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LGIU’s top 25 thinkers in local government

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At LGIU, we recently launched the Future Local Lab, a holistic programme of resources to help local governments prepare for and respond to the emerging challenges facing the sector internationally.

Today, we’re releasing our first-ever list of 25 top thinkers in the sector. These impressive thought leaders are paving the way and seeking answers to some of the biggest challenges facing us today and tomorrow.  With over 40 years of advocating for the sector, we know first-hand that local government is one of the most vibrant spaces for world-changing innovation that creates real-life impact and results.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There is far too much inspiring thought leadership happening all across the sector for us to capture it with just 25 spaces. However, those listed below–in no particular order–are the thinkers who have made it to the top of our radar.

Who’s missing? This is our top 25, we’ll publish yours later.

At the bottom, you can contribute your own suggestions and tell us who else is making ripples across the sector and leading us into the future. We really encourage you to do so because we want to use our growing Future Local Lab platform as a place to spotlight key thinkers and practical solutions.

1. Professor Dame Diane Coyle, England

Professor Dame Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and since 2018 has been co-director of the Bennett Institute, where she heads research under the themes of progress and productivity. She was previously Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester.

A former advisor to the UK Treasury, she has held a number of public service roles including Vice Chair of the BBC Trust between 2006 and 2014, as well as a member of the Competition Commission between 2001 and 2009, the Migration Advisory Committee between 2009 and 2014, and the Natural Capital Committee from 2016 to 2019.

She was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours List in 2023 in recognition of her invaluable contributions to economic policy and practice as well as her unwavering commitment to public service.

Her research focuses on productivity, the digital economy and digital policy, and economic measurement. She has been writing about the effects of digital technologies since her first book, The Weightless World, was published in 1997.

2. Professor Arianna Giovannini, Italy

Arianna Giovannini is a Professor of Political Sociology at the Department of Economics, Society and Politics (DESP) at the University of Urbino in Italy.

Before joining DESP at the end of 2023, she was an Associate Professor/Reader in Local Politics and Public Policy and Deputy Director of the Local Governance Research Centre (LGRC) in the Department of Politics, People and Place, De Montfort University. While at DMU, she also spent some time on secondment, working as Director of IPPR North – the leading think tank for the North of England. She is now an Associate Fellow at IPPR North, Visiting Professor at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS, Newcastle University), a Visiting Fellow at the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place (University of Liverpool), and an Associate Fellow at the Centre on Constitutional Change (University of Edinburgh).

Arianna’s research focuses on local and territorial politics, multi-level governance, devolution, regional inequalities and regionalism – both in the UK and in comparative European perspective. Recently, Arianna’s work in these areas has concentrated on devolution in England, and in particular in the North; the politics, governance and political economy of regional policy; the changing landscape of local government; the new municipalism; and asymmetric regionalism. Arianna’s most recent publications include journal articles on the changing role of local government Chief Officers, devolution and metro-mayor elections, and the ‘meaning of the local’; and a monograph on territorial governance in times of crisis.

Arianna’s work actively engages with policy and practice. She has published many influential policy reports (e.g. with IPPR North, APSE, Unlock Democracy and Compass) and regularly provides evidence to Parliamentary Committees and advice to policy makers, in particular on devolution, local government reform and multi-level governance. Between 2019 and 2021, she was a member of the executive of the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) Local Government Commission 2030, an independent inquiry into the future of local government in the UK.

3. Elisabetta Mocca, Austria

Elisabetta Mocca is Marie Jahoda Fellow and University post-doctoral assistant at the University of Vienna Department of Sociology, and the author of Cities in Search of Freedom: European Municipalities Against the Leviathan.

The book explores how the central state has lost its political primacy over the past decades by processes of devolution, Europeanisation and globalisation, which in turn enhanced municipal autonomy. Bridging political geography, local politics and urban sociology, Elisabetta explored a new perspective on the state’s weakening authority and the parallel rise of cities as political actors.

