Hazleen Ahmad is a global impact investor, neurodiversity advocate, and advisor with over three decades of leadership experience across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. As Deputy CEO ION Global and Chair of the Institute of Neurodiversity Singapore, she champions inclusion as a strategic imperative that drives resilience, innovation, and long-term value. Through the Institute, she empowers neurodiverse talent and advises organizations and policymakers on building ecosystems that deliver measurable social and economic impact.
Building on this mission, Hazleen founded Hazleen Ahmad Global Impact Ventures, a women-led think tank and trust fund that supports women- and youth-led innovation worldwide. By combining her expertise in inclusion with strategic investment and advisory support, the trust fund connects investors with high-impact ventures, scaling initiatives that advance systemic change while promoting equitable opportunities for underrepresented talent.
An active global speaker, Hazleen has shared her expertise at the C4IR, World Economic Forum, Pontifical Academy, Vatican, Cambridge University, and with corporations including Schneider Electric, Cisco, and Microsoft. She advises venture capital firms and network connector organizations, using her insights in applied neuroscience, inclusive innovation, and systemic impact to inspire collaboration, mobilize resources, and advance transformative initiatives globally.

Hila Oren leads the Tel Aviv Foundation, overseeing initiatives that enhance public engagement, urban infrastructure, and cultural programming. Her work focuses on integrating community needs, civic participation, and city branding to strengthen urban identity and foster functional, accessible, and well-structured city initiatives.

James Lima is President of JLP Partners, advising cities, developers, and institutions on large-scale urban transformation projects. He specializes in strategic planning, mixed-use development, and public-private partnerships, ensuring that projects align with economic, social, and infrastructure goals. Lima’s work emphasizes comprehensive planning that delivers measurable civic and economic outcomes.

Jasmine Palardy (Calgary, Canada)
Founder, The Good Future Collective & Director, WRLDCTY
Jasmine is a community builder who specializes in innovative engagement methods that encourage imagination and collaboration. Her career has been spent balancing the worlds of innovation, tech and design to bring diverse groups together to envision and build better places - from innovation districts to main streets, parks, alleys, higher education labs, cultural institutions and more. She combines strategic foresight, human-centric design, storytelling and memorable moment-making to create programs that build capacity for community transformation and more resilient cities.

A specialist in parks, placemaking, trails, urban ecology and public space strategy, Katherine is best known for leading the creation of VanPlay — Vancouver's award-winning parks and recreation services master plan, setting out a 100-year vision for equitable access to green and recreational space across one of the world's most liveable cities. A sought-after voice on spatial equity and urban wellbeing, Katherine has keynoted the World Urban Parks Congress, Parks and Leisure Australia and WRLDCTY, bringing a rare blend of strategic rigour and genuine passion for the places that make cities worth living in.

Manas Rath is the Founder of LEAP Cities, a long-term accelerator for high-potential, growth-stage businesses that are solving India’s urban problems. He is also co-founder of the Mumbai Donut CoLAB, a collective action effort to make Mumbai more Liveable + Sustainable. He holds degrees from MIT and the Sloan School of Management. His current focus is on ‘Level Six Leadership’. Manas has worked extensively in the social and environmental sector with BORDA, Dasra, and the Dutch WASH Take-a-Stake Impact Fund. Earlier, he worked at Avendus Capital (Private Equity and M&A Investment Banking), raising capital from global investors like Blackstone and Warburg Pincus and closing cross-border M&A deals. As a mentor, he brings extensive exposure to domains around sustainability, urbanisation, and basic services, as well as experience in strategy, business models, PPPs, building stronger teams, and venture capital.

Mark Shieh started his career as a Disney Imagineer, designing theme parks — and he never quite lost the conviction that the places we inhabit should make people genuinely happier. As co-founder of Tomo Spaces, he has channelled that belief into a quieter but equally ambitious project: reimagining how people live together in cities. Tomo — meaning "together more" — pioneered the concept of "cohousing lite" in Vancouver, making community-oriented, shared living accessible to a broader demographic without the complexity of traditional cohousing models.

Nadia Levi is the Senior Vice President leading Land Use Strategies at Colliers. She works with cities, public agencies, and private partners to understand the economics behind land and development, and to turn that insight into clear, workable strategies. Her team focuses on market intelligence, land use, feasibility, and destination planning—helping clients see what’s possible, what’s practical, and what will actually move forward. Nadia has worked on projects across North America, from innovation districts to major redevelopment sites, always grounding big ideas in what the market can support.



Nadia works closely with governments, industry partners, and Indigenous communities to connect policy direction with capital and infrastructure decisions. She is known for her steady, feasibility‑first approach and her ability to navigate competing interests without losing sight of long‑term value. With a background in engineering and planning, she brings a practical lens to sustainability, design, and implementation—focused on shaping places that are economically resilient, socially inclusive, and built to last.

Samantha leads Hassell's ambitious global change strategy in sustainability and regenerative practice. She works with a diverse team of industry leaders to embed our Sustainability Framework across all areas of our practice, building capacity in our people and processes and driving innovation in sustainable and regenerative design. With extensive experience in senior leadership roles internationally, Samantha’s work has spanned 20 countries, delivering sustainable and regenerative design and business strategies for the commercial and residential sectors, healthcare, retail, universities, large-scale infrastructure projects, and both private and government organisations. Before joining Hassell she designed and implemented Development Victoria’s inaugural sustainability strategy and spent almost 15 years at global sustainable development firm Arup, working across many of their global locations including Sydney, Singapore, Los Angeles, and Melbourne.

Saravanan is experienced in addressing complex urban and social development challenges. He has co-authored both the Soft Power Index as well as the Good Governance Index, while also contributing as an analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Safe Cities Index. He previously completed his civil service stint with the Ministry of National Development (MND) Singapore, where he led the indices research team to measure and benchmark Singapore’s liveability to account for the impacts of the pandemic.

Stephen Ritz is an educator and founder of Green Bronx Machine, a nonprofit using urban agriculture to transform schools and communities. His initiatives provide youth with access to food systems education, environmental stewardship, and practical skills. Ritz’s programs demonstrate the power of hands-on engagement to drive education, health, and social outcomes at the neighborhood level.

Tim Jones advises on integrating arts, culture, and heritage into urban development and planning. His work helps cities, developers, and cultural institutions align programming and policy with broader urban objectives. He focuses on strengthening identity, place-based programming, and sustainable cultural ecosystems.

Vance Harris is a Partner at DIALOG and a recognized leader in regenerative design and urban systems thinking. He integrates climate resilience, social equity, and large-scale infrastructure planning to create districts and communities that are sustainable, connected, and future-ready. Harris’s work spans campuses, neighborhoods, and urban precincts, emphasizing integrated design solutions that enhance both functionality and human experience.

An award-winning urbanist, educator and strategist, Zahra co-leads Monumental, a national organisation advancing fair and culturally competent city-building across Canada, and is Urbanist-in-Residence at the University of Toronto's School of Cities. Her book Messy Cities: Why We Can't Plan Everything — named one of Bloomberg Cities Network's essential urban reads — brings together 43 voices from around the world to make the case that spontaneity, informality and community workarounds are not liabilities but essential ingredients of thriving urban life.