Susan Aitken has been Leader of Glasgow City Council since May 2017 and is the first SNP Leader of the Council. She was elected as Leader of the Council for a second time in May 2022. For her work to deliver equal pay justice for thousands of women in the city, she was awarded Scottish Local Government Politician of the Year.

Under her leadership Glasgow has been named the host of COP26, a Global Green City, and the European Capital of Sport for 2023. She is an advisory board member of the Cities Climate Investment Commission, which is addressing the challenge of financing Net Zero transition in major cities across the UK.

Susan has worked in a variety of policy and research roles in the Scottish Parliament and the third sector, and as a freelance writer and editor specialising in health and social care policy. She is a graduate of both Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities.

Sir John Armitt is the Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission. In September 2013, Sir John published an independent review on long term infrastructure planning in the UK. The recommendations in the Armitt Review received widespread support and resulted in the creation of the National Infrastructure Commission in 2015.

After leaving John Laing plc in 1993, where Sir John had been Chairman of Laing’s International and Civil Engineering divisions, he became Chief Executive of Union Railways. In 1997 he became Chief Executive of Costain, a position he held until 2001, after which became Chief Executive of Railtrack (later Network Rail), until 2007. From 2007 he was Chair of the Olympic Delivery Authority.

Chris Boardman was appointed as National Active Travel Commissioner in June 2022 by the Transport Secretary.

Before this Chris was Transport Commissioner for Greater Manchester and the first ever Greater Manchester Cycling and Walking Commissioner.

A former professional cyclist, Chris won a gold medal in the individual pursuit at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. Chris launched his own range of bikes, BOARDMAN Bikes, in 2007 and is the company’s chairman.

Chris is also Chair of Sport England and a prominent broadcaster for BBC and ITV.

Nick is global chair of the International Project Finance Association, which comprises more than 600 member organisations from across infrastructure.

He was previously Chief Business Adviser and Director General, Enterprise at the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where his portfolio spanned business engagement, growth and investment.

Prior to this, Nick was Global Chair of Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare at KPMG. As Deputy Head of Global Clients and Markets, he was responsible for KPMG’s sectors programme, focused on how industry experts could engage better with new technologies to create better solutions globally. As global head of infrastructure at KPMG, Nick oversaw the growth of an advisory business active in more than 120 countries worldwide.

Greg Clark is Chair of Connected Places Catapult. He is a British and Irish writer, Board Chair, Non-Executive Director, and advisor on cities, mobility, built environment, and urban innovation. He is the author of 10 books and 100 reports on cities, mobility, real estate, climate, urban economies, investment, and place leadership, and has worked with 400 cities around the world.

He is Chair of Connected Places Catapult (CPC), the UK’s national innovation accelerator for transport, cities, and place leadership, and Chair of the Cities Commission for Climate Investment (3Ci), which convenes local leaders and investors to find innovative means to capitalise a just urban transition. He is a Board Member of Transport for London (TfL). He chairs TfL’s Land and Property Committee, which oversees TfL’s property company, Places for London. He is a Senior Advisor to New London Architecture, and Hon Prof of cities and innovation at Strathclyde University. Greg is also chair of the UK Government’s Secure Connected Places Advisory Group. He was previously Lead Advisor, Cities & Regions, Office of Deputy Prime Minister (2004-2010), Executive Director, London Development Agency, Chief Executive of the London Enterprise Agency, Managing Director of Greater London Enterprise, and he teaches regularly at LSE and University College London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

Greg is Hon Global Fellow at the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He is the former chair of the OECD LEED Forum of Cities and Regions (1996-2016) and former Global Fellow on cities at the Brookings Institution. He has advised the World Bank, European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and the HSBC Group on cities, sustainability, and financial innovation. He is currently working with the Inter-American Development Bank on the future of the cities of the Amazon, where 47,000,000 people live. Greg has chaired more than 20 International Advisory Boards and Committees for Cities; including New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Vienna, Oslo, Barcelona, Turin, Toronto, Auckland, and Cape Town. He is a member of the WEF Global Future Council on Cities & Urbanisation, and a member of the Bloomberg NEF Council on Cities.

