Greg graduated from Victoria University in 1992 with a BA in Theatre and Film. During 1993 Greg trained as a Primary School Teacher and in 1994 graduated with a Diploma in Secondary teaching from Christchurch College of Education. Greg has taught in secondary schools in New Zealand and England. He has taught comedy and improvisation throughout the country for 17 years at secondary and tertiary levels. He has held the Secondary Schools, University, National and Commonwealth Theatresports titles. He has represented New Zealand at Theatresports twice - firstly as part of a Commonwealth competition in 1992 and then at the World Championships in 2006. Greg has appeared in movies, television and radio drama and comedy. His years of experience and understanding interaction with an audience makes him ideally suited for his continuing work on numerous television studio shows. Greg looks forward to MC'ing the conference for the ninth year.

Tom Small is the Director of Operations for the Jacobs New Zealand Transport Group. He has been associated with the Transportation Group for the last 12 years and is passionate about bringing the transport community together to discuss and challenge the way we consider how our industry contributes to the success of our communities. Over the last two years we have seen a significant change in the transport policy in New Zealand and Tom is really excited to have led a group of dedicated and hard working committee members to bring you the 2019 Transportation Group Conference – the Changing Face of Transport in New Zealand. This conference is an opportunity to reflect on where we have come from as an industry, and more importantly where we are heading. How do we do things differently to achieve a safe, sustainable and well-integrated transport network in New Zealand?

Justin Lester was elected Mayor in 2016 after two terms as a councillor. During his time on Council, Justin has championed the living wage, prioritised good quality local services and supported local businesses. He feels strongly that good local government services make a huge difference in people’s lives. Justin’s priorities as Mayor include kick-starting the economy, making housing affordable, improving Wellington’s transport, replacing outdated bylaws and prioritising arts funding. He also wants to establish the country’s first wet house, provide a rates rebate for first-home builders and create the world’s first predator-free capital. Justin grew up in Invercargill. He has an LLB and a BA (German) from the University of Otago and a Masters of Laws (LLM) from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. In his mid-twenties, Justin co-founded Kapai, a Wellington food enterprise. Justin has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors. He was formerly the Director of Property and Asset Management at international commercial property firm Jones Lang LaSalle. He has served on the Boards of Wellington SPCA, Wellington Waterfront Ltd, Capital Football, Johnsonville Charitable Trust, Johnsonville Property Trust, and as a Guardian at Zealandia. Justin and his wife Liz have two young daughters and live in Johnsonville.

Mark Ames established Strategic Cities in 2015, offering media management and communications advice to clients who deliver urban change. He has hosted workshops on building public support for change for the councils of the cities of Adelaide, Vincent and Valencia, to Boffa Miskell, Auckland Transport and the University of Amsterdam. He’s delivered keynote addresses to the New Zealand Universal Design Conference, the Australian Bicycle Summit and the Velo-City Global cycling conference in the Netherlands in 2017. Mark has previously written about cities, cycling and managing change in The Times, The Guardian, the London Evening Standard, Western Australia Today, Landscape Architecture NZ and The Planner, the magazine of Britain’s Royal Town Planning Institute. Broadcast appearances include Sky News, ITV News, BBC London, ABC 702 Sydney, Russia Today, Perth Talk Radio, Public Radio International’s The World, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s As It Happens and the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight. He’s worked with activists, planners and politicians to help deliver difficult active transport projects, including the Mayor of London’s £1 billion Cycle Vision for London and the City of Sydney’s new Cycling Strategy and Action Plan. Mark believes understanding the media production process is a vital and underestimated skill for anyone delivering change in cities today. He lives in Sydney, Australia and owns too many bicycles. Connect with Mark at strategic-cities.com or via Twitter @StrategicCities

