Hélène Chartier

Director of Urban Planning and Design, C40 Cities

Hélène Chartier is the Director of Urban Planning and Design at C40. The team she leads develops programmes and activities that support cities to accelerate sustainable and resilient urban planning policies and design practices.Her team leads the C40 Land Use Planning Network, which supports cities to institutionalise climate action through urban planning regulations; the Reinventing Cities competition, which delivers decarbonised and resilient urban regeneration projects; as well as the Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods programme and C40’s workstream on 15-minute cities.

Hélène previously served as an advisor to the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo. She also worked for the Paris Urbanism Agency and the global consulting firm Arup. Hélène holds a Master’s degree in science and engineering from the École Centrale with a specialisation in building and civil engineering. In the past 15 years, Hélène has lived and worked in Paris, London and New York.

Bryan C. Lee Jr

Design Principal, Colloqate

Architect and Design Justice Advocate. Founder/Director of Colloqate Design, a nonprofit multidisciplinary design practice. Bryan has spent 11 years working as a Design Justice advocate, organizer, and architect with a focus on building justice in the built environment. Lee was named one of 2018 Fast Company Most Creative People in Business. 2019 Architectural League Emerging Voices and a 2019 USC Civic Media Research Fellow.

Fokke Moerel

Partner and Architect, MVRDV

Partner and Architect Fokke Moerel (Breda, NL – 1970) was one of the first architects to join MVRDV in 1998. Her projects include public and cultural buildings, as well as transformations of monumental buildings that endeavour to revive their immediate urban context. To this end, she oversees teams working on designs ranging from interiors to public buildings. Through MVRDV projects, she generates a strong relationship between interior and exterior public programme.

Craig Edward Dykers

Architect and Founding Partner, Snøhetta

Craig Dykers was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1961 and has lived extensively in both Europe and North America. Dykers received a bachelor’s degree in architecture at the University of Texas, Austin after initial studies in medicine and art. He has worked in Texas and California and later co-founded the architecture, landscape and interior design company Snøhetta in Oslo, Norway in 1989 and in New York City in 2004.

As one of the founding partners of the firm, Craig Dykers has led many of their prominent projects internationally, including the Alexandria Library in Egypt, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo, Norway, the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion in New York City, and the recently completed Ryerson University Student Learning Centre in Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Hila Oren

CEO, Tel Aviv Foundation

Dr. Hila Oren has been the CEO of The Tel Aviv Foundation since 2016.Previously Oren founded and served as CEO of Tel Aviv Global. Tel Aviv Global is an initiative started by the Mayor’s Office of Tel Aviv-Yafo dedicated to elevating the city’s brand and global positioning. In 2010, the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality undertook a municipal-national initiative designed to position Tel Aviv as a global city – a leading international business center that specializes in innovation. During her term, the Startup City vision was formed: a municipal strategic plan for investors, entrepreneurs, tourists and students, connecting a city platform with a private initiative. As a result, Tel Aviv-Yafo was awarded the title ‘Best Smart City in the World’ in 2014.

Dror Benshetrit

Founder and Principal, Supernature Labs & Studio Dror

Founder of Studio Dror and SuperNature Labs, Dror is a designer, thinker, inventor, and futurist whose ingenuity informs a striking range of affecting, unconventional work. Dror has an award winning 20+ year career in product design, interiors, architecture, master planning and city planning. His eponymous NY studio collaborated with top tier companies and developers around the world, envisioning, researching and developing systems to connect people with nature through the built environment. Dror aims to foster authentic connections and improve people’s well being with these designs. Some of Dror’s major works include a novel structural support system named Quadror, the masterplan of Galataport in Istanbul, Turkey, and the Cappellini Peacock chair. Additionally, his first built architectural project, Nurai Island, broke the record for the most expensive residential units sold in the UAE per sq. ft.; units sold out in 72 hours, with sales totaling 976MM.

Thomas Heatherwick

Founder, Heatherwick Studio

Thomas Heatherwick is a British designer whose prolific and varied work over two decades is characterized by its ingenuity, inventiveness and originality. Defying the conventional classification of design disciplines, Thomas founded Heatherwick Studio in 1994 to bring the practices of design, architecture and urban planning together in a single workspace. Based in London, Heatherwick Studio focuses on designing for the human experience and is currently working on approximately 30 projects in ten countries, including new headquarters for Google in Silicon Valley and London (in collaboration with BIG); Toranomon-Azabudai — a six-hectare mixed-use development in the center of Tokyo; and Airo – an electric car that cleans the air as it drives. The studio has recently completed Little Island, a park and performance space on the Hudson River in New York; the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town; and Coal Drops Yard, a major new retail district in King’s Cross, London. His forthcoming book, Humanise, will be published by Penguin.

Helle Søholt

Founding Partner & CEO, Gehl

Helle is Founding Partner and CEO of Gehl. She started the company with Professor Jan Gehl in 2000. Through her leadership, strategic and organizational talent, the office has developed a knowledge base and experience portfolio that is respected internationally in the field of urban design and urban development. Over the years of its existence, Gehl has been awarded multiple prizes and recognitions for their contribution to making cities more livable and sustainable around the world.