Her primary focus is on urban politics, transnational municipal cooperation, and post-growth politics. Before moving to the University of Vienna, she was a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

4. Professor Donna Hall CBE, England

Donna Hall was CEO of Wigan Council between 2012 and 2019, during which she led the development of The Wigan Deal, a new relationship with residents. This replicated her success in creating a social contract with residents while CEO of Chorley Council, known as The Chorley Smile.

She was awarded a CBE in 2009 for innovation in public service for her role in the national “Tell Us Once” bereavement project with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and was named Transformational Leader in the Northern Powerwomen Awards 2017, and has been described as a “public service pioneer” by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.

She now chairs PossAbilities, a social enterprise supporting people with learning disabilities and is a NED at Mutual Ventures.

She was appointed as an Honorary Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester in 2019.

Adopted as a child, she is passionate about person-centred public services and investing in local communities.

5. Professor Liz Richardson, England

Liz Richardson is Professor of Public Administration in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester, where she was previously Senior Lecturer in Politics.

Her work is dedicated to experimenting with how academics, practitioners and citizens can develop more democratic and participatory ways of doing politics. Her research interests include participatory urban governance, local politics and local government, public services, and public policy. She has also an interest in methodological innovation including participatory research approaches, and experimental methods.

She has published numerous articles and written three books, including co-authoring Designing Public Policy for Co-production with Catherine Durose, Senior Lecturer in the School of Government and Society at the University of Birmingham, in 2015.

6. Dara Turnbull, Europe

Dara Turnbull is the Research Coordinator at Housing Europe, the European Federation of Public, Cooperative, and Social Housing. A network of 44 national and regional federations, as well as 16 partnering organisations in 32 countries in Europe, the federations manage about 25 million homes, comprising around 11% of existing dwellings in Europe.

Dara is responsible for coordinating knowledge sharing with and between the Federation’s members, as well as working with national and international governmental agencies to promote new approaches to the development of affordable housing options. In recent years, Dara has worked directly with the United Nations on the #Housing2030 initiative to develop a framework in which good public housing policy can thrive. He has also produced research for several national governments and public agencies in various EU member states.

Dara holds a Masters in Economic Policy Evaluation & Planning from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and prior to joining Housing Europe in 2019, he worked for six years as a financial sector economist in Ireland – experience he brings to his role in Housing Europe in relation to advising on the development of financing tools that can be used to promote the development of affordable housing options for those who need them.

7. Sylvia Croese, South Africa/USA

Sylvia is Assistant Professor of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where she studies questions of urban power, politics and development, and decolonial knowledge production, particularly in contexts marked by deep social, spatial, economic or epistemic inequalities.

Croese earned her bachelor’s and master’s in international relations at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in The Netherlands and her Ph.D. in sociology from the African Doctoral Academy at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.

Prior to her move to UCI in July 2023, she was a senior researcher in the School of Architecture and Planning at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and a researcher with the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town where her work examined the implementation of global urban policy in African cities, particularly the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Between 2017 and 2019 she served as an embedded researcher in the City of Cape Town as part of the Mistra Urban Futures research project Implementing the United Nations’ New Urban Agenda and The Sustainable Development Goals: Comparative Urban Perspectives, and organised a year-long monthly seminar series on the SDGs as part of the PEAK Urban Research programme.

She was also the Principal Investigator in the LIRA Agenda 2030 research project co-producing urban knowledge in Angola and Mozambique through community-led data collection towards meeting SDG 11.

She is particularly interested in the ways in which context-specific forces shape the workings of global knowledge policy and investment flows in Lusophone Africa (Portuguese-speaking African countries).

Her work uses transdisciplinary approaches through long-standing collaborations with city officials, urban practitioners, academics and community leaders and is highly interdisciplinary, cutting across fields of geography, anthropology, political science, development and urban studies.

8. Sheila Foster, USA

Professor Sheila R. Foster is a Professor at Columbia University’s Climate School and an affiliated faculty member at Columbia Law School.

