Greg is a world expert on cities, urban investment, and the sustainable urban transition. Over a career of 35 years, he has advised more than 300 cities, 40 national governments, 20 multilateral institutions, and multiple global corporates, investors, and fund managers.
Greg is chair of the Connected Places Catapult (CPC), the UK’s innovation accelerator for cities, transport and place-leadership, and Chair of the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission (UKCCIC) that convenes city leaders and financiers to drive investment in a just urban transition. He is a Board member of Transport for London (TfL) and the London LEP. He chairs TfL’s new Land and Property Committee that oversees TfL new property and low carbon housing company, and its associated ventures.
Greg is Hon Prof of Urban innovation at Strathclyde University. He is author of 10 books and 100 reports on cities, investment and place-leadership. His monthly column: The Planet of Cities, is hosted by RICS. He is Global Cities expert on the BBC World Service Series, My Perfect City.
Greg’s previous roles include Group Advisor, Future Cities & New Industries at HSBC Investment Bank, Chair of the OECD Forum of Cities & Regions, Global Fellow on Cities and Metropolitan leadership at the Brookings Institution and Global Fellow on Urban Investment at the Urban land Institute. He was Lead Advisor on Cities to the UK Gov for 6 years. He has been a senior advisor on cities and urban investment to the World Bank, Inter-American development Bank, and the European Investment Bank.
He has chaired more than 20 internal advisory boards for individual cities that are reformulating their future investment strategies, long term plans, and governance, including New York, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Sydney, Auckland, Barcelona, Vienna, and Oslo.
He has led comparative studies on Chinese, Australian, European, North American, Latin American, Middle Eastern, South-East Asian, Caribbean, Nordic, and Indian Cities. Since 2020 he has been tracking the impact of the COVID pandemic on 100 cities globally and has developed a unique framework for assessing the post-pandemics city.
