by the Universal Forum on Cultures (Barcelona) to serve as the curator and chief designer of a major exhibition entitled the "Best Practices City and Water Exhibit" that formed the flagship exhibit of the 141-day Forum.

Susan Zielinski

University of Michigan
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Susan Zielinski is the managing director of SMART (Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation) at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. SMART undertakes implementation-focused research, demonstration projects (in India, South Africa, Brazil, and the U.S.), education, and global learning exchange on a range of issues related to the future of transportation in city regions around the world. Zielinski has developed and brought to her work at SMART the concepts and practice of New Mobility Hub Networks, New Mobility Industry Development, Open Source Transportation, and Public Private Innovation. Just before joining SMART, Zielinski spent a year as a Harvard Loeb Fellow focusing on New Mobility innovation and leadership. Prior to 2004, she co-founded and directed Moving the Economy (MTE), a Toronto-based "link tank" developed to catalyze and support sustainable urban transportation innovation as well as New Mobility industry development, an integrated industry approach developed at MTE. She worked for over 15 years in the City of Toronto's Planning Department, developing and leading transportation and livability policies and initiatives, including co-chairing the city's anti-smog strategy. She has advised on a range of local, national, and international initiatives, including the National Advisory Committee on Energy Efficiency, Transport Canada's Sustainable Development Advisory Committee, the OECD's Environmentally Sustainable Transport Project, the King of Sweden's jury of the Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities, and the European Conference of Ministers of Transport. She was also a long-time board member of Canada's Center for Sustainable Transportation.

Catherine Zandonella

Catherine Zandonella is a science writer based in New York City, covering such topics as environmental science, public health, and applied technology. She has a master's degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. Zandonella has written for a number of publications, including New Scientist, The Scientist, and Nature.