She has authored articles and books on environmental and climate justice, land use, local government, and urban policy, including From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement and the award-winning Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions Toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities.

Throughout her career, Foster has worked with local communities, federal and state agencies, and public officials on a range of urban, environmental, and climate issues in disinvested and marginalised communities.

From 2017 to 2020, she served as the chair of the advisory board for the Global Parliament of Mayors. She has been a Mayoral-appointed member of the New York City Panel on Climate Change since 2016 and most recently was appointed to the city’s Environmental Justice Advisory Board. Foster is co-editor and a founding Advisory Board member of the Journal of Climate Resilience & Climate Justice.

Foster also co-directs LabGov, a platform that pioneered the award-winning Co-City approach applied in various cities around the world, helping to reorient cities toward more collaborative and place-based solutions to urban challenges.

Foster is a leading scholar of environmental and climate justice. Her work has been recognised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law with its 2018 Senior Scholarship Award. She was recently elected as a fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers.

She was previously the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy at Georgetown University and before that a Distinguished University Professor and Albert A. Walsh Professor of Real Estate, Land Use, and Property Law at Fordham University.

9. Mekhala Krishnamurthy, India

Mekhala Krishnamurthy is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University, India. She graduated with a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University, an M.Phil. in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from University College London, where she was a UCL Global Excellence Scholar.

Over the past 20 years, Mekhala’s research, policy and professional engagements have involved work across a range of field sites and subjects, including informal women’s courts, popular justice and dispute resolution, community health workers and public health and nutrition, agriculture and agricultural markets, and land, water and livelihoods, and regional and local economy.

She has also served as Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi, and is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania, where she previously held a Postdoctoral Fellowship. Prior to joining Ashoka, she was founding faculty in the Department of Sociology, Shiv Nadar University.

At CPR, Mekhala built and directed the State Capacity Initiative, a major interdisciplinary research and practice programme committed to addressing the challenges and possibilities of building state capacity in democratic and federal India. Working in close collaboration with governments and a diverse team of policy researchers, the State Capacity Initiative focuses on institutional design, implementation and administrative capacity of the Indian state; the norms, values and organisational cultures of public bureaucracies and public workers; the particular challenges of regulatory and fiscal capacity; and the complex and changing relations between society, politics and state capacity. In collaboration with Dan Honig and Rahul Karnamadakala Sharma, Mekhala is currently engaged in building out new work on Relational State Capacity (RSC), an exploration and effort to renew our focus and revitalise our conceptual and practical approach to an essential, yet often residual component of state capacity: the character and quality of relationships between citizens and public servants across diverse local contexts, where they matter most.

10. Chris Naylor, England

Chris Naylor is a Managing Director of public service consultancy Inner Circle and currently sits on Demos’ Future Public Services Taskforce Advisory Board.

He was previously Chief Executive of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham between 2014 and 2021. Under his leadership, the council focused on inclusive growth, prevention, civic engagement and public participation and equalities. In 2020 Chris was named Municipal Journal’s Chief Executive of the Year.

He joined Barking and Dagenham from the London Borough of Barnet where he was Chief Operating Officer. He was previously Corporate Director of Resources in Tower Hamlets and Director of Resident Services at Hammersmith and Fulham.

He is a trustee of Design Council, the UK’s national strategic advisor for design, dedicated to all design disciplines, and Body and Soul, a charity that supports young adults who have experienced childhood trauma.

In June 2024, he published a report titled Only We Can Save the State: Lessons for national government from public service reform in Barking and Dagenham.

Born and raised in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Chris is a Chartered Accountant and has a degree in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge, specialising in contemporary social theory.

11. Frank Gensler, Germany

Frank Gensler is City Treasurer and first deputy mayor in Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was first elected by Neuss city council in 2003, and in February 2019 he received cross-party support to be elected to another eight-year term. An area of great interest to Frank is his work in Neuss around municipal enterprises, such as energy, water, transport and social housing, and how they cooperate with the core adminstration of legal and economics.

