Gail Dexter Lord, President and Co-founder of Lord Cultural Resources, is one of the world’s foremost museum, gallery, and cultural planners. Based in Toronto with offices in New York, London, Mumbai and Beijing, Lord Cultural has conducted more than 2300 assignments in 57 countries and 450 cities. Gail has worked with a number of cities, Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa, Bilbao, Johannesburg, to name a few, to develop their museums and cultural spaces that implement soft power strategies. She is an art critic, feature writer, frequent commentator, public speaker, and the co-author of several books including Cities, Museums, and Soft Power. Gail is a Member of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, and holds an Honorary Doctor of Letters from McMaster University.

Born and raised in downtown Toronto, Josh moved to New York City immediately after completing his Masters of Science in Urban Planning degree at the University of Toronto. In New York, he most recently held the position of Senior Vice President, Real Estate Transactions Services at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Josh has negotiated predevelopment agreements and/or closed on more than 5 million square feet of mixed-use, mixed-income development across the five boroughs. Some notable projects include “Essex Crossing” in Manhattan’s Lower East side, the “Tech Training Center” in Manhattan’s in Union Square, and the redevelopment of a former juvenile detention facility in the Bronx into affordable housing, industrial and commercial space. As of May 6th, Josh is now Director of Real Estate at the University of Toronto where he will lead the university’s “Four Corners” strategy, which is focused on building new non-academic amenities and services on the periphery of UofT’s three campuses.

Bill Nankivell is the CEO of B+H Architects, a leading global design solutions and consulting firm with a legacy of over 65 years of award-winning work. Since joining B+H in 1996 as a partner and appointed as CEO in 2006, Bill’s strategic vision has catalyzed the firm’s growth into the US, Middle East and Asia, significantly contributing to the urbanization of the world’s major metropolises through B+H’s regional centres of excellence. Consequently, Bill’s architectural career has seen him travelling extensively to Shanghai and Singapore since the early 1990’s. B+H was one the first foreign architecture firms to establish a presence in China through the opening of its Shanghai studio in 1992, which anchored and fueled its expansion into Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City in 2010 and Hong Kong in 2013. Now with projects in over 30 countries, B+H’s 480+ team members collaborate across nine studios in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Seattle, Dubai, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore & Ho Chi Minh City, and its vehicles of design and solution creation include strategic consulting, architecture, planning, landscape, and interior design services. Bill holds a Bachelor or Architecture from the University of Toronto and has over 30 years of experience specializing in pre-design (programming, feasibility studies, master planning) and new project development (public-private-partnership and design-build delivery methods). Bill’s deep expertise in the healthcare and higher education sectors has resulted in their global growth and a remarkable portfolio of award-winning projects at B+H.

Joe is a partner of Urban Strategies Inc. He has had an integral role in the development of some of the largest and most complex urban regeneration projects in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Asia. He was strategic planner for the development of Manchester’s city centre, Toronto’s Exhibition Place, and Oakville’s Town Centre and a master planner for the waterfronts of Toronto, Singapore, Cork, Ireland, London’s East Docklands, San Juan, Puerto Rico and Governors Island in New York City. He has prepared campus master plans for the University of Waterloo, Queen’s and Western University.