Moderator

Craig Lewis, FAICP, LEED AP, CNU-A
Principal and Global Practice Lead: Planning, Landscape, and Urban Design, CallisonRTKL
Charlotte, North Carolina

Craig is a passionate leader who assists public, private, non-profit and institutional clients realize the full range of benefits that flow from fully urban, walkable downtowns, neighborhoods, districts, and suburban centers and corridors. He combines time-tested urban design and community building principles with objective data grounded in the marketplace to chart a path to greater livability, equity, and sustainability. His expertise in new neighborhood design, placemaking, city form and structure, neighborhood and district regeneration, smart mobility, transit, multi-modal transportation, and form-based codes has been recognized with numerous international awards and billions in new investment.

Speakers

Scott Cuthbertson
COO & Deputy Executive Director, The Point of the Mountain State Land Authority
Draper, Utah

Scott Cuthbertson is the COO & deputy executive director of The Point of the Mountain State Land Authority. He is responsible for heading all operational aspects of The Point – Utah’s Innovation Community Megaproject. Widely recognized as one of the most important economic and quality of life opportunities in state history, The Point consists of 600 acres of state-owned land at the nexus of two of the fast-growing counties in the country. It is projected to serve 15k new residents and create 40k+ jobs as part of the greenfield, sustainable, mixed-use community with a 15-minute city design. The Point will foster innovation and technological advancement, provide robust transportation, preserve open space and support economic growth while enhancing Utahns’ quality of life.

Cuthbertson spent 15 years in the management consulting industry before joining the Land Authority where he was a director in PricewaterhouseCoopers capital projects and infrastructure group and a senior consultant at Booz Allen. While in the private sector, he specialized in the management of major capital investment programs as advisor to institutional investors, multi-national developers, Fortune 5 technology firms and public sector agencies on projects as large as $25B USD. His work spanned North and South America, Europe and the Middle East. Cuthbertson received a B.Sc. degree from BYU, a Master’s degree in Real Estate Development from Georgetown University, and an M.Sc. degree from the University of Oxford’s Business School. He has served on multiple boards and is a published thought leader in the field of real estate, infrastructure and smart cities.

Avinash Srivastava, AICP
Principal and Director of the Global Center of Excellence for Urban Analytics, AECOM
Vienna, Virginia

Avinash is a Principal and Director of the Global Center of Excellence (COE) for Urban Analytics at AECOM. Over the past 23 years in the industry, Avinash has been involved in innovation with the intersection of technology, strategic planning, and design with a holistic, data-driven approach that is the foundation for the Urban Analytics COE. As its founding director, Avinash leads the development of innovative data-driven decision-support frameworks, tools, and strategic plans around high performing urban systems.  His current focus areas include low-carbon, high-performance urban development, strategic energy planning, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, connected mobility, climate resiliency, smart cities, digital-twin development, and on-line interactive planning. His team includes a diverse set of experts in planning, design, data science, and application development.

Avinash has worked on projects around the world and has specific experience in large scale master planning and urban design, smart city strategy, energy and infrastructure planning with a focus on resiliency, and other projects incorporating decision support modeling and analytics, visualizations and simulations for public, private sector and military clients. He is the chief architect of AECOM’s Sustainable Systems Integration Model (SSIM™) – an award-winning digital tool for strategic master planning at site, city or regional scales and the Triple Bottom Line Model for comprehensive multi-criteria analysis for infrastructure and design projects.

Avinash has led several award-winning projects focused on sustainability and innovative urban planning. Some of the recent awards include the American Planning Association 2018 Smart City Award for the International Riverside Smart City project in China, and APA Federal Division Outstanding Federal Planning Program for the NASA Energy Investment Plan. Previous awards include the APA Outstanding Sustainability Project for Guam Joint Base Sustainability Program and Implementation Tools, and the ICLEI Sustainability Leadership Award for the Neighborhood Sustainability Indicators Pilot. He is a frequent speaker at planning and design conferences and has also contributed to a chapter in book titled “Standards for Success: GIS for Federal Progress and Accountability”.

Avinash resides in Vienna, VA with his wife Gayatri (a Global Environment Fund (GEF) specialist at the World Bank) and their two children.

Abbey Ehman
Vice President, Lincoln Property Company
Los Angeles, California

As the United States prepares to make the largest infrastructure investment in a generation, an opportunity exists for ULI members and key partners to identify and promote more equitable and resilient infrastructure investments that create both longterm real estate and community value. Lessons can be learned from global infrastructure investment approaches.

This includes the need to combat the global threat of climate change. Many of the infrastructure investment strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change are similar to those that enable more holistic and integrated urban development. This should include decarbonization and a path to zero emissions through modernizing the energy grid and enhancing everyone’s ability to invest in and have access to renewable energy, energy storage, vehicle electrification, and “grid-interactive” buildings as well as building communities that can withstand and bounce back from extreme weather events.

Guided by the Curtis Infrastructure Initiative’s Prioritizing Effective Infrastructure-Led Development: A ULI Infrastructure Framework, the Infrastructure and Land Use Exchange is a regularly scheduled series of meetings to facilitate conversations and dialogues between ULI members, District Council staff, other global experts, and HQ staff. This is intended to help promote the most innovative and/or effective best practices for infrastructure investment. Participation is strongly encouraged.

The ULI Curtis Infrastructure Initiative identifies and promotes forward-looking infrastructure investments that are equitable and resilient and that enhance long-term community value.