A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is also an advisory member of the German Association of Cities and a member of the Adminstrative Council of KGST – the leading local government think tank in Germany. Before moving to the Rhine, he was First Deputy Mayor in his hometown of Marl (Recklinghausen district), where he was also former chairman of the Junge Union Deutschlands (JU), the joint youth organisation of the CDU/CSU coalition in Germany.

12. Dr Mark Sandford, UK

Dr Mark Sandford is a Senior Researcher at the House of Commons Library, specialising in local government and devolution in England.

His work includes on scoping, researching and writing research on Government bills in the House of Commons, specialising in local government issues.

He was previously a Research Fellow with the Constitution Unit from 2000 to 2005, working mainly on regional government in England. He also worked as Research and Evaluation Manager for the Electoral Commission before joining the House of Commons Library in 2008.

He has written two books and authored / co-authored a number of journal articles on subjects including English devolution, local government finance, and accountability in sub-national governance. He publishes regular blogs on the developing policy of English devolution, including Incrementalism or jurisdictional design and 18 Deals and Counting (2023).

In September 2024, he published a joint article with Kevin Muldoon-Smith in the Municipal Journal examining potential options for changes to business rates, ranging from modest or major changes to introducing a new tax.

13. Alicia McKay, New Zealand

As an author, speaker, consultant, and entrepreneur, Alicia has worked on strategy, change, and leadership with over 120 organisations, from tiny charities and rural Councils to global corporations and federal agencies. Her strategy models and decision-making frameworks are used worldwide to drive focus, alignment and performance.

Alicia is an internationally recognised local government expert. She is a thought leader in strategic thinking, planning, and leadership and a trusted advisor to local, state, and federal governments. Alicia has supported the induction and development of councillors and council managers across Australia and New Zealand and specialises in enhancing the governance-management interface. Since 2010, Alicia has worked with more than 50 Councils and dozens of public and private sector organisations in planning, engineering, community development, transport, and infrastructure.

In 2021, Alicia partnered with the NZ Solicitor-General to reshape the future of Crown Law. She has also provided training and support to companies and organisations such as L’Oreal, Woolworths, the New Zealand Defence Force and New Zealand Transport Agency.

Alicia is an in-demand speaker and conference MC, particularly for local government events. In 2022, Alicia was the MC and headline speaker at the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) National General Assembly. In October 2025, Alicia will appear at the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) Conference in Tampa, Florida.

Alicia has written three books: From Strategy to Action: A guide to getting sh*t done in the public sector, You Don’t Need An MBA: Leadership lessons that cut through the crap, and Local Legends: How to make a difference in local government.

14. Susan Murray, Scotland

Susan is the Director of the David Hume Institute, an independent research institute based in Scotland that provides insights to increase understanding of the economy and society.

Prior to this, she was an executive and non-executive director who provided strategic advice and support to organisations. She was a founding Trustee of the ICAS Foundation, which aims to increase the diversity of young people entering the finance profession, and was a Board member of NatureScot, formerly known as Scottish Natural Heritage, between 2016 and 2021.

Susan studied at the University of Edinburgh, Goldsmiths College University of London, and Aberdeen Business School, and is a Clore Social Leadership Fellow.

Since May 2024 she has also been an External Advisor to the Scottish Youth Parliament and is a Trustee of Foundation Scotland which has distributed more than £200m to communities in Scotland.

15. Dr Aodh Quinlivan, Ireland

Dr. Aodh Quinlivan is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at University College Cork (UCC), where he also serves as the Director of the Centre for Local and Regional Governance (CLRG). Regarded as a leading specialist on local government in Ireland, he has published widely in this area, including ten books. His most recent book was published in 2024, entitled Democracy on Your Doorstep: 125 Years of Local Elections in Ireland, 1899-2024. His next book, due to be published in late 2025, profiles twelve women who have contributed to the development of local government in Cork.