Greg regularly hosts and moderates global gatherings on cities, sustainability, real estate investment, and innovation. He is an expert advisor on the BBC World Service Series, My Perfect City, and co-host of The DNA of Cities podcast.

With over 40 years’ experience across the finance, transport and technology sectors, Vernon is the Transport Commissioner for Greater Manchester. He advises Mayor Andy Burnham on the development of the Bee Network, a fully-integrated, London-style transport system for this growing 3 million strong city-region.

From 2007 to January 2022 he was Managing Director for Customers, Communication and Technology at Transport for London and held a number of other senior jobs there. Vernon’s primary focus was on putting customers at the heart of transport strategy and operations, including how integration of services, city planning, technology and data can deliver better journeys. He led the successful pan-Government and transport industry marketing and communications strategy for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the largest ever integrated campaign of its kind.

Vernon has worked at senior level at the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England over the previous 18 years in a variety of banking, regulatory, corporate and communications roles.

Vernon is a non-executive director of Transport for Wales, is senior advisor to the consultancy Teneo and chairs the National Grid ESO Technology Advisory Council as the generation and distribution of energy across the country is transformed.

Emma was appointed CEO of the UK’s Jet Zero Council in March 2021, by the Secretaries of State for Transport and Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

The Jet Zero Council is the only forum in the UK that brings together all aspects of the aviation value chain and Government. The Council, made up of over 50 leaders across aviation, aerospace, Government and academia, has an absolute focus on decarbonising aviation in line with the UK’s commitment to Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050. The council aims to achieve transatlantic flight within a generation, without harm to the environment. It will look to do this through two 2 primary strategies – zero emission flight in the longer term and Sustainable Aviation Fuel production and use in the shorter term – both underpinned by a 2-year roadmap.

Emma also has an executive role as Chief Operating Officer for Heathrow, where she has worked since 2009, leading a variety of teams across Strategy, Regulation, Planning, Sustainability and Capital Project delivery. Amongst other things, she led the strategy that underpinned Heathrow 2.0: a plan for sustainable growth, which fundamentally repositioned the airport’s environmental and sustainability ambition.

Andrew Haldane is the Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). He was formerly Chief Economist at the Bank of England and a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee. Andrew is Founder and President of the charity Pro Bono Economics, Vice-Chair of the charity National Numeracy and Chair of the National Numeracy Leadership Council. Andrew chairs the Government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council and is a member of the Chancellor’s Council of Economic Advisors. He was the Permanent Secretary for Levelling Up at the Cabinet Office from September 2021 to March 2022. Among other positions, he is Honorary Professor at the Universities of Nottingham, Manchester and Exeter, Visiting Professor at King’s College, London and a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Academy of Social Sciences.

Peter, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, and Imber in the County of Wiltshire, CBE,

Chair, Network Rail and the London Legacy Development Corporation
Peter, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, has been the Chair of Network Rail since July 2015, and Chair of the London Legacy Development Corporation since July 2017.

Peter was previously Commissioner of Transport for London for nearly 10 years. He started his transport career in 1975 as a London Transport graduate trainee.

He is a trustee of London’s Transport Museum and of the Science Museum Group. He was knighted in the 2013 New Year’s Honours List, having been made CBE in 2006.

He was made a peer as part of the 2022 Special Honours and was introduced in the House of Lords in December 2022.

Stephen joined Core Cities UK in October 2022 as Director, bringing together the councils of the 11 major cities across the UK. Prior to this role, Stephen spent nearly two decades in the civil service, working across multiple departments, most recently as the Director of the Cities and Local Growth Unit.

Catherine brings a wealth of experience to the role having worked for decades across finance, law and public policy. She is the immediate past Chair of the City of London’s Policy & Resources Committee, where she served a five-year term from 2017 – 2022.

