Allison is Executive Director of Bay Area Regional Collaborative (BARC), helping to coordinate regional planning efforts of the Bay Area’s four regional agencies with a focus on climate change resilience. The agencies are the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). Allison serves as Chair of the Board for the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge, a collaborative research and design project gathering residents, public officials and local, national and international experts to develop innovative solutions to climate change issues in the region. Prior to joining BARC, Allison led the national organization Reconnecting America, where she developed interdisciplinary solutions to better integrate transportation and land use to meet climate, social equity and economic goals in metro areas across the United States.
Jan W. Rivkin is a professor and senior associate dean at Harvard Business School, where he co-chairs the School’s U.S. Competitiveness Project. The Project explores steps that leaders – especially business leaders – can take to help firms in the U.S. win in the global marketplace while raising American living standards.
Suparno is Vice President and WW Leader for Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Healthcare and Public Services industries with responsibility for industry strategy, strategic initiatives, new market growth and client innovation. He is also responsible for strategic partnerships in Healthcare ad Public Services. In addition, Suparno also leads HPE’s Future City initiative. Suparno is a recognized thought leader in Digital Government and Smart City transformations. He has led strategy and strategy execution to grow new segments of HPE’s business and has personally led numerous projects globally. Under his leadership, HPE is currently engaged in some of leading large, transformational smart city projects in the world. He is a frequent speaker at numerous governments and at key events and forums. Currently, Suparno is a member of World Economic Forum panels on Platform and Systems and The Future of Urbanization.
Erik Cole serves as Nashville’s first Chief Resilience Officer and brings a diverse set of experiences in public policy, community development & planning, infrastructure, housing, and homelessness work to this position. As CRO, Erik is responsible for leading Nashville’s resilience efforts, including the development and implementation of Nashville’s resilience strategy. Erik previously served as the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity and Empowerment (OEOE) and as Nashville’s first Director of Financial Empowerment overseeing the start-up of the Nashville Financial Empowerment Center. From 2003-2011, Cole served as a member of the Metro Council, representing District 7. He served as Council Chair Pro Temp and chaired the Budget and Finance Committee. He is a former Chair of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission. A Nashville native, Erik graduated from Hillsboro High School and James Madison University.
Peter J Hall Amec Foster Wheeler – Environmental & Infrastructure Solutions (E&IS) Global Climate, Resilience and Sustainability Segment Lead Peter has over 30 years of experience and is responsible for the firm’s strategic delivery framework that embeds integrated climate, resilience and sustainability (CRS) services into projects to reduce risk, improve value, reduce long-term costs and ensure business continuity. Peter is part of the global CRS team and supports the E&IS water and transportation sectors. As the firm’s director for their partnership with 100 Resilient Cities he has managed projects to support city resilience strategy implementation in NYC, LA, Paris, Miami Beach, Pittsburgh and Norfolk along with working with corporations that have global operations and footprints. He has leveraged the City Resilience Framework for a range of projects that deliver a range of co-benefits across environmental, social and economic areas.
Bruce J. Katz is the inaugural cross-disciplinary centennial scholar at the Brookings Institution, where he focuses on the challenges and opportunities of global urbanization and leads the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking. Katz regularly advises cross-sector metropolitan, national, and global leaders on public reforms and private innovations that advance the well-being of metropolitan areas and their countries. He is also co-author of The Metropolitan Revolution (Brookings Press, 2013), a distillation of his work on the promise of the emerging cities-first economic and governance landscape.
Greg King is the Associate Vice President for Economic Development at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) where he helps create successful partnerships between companies and campus in support innovation and economic development. At Technology Square he works with industry on the creation of innovation, design or technology centers on or adjacent to campus. Greg grows the communities of innovation by providing the connection and platform to encourage collaboration between large companies, start-ups, students and faculty in the innovation district. Working with state and regional leaders he supports economic development by finding alignment across campus around the talent and technology needs of companies that are considering investment in Georgia.