Leadership and Implementation

I am currently the Urban Regeneration Lead for the Royal Commission of Alula, Saudi Arabia. The work entails leading transversal delivery of urban regeneration of a historic town which offers locals and visitors a journey through time - past, and future. It is a great privilege and learning opportunity to work with a team of diverse technical skills and nationalities in delivering this vision.

From 2019-2022 I was the Programme Deputy Team Lead and Cape Town City Lead for Future Cities South Africa, a PwC-led consortium delivering the UK Future Cities support to the Cities of Johannesburg, eThekwini and Cape Town.

The programme used adaptive programming to remain relevant and impactful in the context of complex development problems, compounded by the impact of the Covid19 pandemic.

There were 5 original projects across the 3 cities, namely: a participatory Soweto Area Development Framework; a foresighting and governance-oriented process to understand the impacts of the 4IR on mobility in Johannesburg; developing an Informal Settlements Information Management System and a TOD change management process for eThekwini; and support to the City of Cape Town’s implementation of its Data Strategy. In all 3 Cities, additional projects were created to support their Covid response and recovery planning.

Volunteer work

I am a Co-founder of Open Streets Cape Town, a citizen-led movement that seeks to create streets that embody respect for all. I served on the board from its creation in 2012, until January 2017.

I was the Chairperson of the Observatory Improvement District (OBSID) from 2019-2021, and served on the Board since December 2017. The OBSID prides itself on delivering traditional CID services as well as additional public-spaces and social development programmes.

I have also served on the boards of other organizations including the Service Dining Rooms – Cape Town’s oldest “soup kitchen” (although it is so much more than that), and the South African Vegan Society.

Partnering and Facilitation

I have experience in designing, building and facilitating partnering – both informal and formal.

I currently put these skills to use day to day, and I also teach students to develop solutions for more sustainable cities using a facilitated problem-driven learning approach.

From 2012-2014, I was the Central City Development Manager at the Cape Town Partnership, managing a team of project managers implementing the partnerships’ strategic projects in the areas of the creative economy, social inclusion, low-carbon development, placemaking and inner-city transport.

From 2014-2019 I was a Programme Lead at the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership where I helped to develop partnering methodologies and facilitated partnering efforts with a focus on intergovernmental and cross-sector coordination of data & data governance, affordable housing, township development, corridor-scale TOD planning and precinct management.

Research and Strategy

I currently work as an independent consultant and contribute to many studies and strategies, both in South Africa and abroad. These include urban development infrastructure plans and financing assessments, economic development strategies, regeneration plans, municipal governance models and more. My clients include Pegasys Strategy & Development, the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, South African Cities Network, PwC, Open Cities Lab and others.

In 2018 I participated in the Global Governance Futures Fellowship programme, Cities track, looking into the Future Role of Cities in global challenges.

I have also contributed to the LGIU in two areas, namely “The (re)turn to decentralisation and hybrid governance systems in cities” and “Data driven cities: adjacent possibilities or giant leaps”

In a formal capacity, I have contributed to a wide diversity of strategy and research projects, including developing the guidelines for Cape Town’s 20 year Sector Plans, preparing various concept notes and propositions for institutional and policy changes relating to urban management, inclusive economic development, inclusionary housing and transit-oriented development, and city-partnering capabilities.

Finally, my early career was as a practicing urban economist. During this time I worked on multiple property and economic development studies. These included traditional feasibility and impact studies for private developers (private estates), renewable energy firms (first round IPPs), infrastructure projects (Clanwilliam Dam Wall) and numerous LED strategies.

The most memorable for me were social housing feasibility studies for PRASA, relating to their priority stations, as well as similar studies for the CCT property directorate.

The projects I enjoyed working on the most were the 2010 upgrades - as all of these were actually implemented.

The study with both the most catalytic potential, as well as the most complex modelling, was the study into the feasibility of dropping the railway lines – as this involved multiple dynamic feed-back loops between funding models, commuter patterns, land use patterns, and economic impacts all within one master model. At 25/26 years old, I was the lead economist on this work, working with a multi-disciplinary team of town planners, transport engineers, civil engineers, geologists, archeologists, architects, quantity surveyors and various other professionals, and presented the model directly to the PRASA board. This work propelled me into a long-term passion for the potential for land value capture and transit-oriented development as a driver for spatial transformation, and also taught me that no amount of research and modelling can replace good governance and inter-governmental coordination.