As Policy Chair she played a leading role in the City’s work with the financial and related professional services sector. She was deputy chair of The CityUK, and a member of the Professional & Business Services Council (where she still co-chairs the International Trade Group). As one of London’s leaders she was also an active participant in London Councils, sitting on the Leaders’ Committee and Executive Committee.

She has been closely involved in a number of green finance initiatives, was a director of the Green Finance Institute, and is a member of the UK Voluntary Carbon Markets Forum, the Distinguished Advisory Group of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, and the Scottish Taskforce for Green and Sustainable Financial Services.

A solicitor by training, she practised in financial services law for several years, and continues to chair the City of London LawTech Sounding Board.

Darryl is Head of Infrastructure, Real Assets at Aviva Investors, responsible for infrastructure transactions for the infrastructure equity and debt strategies. Darryl is responsible for a portfolio of around £11bn of debt and equity investments across the UK and Europe.

Darryl has over 27 years’ experience in infrastructure financing and investment, having also worked at Hambros, SG, Newcourt Capital, RBC, HSBC. He was also a partner at KPMG. He previously advised the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on the financing of Hinkley Point C, advised Horizon on the development and financing of Wylfa and advised KACARE on nuclear development.

Darryl holds a PhD in Mathematics from Exeter University. He was previously a member of the UK Nuclear Industry Council and is the current UK council chair of the International Project Finance Association.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG was appointed Minister of State on 20 September 2022.

Lucy joined the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer in October 2013 and served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Minister for Intellectual property from July 2014 until July 2016, becoming Minister of State in July 2016. Lucy also served as Commercial Secretary to the Treasury from December 2016 to June 2017.

She sat on the House of Lords EU committee from 2017 to 2021 and chaired the Built Environment Committee from 2021 to September 2022.

In December 2021, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions appointed her to lead the independent review into the State Pension age, which concluded in September 2022.

Carl Nightingale has taught urban history and world history to thousands of students over the last 25 years at the University at Buffalo and the University of Massachusetts. He’s the author, most recently, of Earthopolis: A Biography of Our Urban Planet (Cambridge, 2022) He is Coordinator of the Global Urban History Project, a network of several hundred scholars interested in the ways cities have affected human history and natural history.

An architect and engineer by training, Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he directs the Senseable City Lab, and is a founding partner of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati. He graduated from
the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and later earned his MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK.

A leading voice in the debate on new technologies’ impact on urban life and design, Carlo has co-authored over 500 publications, including “The City of Tomorrow” (Yale University Press, with Matthew Claudel), and holds several technical patents. His articles and interviews have appeared on international media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Scientific American, BBC, Project Syndicate, Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 Ore, Domus. His work has been exhibited worldwide at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Design Museum Barcelona, the Science Museum
in London, MAXXI in Rome, and MoMA in New York City.

Carlo has been featured in Esquire Magazine’s ‘Best & Brightest’ list and in Thames & Hudson’s selection of ‘60 innovators’ shaping our creative future. Blueprint Magazine included him as one of the ‘25 People Who Will Change the World of Design’, Forbes listed him as one of the ‘Names You Need To Know’ and Fast Company named him as one of the ’50 Most Influen-tial Designers in America’. He was also featured in Wired Magazine’s ‘Smart List: 50 people who will change the world’. Three of his projects – the Digital Water Pavilion, the Copenhagen Wheel and Scribit – have been included by TIME Magazine in the
list of the ‘Best Inventions of the Year’.

Carlo has been a presenter at TED (in 2011 and 2015), program director at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, curator of the BMW Guggenheim Pavilion in Berlin, and was named Inaugural Innovator in Residence by the Queensland Government. He was the curator of the Future Food District pavilion for the 2015 World
Expo in Milan and chief curator of the “Eyes of the City” section at the 2019 UABB Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism of Shenzhen. He is currently serving as cochair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization.