Conference Symposium

April McCabe

Director, Social Strategy and Engagement | The Planning Studio

April is an experienced urban strategist + social planner with over 20 years experience in Australia, the UK and Ireland for government + private sector. Prior to The Planning Studio, April held senior roles within local government, the private sector and was the Principal Policy Advisor to the Lord Mayor of Sydney, leading a team responsible for advice across the City's broad policy + operational responsibilities as well as advising on a diverse individual portfolio. 

April offers an exceptional understanding and strategic approach to the complex social, political, cultural and spatial context of cities. She is able to connect the dots between people, places and policy as the foundation of generous, sustainable, and equitable places. April understands the power of storytelling and experiences as a way to shape cities that can be the physical embodiment of those intangible but critical aspects of community and humanity - how we connect, what we value, who is welcome and how we can each have a voice about the future.

April is also a strong advocate for understanding cities through a gender lens and how this influences the experience within places. She is also a leading voice on gender equity within the planning profession and co-authored the first PIA National Gender Equity Policy in 2021. 

Marion Terrill 

Transport and Cities Program Director | Grattan Institute

Marion is a leading transport and cities expert with a long history in public policy. She has worked on tax policy for the federal Treasury, and led the design and development of the MyGov account. She has provided expert analysis and advice on labour market policy for the Federal Government, the Business Council of Australia, and at the Australian National University.

Marion joined Grattan Institute in 2015 to establish the Transport Program, which she expanded to include Cities in 2016. At Grattan, Marion has published on a wide variety of topics, including investment in transport infrastructure, cost overruns, congestion charging, discount rates, transport emissions, and the ways the COVID crisis is changing Australian cities.

Dr Tom van Vuren

Regional Director UK & Europe | Veitch Lister Consulting

Tom van Vuren is the Regional Director for UK and Europe at Veitch Lister Consulting. As his Twitter profile says, he is passionate about transport modelling and he is always on the lookout for new ways in which data and modelling can be improved to support decision-making in transport and planning. He calls himself a pracademic.
Tom is an advisor to the UK Department for Transport on strategic modelling and appraisal. Recently, the British transport modelling and analysis debate has shifted to supporting the climate change agenda of both national and local government; Tom is part of the DfT's process of ensuring that existing analytical tools are used well to assess the proposed measures to reach the government's target of net zero by 2050 (are targets deliverable, and how much do each of the carbon reduction interventions contribute), and in the specification of necessary model enhancements to do that better. One of Tom's other interests is validating that the DfT's Uncertainty Toolkit and its Common Analytical Scenarios can be applied proportionally and consistently in practice.

While he was based in Sydney between 2018 and 2020, Tom was a committee member of AITPM's NSW branch, and worked professionally with a number of TfNSW's strategic transport models, and he continues to work in Australian practice. Tom is a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds, and the Policy Director at the Transport Planning Society. He is proud to be a Chartered Transport Planning Professional.

Terry Lee-Williams     

Director, Future Transport - Australia | Aurecon

Terry Lee-Williams is Director – Future Transport at international engineering, design and advisory company Aurecon where he helps transport agencies and mobility services leverage opportunities relating to climate, cost of operation and data and technology.  Terry has led national-scale projects across Europe, the Americas and Asia.  His current focus is on decarbonisation, technology change, demand management, freight and logistics and technical assurance. 

David Goh

Vice President | PTV Asia-Pacific

David is currently the Vice President and Regional Managing Director of PTV Group responsible of the APAC region. His experience spanned across corporate, startups and management consulting. He spent about 10 years in the mobility and smart city spaces and considered himself a lifetime learner in those domains. He constantly engages cities and ecosystem players looking into areas where collaboration can ignite.