In May 2022, Aodh was appointed to the expert advisory group of the Dublin Citizens’ Assembly, convened to consider the type of directly elected mayor and local government structures best suited for Dublin and to bring forward proposals in that regard. He worked in Cork County Council from 1994 to 2000, during which time he undertook his PhD on a part-time basis. On completion of his doctoral thesis – which examined the impact of New Public Management (NPM) policies on the Irish local government sector – Aodh joined UCC as a college lecturer in 2000.

16. Dr Brid Quinn, Europe

Dr Brid Quinn was a Lecturer in Public Administration at the University of Limerick until her retirement in October 2018. She specialised in local governance, EU regional and territorial policies, MLG, and administrative reform. She also served as Course Director for the BA Public Administration, BA European Studies, MPA, and MA/GD in Partnership Studies.

She now works as a consultant in Ireland and abroad in the spheres of local government and local development, EU territorial policy and reform of public administration. She was also a co-convenor of the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI) Specialist Group on Teaching and Learning until 2019.

Ireland’s representative on the Council of Europe’s Group of Independent Experts, she participates in local government monitoring and election observation and contributes to curriculum development and facilitate training programmes for the Council. She has also completed 3rd level programme reviews and acted as external examiner in Ireland and abroad.

She served as a member of the Expert Advisory Group for the Dublin Citizens’ Assembly and is currently a member of Limerick City and County Council’s Audit Committee, a lay member of the Board of the ISCP and a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Migrant Local Integration Index project.

She co-edited a volume, Developing Public Managers for a Changing World with Klaus Majgaard, J.C.Ry Nielsen and John Raine. She is also co-author (with Nicholas Rees and Bernadette Connaughton) of Europeanisation and New Patterns of Governance in Ireland.

In November 2023, she received the CLRG Recognition Award for her contribution to local government.

17. Dr Catherine Howe, England

Dr Catherine Howe is the Chief Executive of Adur District and Worthing Borough Councils, Chair of the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny and an expert in digital innovation, focusing on the area of digital democracy and social change.

She was previously CEO of Public-i Group Ltd, before moving to Capita in May 2015 to redevelop its digital transformation approach, and then to Cancer Research UK to lead work on technology strategy and transformation.

In 2020, she moved to Adur District and Worthing Borough Councils as Director for Communities, a role she describes as helping communities direct themselves before becoming Interim Chief Executive in Nov 2021 and being appointed Chief Executive four months later. She is also a trustee of the Democratic Society.

She has worked with new collaborative technologies and social networking tools for more than 15 years. Initially developing learning applications, including one of the first eLearning community sites, at the London Business School, she was founder director of Etribes.com, an online community consultancy which specialised in working with large third sector organisations.

Catherine describes herself as a technologist trying to make sure we leave space for humans and has studied digital, democracy and social change. She is increasingly interested in the spaces between participation and democracy, as well as how we create civic spaces online.

18. Professor Jaap de Visser, South Africa

Professor Jaap de Visser has been involved with the Dullah Omar Institute in Cape Town, South Africa, since 1998, including serving as the Institute’s director from 2013 to 2022.

He is the National Research Foundation Chair in Multilevel Government, Law and Development at the University of the Western Cape’s Faculty of Law. His research, teaching and consulting focuses on multilevel government, local government, good governance and federalism in the so-called ‘Global South’, and he has published widely on these topics.

He believes that decentralisation, provided it is implemented genuinely and adequately, holds great promise for pursuing development, for building democracy and peace, and for managing ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity.

Prof De Visser is Vice-President of the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies (IACFS), which brings together 33 academic centres, institutes and think tanks from all over the world.

He is one of the curators of Local Government Law of South Africa, a textbook on the legal framework for local government. He is also co-editor of the Local Government Bulletin, a quarterly newsletter on local government in South Africa.