Liz has worked in NZ, Australia and the UK in energy, integrated transport, emerging technologies, sustainability and demand management over the last 18 years. Liz leads the Cities, Digital and Place Shaping area for Arup in NZ and sits on the NZ Low Emission Contestable Fund board. She works on various innovative energy policies, pilots and projects including a NZ hydrogen demonstration project. Prior to joining Arup, from 2015-2018 Liz was head of Innovation, Digital and Sustainability at Auckland Transport (AT) where she developed low emission vehicle policies including AT’s low emission bus road map, AT’s sustainability framework and set up the Auckland public private EV working group. She returned to NZ in 2014 after working for 11 years in London at Camden Council and Transport for London (TfL). Liz sat on the London Hydrogen Consortium and the UK Intelligent Mobility working group which helped develop the first UK autonomous car trial in Milton Keynes. She was involved with TfL’s electric bus and hydrogen bus trials including the inductive electric bus trial. Liz led on the development of Europe’s first ultra-low emission zone, an emissions based road pricing scheme which is being implemented in central London, and developed a transport emissions road map for London up to 2040. From 2005 – 2010 Liz ran an innovation precinct in London which trialled many things including: the UK’s first on-street EV charging points and developed London’s EV charging network (Source London); pollution eating paving; car sharing; carpooling; London’s cycle hire scheme; Legible London (London’s pedestrian way-finding scheme) and bio-methane (used cooking oil) rubbish truck trials.

Isabel Dedring is the Global Transport Leader at Arup where she is responsible for driving the development of the firm’s business across the transport sector. Isabel joined Arup in March 2016 from London's City Hall, where she was Deputy Mayor for Transport and Deputy Chair of Transport for London. In this capacity she was responsible for setting policy and ensuring delivery across the Mayor’s transport portfolio. Key projects she initiated and delivered included the Tube Reliability Programme which led to a 40% reduction in Tube delays; the £300m Growth Fund to fund transport infrastructure to unlock new house building; the Mayor’s new £1b cycling infrastructure programme; and London's first-ever roads strategy and the associated £4b implementation programme. Prior to her transport role, Isabel was the Mayor's Environment Advisor, responsible for delivering large-scale building retrofit programmes, parks and trees programmes and the £100m London Green Fund, among other initiatives. Previous roles include running the policy team at Transport for London and 4 years as a management consultant at McKinsey. Isabel is a qualified US lawyer.

Karyn Sinclair is a town planner with over 30 years’ experience, primarily in infrastructure and transportation projects. She is the current chair of the Board of the New Zealand Planning Institute (NZPI). Established in 1949, NZPI has more than 2000 members involved in strategic planning initiatives and implementation of urban and rural plans and work across a range of government, consultancy and industry groups. Karyn’s career has spanned several local government positions, both rural and urban, consultancy and self-employment. Karyn worked on the development of the Waitakere District Plan, which embraced the focus of the Resource Management Act and focussed very directly on effects rather than activities. Now days she works primarily on strategic planning and consenting for infrastructure projects, including leading the consents for projects such as Puhoi to Warkworth, which is currently under construction. Karyn has worked on transport projects from cycle ways, roading improvements for safer cycling to corridor management plans, business case development to significant motorway projects. While self-employed Karyn obtained her “Making Good Decisions” certification and has sat on a significant number of resource consent, plan change, designation and other hearings. Most notably Karyn chaired the hearing for the Auckland SkyPath proposal, which attracted over 18000 submissions. Karyn’s current role as Technical Planning Lead for Jacobs NZ has her involved at all stages of a variety of transportation projects, from leading options evaluation processes to leading resource consent processes and undertaking reviews for compliance during construction.

Hon Phil Twyford was born and raised in Auckland. He is the Labour Member of Parliament for Te Atatu, where he lives. Phil’s vision is for New Zealand to deliver hope and opportunity to all people. He is committed to fixing the housing and transport problems that affect our biggest city, as well as much of the rest of the country. After studying politics at Auckland University, Phil worked as a journalist and union organiser before becoming the founding Executive Director of Oxfam New Zealand. Phil’s strong belief in justice led to him becoming Oxfam’s Global Advocacy Director, based in Washington DC. Upon returning to New Zealand, Phil was elected to Parliament for the Labour Party in 2008. In Opposition, he held the portfolios of Housing, Transport, Auckland Issues, and Disarmament and Arms Control. As Minister for Housing and Urban Development and Transport, Phil is looking forward to working with communities to build a better New Zealand.

Time to pose questions to all presenters in this session.