Jeffrey Craftis an urbanist with a focussed practice in systems-based design. His belief that real change from progressive and equitable urban policy is reliant on sound and creative design solutions is at the core of his professional beliefs. Additionally, as Managing Design Principal at STUDIO tla, a Toronto and Dallas-based Urban Design and Landscape Architecture firm, he provides firm leadership and oversight in the design and management of complex private and public development projects. Prior to joining STUDIO tla, Jeffrey was a Partner and Design Principal at the SWA Group, residing in Dallas and Shanghai. His clients include public agencies and the largest private developers of planned environments, civic, institutional, and mixed-use urban venues in North America, China, India, and the UAE. Jeffrey is recognized internationally as a leader in the design and development of award-winning master planning projects and is a frequent lecturer and keynote speaker focusing on issues related to urbanisation. Jeffrey is a full member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and holds CLARB certification.
Jeffrey, along with each of his partners at COMPLEX(c)ity holds a Masters Degree in Cities from the London School of Economics, the leading international centre informing global urban practice areas of design, finance and politics. Qualifications 1997 Baccalaureate in Arts, University of Guelph, Canada 1998 Honours Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, University of Guelph, Canada 2020 MSC in Cities, London School of Economics |
Brett Herronis a lawyer by profession and an urbanist by passion and experience. He recently completed the MSc in Cities degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Herron served in executive city office, in Cape Town, South Africa, for almost a decade. In 2010 he was appointed to the Executive Mayor’s Mayoral Committee (the equivalent of the Mayor’s cabinet) as the Member for Community Services. In 2011 he was re-elected to the Council and was appointed the Mayoral Committee Member for Transport. Between 2011 and 2016 he led the implementation of Africa’s most successful Bus Rapid Transit system, the MyCiTi Bus. Following the August 2016 local government elections Herron was re-elected to the Council and appointed to the Executive Mayor’s Mayoral Committee as the Member responsible of Transport & Urban Development. He was responsible for Transport, Spatial Planning and Housing. He championed a new approach to urban development which included a new spatial form, spatial integration and what he called a “180-degree about-turn on housing delivery”. In May 2019 he was elected a Member of Provincial Parliament in the Western Cape. He serves as a member of the following standing committees:
He has substantial experience in governing a rapidly urbanising city in the developing world. Qualifications B.A. (University of Natal) LL.B (University of Natal) MSc in Cities (London School of Economics) Admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa |
Kari Kankaalais the Chief Sustainability Officer of the city of Tampere, Finland since 2018. Kari is responsible for the city’s sustainable growth and development policies and their execution. Kari works on a broad spectrum in strategic urban development. Currently, he is most actively involved with smart and sustainable city development, with innovation policy, sustainable economic development, as well as with city’s strategic initiatives on urban and economic development, most notably the Hiedanranta brown field development for 25 000 people and 10 000 jobs. Kari has also a long experience in city’s housing policy and land property and development.
Prior to joining the city in 2007, Kari had a career in the private and public sectors in Finland and in the US including CEO of a service innovation business consultancy, director at an innovation fund with focus on high tech venture capital investments as well as a short research career in physics. Kari is a past or current chairman or board member of over twenty companies (some VC backed) and organizations and has acted as an expert both on smart city development and technology transfer in several international, national and regional working groups and committees. Kari has worked with and consulted organizations in the US, South Africa, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Vietnam, Japan and the European Commission, among others. Kari holds a PhD from Tampere University of Technology. Qualifications 1987 MSc, Electrical Engineering (Tampere University of Technology) 1990 Lic. Tech, Microelectronics (Tampere University of Technology) 1994 Dr. Sc., Physics (Tampere University of Technology) 2020 MSc in Cities (London School of Economic) |
Marc Steinlin is deeply involved in creating prolific conditions, designing and facilitating conducive transformational processes in social systems, organisations, communities and more recently specifically in urban spaces.
With a background in sociology, international relations and international law (University of Zürich) he specialised in programme management and knowledge management in international development and cooperation. He worked for the international development NGO Helvetas (Switzerland) until migrating to South Africa, where he started his own boutique consulting company IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge Consultants (I-P-K) in 2006. Under his leadership, I-P-K has since delivered dozens of mandates for UN Agencies, international donor agencies, public sector institutions and civil society organisations across the entire African continent, in Europe and Asia. He got increasingly entangled in grappling with issues of complexity at the source of many transformational challenges and has advanced the design and facilitation of highly participatory processes, from small group events to whole system processes and large multi-stakeholder platforms to create strategies, devise policies, innovate, leverage diversity and harness conflict constellations. He has consulted in a wide spectrum of issues, inter alia entrepreneurship promotion, gender/equality/diversity, financial literacy and inclusion, green economy promotion, social protection, judiciary and police reform, participatory and situational leadership development, organisational development to name a few. Marc loves tackling intricate situations, diving deeply into the interwoven fabric of social issues, facilitating sense-making and problem-solving, and inter-personal dynamics and technical matters. A few years back he had been enthralled by the urban realm as the epitome of a complex and adaptive system, where spatial, social, economic and environmental issues intersect in an drastically dense and dynamic manner. The rapid rise of urban issues for all future development has led him to study urban systems intensely, initially through courses in regional and urban studies at Stellenbosch University (South Africa) and later at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he completed his second master degree, an Exec MSc in Cities. His focus has now turned towards issues of coping with urban complexities, public participation and active citizenship, the intersection of expert knowledge and broad democratic involvement especially around questions of urban planning, urban governance and urban inclusion. Qualifications 1997 MA in Sociology, International Law & International Relations (University of Zürich) 2002 Post-Grad Certificate in International Development (Federal Institute of Technology Zürich) 2020 MSc in Cities (London School of Economics |