Prof De Visser has consulted for many national and international organisations, including the Worldbank, UNHABITAT, USAID, Forum of Federations, GIZ, South Africa’s Department of Cooperative Government, the City of Cape Town and many other local authorities in South Africa. He was lead consultant on the Western Cape Land Use Planning Act of 2014, and on the review of Lesotho’s Local Government Act under contract with the UNDP.

19. Jack Shaw, England

Jack Shaw is a Senior Advisor for the Labour Together think tank, a Fellow at The Productivity Institute at the University of Manchester and an Affiliated Researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Mile End Institute.

He works across regional economic policy, housing, devolution, and local government policy. His expertise is primarily in local government, having worked on the issue in Parliament as an Advisor to the Shadow Minister for Local Government, for the Local Government Association and for two London authorities. He has also held previous roles at the Institute for Public Policy Research, including as a Senior Research Fellow at IPPR North.

Jack is also a trustee at homelessness charity Justlife.

20. Dominic Campbell, USA

Dominic is a public service entrepreneur with a background in organisational change, strategy and leadership. He is passionate about the role of 21st century approaches to transforming our organisations and our economy, acting as an advisor and thought leader to all levels of government in the UK, US, Australia and many places in between. 

With senior leadership experience in government, Dominic has delivered large change initiatives within government, from the London Borough of Barnet to leading transformation at Homes England as their first Chief Digital Officer.

Dominic is former founder and CEO of FutureGov, a UK and Australia-based consultancy that helped to bring digital and design into the heart of government transformation since 2008 (acquired by TPXImpact in 2019).

Dominic is currently based in Washington, D.C. and most recently, Dominic spent a year as a Fellow at the Beeck Center at Georgetown University focused on enabling better governmental collaboration across all levels of public services in the United States.

Dominic is a partner at public service venture studio Impossible Ideas, inventing and investing in transformative new organisations to deliver the public services of the future, such as the venture Now Foster.

Aside from those roles, Dominic is an investor in promising public service startups such as Hello Lamp Post (community engagement), Beam (supporting the homeless into employment), Plinth (enabling public and third sector collaboration) and Bloom Money (banking underserved immigrant communities across the UK).

21. Mariana Mazzucato, Italy

Mariana Mazzucato is a Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University. She is a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei.

She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy’s highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. Most recently, Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing ‘more humanity’ to the world.

She is the author of The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013), The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018), Mission Economy: a moonshot guide to changing capitalism (2021) and The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023).

She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her roles have included for example Co-Chair of the Group of Experts for the G20 Taskforce on a Global Mobilization against Climate Change, Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, Co-Chair on the Council on Urban Initiatives, and member of the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council. Previously, through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019), she authored the high-impact report on Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union, turning “missions” into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission’s Horizon innovation programme, and more recently, authored a report with the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Transformational Change in Latin America and the Caribbean: A mission-oriented approach.

22. Tom Stannard, England

Tom Stannard is the Chief Executive of Manchester City Council, one of the largest Core Cities in the UK and a highly performing organisation of almost 7,000 staff. Manchester is a fast growing and diverse city of over 600,000 people, with a proud history of successfully competing on the global stage to attract investment, jobs and visitors. Tom works closely with Cllr Bev Craig – Leader of the Council, focussed on maximising these strengths and ensuring that growth generates benefits for the whole city, providing excellent day-to-day services and improving the lives of Manchester’s residents.

Manchester is the major driver of regional growth across the 3M population, £87bn GDP Greater Manchester city region. The City Council is a key member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and partner in the £8BN+ GMCA devolution programme, and Tom is currently the GMCA Chief Executive lead for the economy, business and international portfolio. He also leads Manchester’s integrated health and social care system as the designated Place-Based Lead for Manchester in the Greater Manchester Integrated Care System (ICS), with NHS Greater Manchester.

