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.

Paul Goldberger, who the Huffington Post has called “the leading figure in architecture criticism,” is now a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair. From 1997 through 2011 he served as the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where he wrote the magazine’s celebrated “Sky Line” column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City. He was formerly Dean of the Parsons school of design, a division of The New School. He began his career at The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, the highest award in journalism.

He is the author of several books and lectures widely around the country on the subject of architecture, design, historic preservation and cities. He has taught at both the Yale School of Architecture and the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley in addition to The New School. His writing has received numerous awards in addition to the Pulitzer, including the President’s Medal of the Municipal Art Society of New York, the medal of the American Institute of Architects and the Medal of Honor of the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation, awarded in recognition of what the Foundation called “the nation’s most balanced, penetrating and poetic analyses of architecture and design.” In May 1996, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani presented him with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission’s Preservation Achievement Award in recognition of the impact of his writing on historic preservation in New York.

Jay Cross leads the Howard Hughes Corp. in developing some of the most innovative planned communities in the country, with decades of experience delivering large-scale, mixed-use real estate projects.

Cross joined HHC in 2020 from the presidency of Related Hudson Yards, where he led development of the $20 billion project that redefined lower Manhattan. As president of the New York Jets, he spearheaded the development of MetLife Stadium in a joint venture with the New York Giants to build the $1.3 billion dual-team NFL stadium.

Cross served as president of business operations for the NBA’s wildly popular Miami Heat. He led the development of the $213 million American Airlines Arena—creating a public-private partnership with Miami Dade County, a $185 million bond offering and downtown Miami’s rebirth. Mr. Cross also developed the $265 million Air Canada Centre that houses Toronto’s NBA and NHL franchises in one of North America’s finest arena sites.