Tom joined Manchester City Council following more than 27 years of experience in local government across the UK, including in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and London. Most recently, he spent four years as the Chief Executive of Salford City Council, leading the Council to some of the highest levels of performance in the North West, and gained recognition in 2024 as City of the Year and the LGC’s Best Place to Work. He is nationally recognised as a leading voice in local government, and has a track record of delivery in regeneration, inclusive growth, public service reform and improving council services.

Tom is a Chartered Surveyor,  Member and Chair of the UK Institute of Economic Development (IED), and a Commissioner on the Living Wage Foundation for the UK. For a number of years, he has been a member, policy lead and spokesperson for the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), currently on Health and Social Care.

23. Claudia Chwalisz, Europe

Claudia Chwalisz is the Founder and CEO of DemocracyNext (DemNext), an international foundation working to accelerate the spread of high-quality, empowered, and permanent citizens’ assemblies. DemNext works to shift who has power and how we make decisions in government and in institutions of daily life like workplaces, schools, and museums.

The idea of citizens’ assemblies is at the heart of Claudia’s work; she sees these as brave spaces for creative problem solving, designed for exercising our collective intelligence, engaging with complexity, and finding common ground. At their heart are three key ideas – sortition (selecting decision makers by lottery), deliberation (collectively weighing evidence for shared decisions), and rotation (taking turns representing and being represented by others).

Claudia was involved in designing the world’s first permanent citizens’ assemblies that have a legal basis in Paris, Ostbelgien, and Brussels, as well as numerous others since then.

Claudia co-leads the Tech-Enhanced Citizens’ Assemblies Pop-Up Lab – a joint initiative between DemNext and the MIT Centre for Constructive Communication. They are advancing the use of AI and technology to improve the quality and legitimacy of assemblies, as well as enable them to spread more easily and quickly.

Claudia is an Obama Leader 2023 and serves on the Advisory Boards of the UN Democracy Fund, MIT Center for Constructive Communication, The Data Tank, and Design & Democracy.

Before founding DemocracyNext, she established and led the OECD’s work on innovative citizen participation from 2018-2022. She is also the author of two published books about democracy, and has featured in Nature, Science, Le Monde, The Guardian, ARTE, The BBC, Politico, The New Statesman, The Globe and Mail, The Independent and others.

24. Akash Paun, UK

Akash is programme director for devolution at the Institute for Government, where he oversees research on devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to England’s cities, counties and regions, with a particular focus on the role of metro mayors and combined authorities. Recent publications include The Art of the Devolution Deal (July 2023), A New Deal for England (May 2024) and Completing the Map: How the government can extend devolution to the whole of England (September 2024).

Akash joined the Institute in 2008 and has also worked at the UCL Constitution Unit, the British Academy and as an adviser to the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, established in 2021 to consider potential reforms to Welsh democracy and devolution. Akash’s full professional profile can be found here.

25. Mary Agostino, Australia

Mary Agostino is the Interim CEO of Mitchell Shire Council, one of Victoria’s fastest-growing local government areas. A highly accomplished senior executive, she has a proven track record of success in local government and was inducted into the Victorian Women’s Honour Roll in 2021 for her outstanding contributions.

A passionate advocate for investment, Mary has played a pivotal role in securing over $5bn in funding for Victoria’s Northern Region. This investment has driven improvements in public transport (rail and bus networks), roads, schools, early learning centres, police infrastructure, family violence and mental health services, and most recently, an Intermodal Freight Terminal.

Mary’s success is built on strong relationships with key stakeholders, including councillors, members of parliament, senior government officials, businesses, not-for-profit organisations, and the broader community.

With extensive experience leading large, multidisciplinary teams, Mary has transformed service delivery within the sector—enhancing community outcomes while ensuring financial sustainability. Her leadership has set new benchmarks for excellence in local government services.

Driven by a commitment to building sustainable, self-determined communities, Mary continues to champion initiatives that create lasting positive change.

Who’s missing?

We want to know who else you would like to see on this list. Tell us who you’ve seen leading the debates and discussions. Who is bringing practical solutions and innovative ideas to the forefront of the sector?

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