David Carey

SVP Public Affairs and Communications, Hearst

David Carey is senior vice president of public affairs and communications at Hearst. In this role, David oversees corporate communications as well as sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion and corporate citizenship reporting. Previously, David served as chairman of Hearst Magazines after serving as president from 2010 to 2018. In 2019, he became a fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, an annual university-wide program that selects a small group of senior executives from around the world to spend two semesters on the Harvard campus studying solutions to large-scale societal problems. David serves as a trustee of the Whitney Museum of American Art. He also serves on the board of directors of Harvard Business Publishing and is a member of the advisory board of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. 

Peter Han

Partner, Foster + Partners

Peter Han is a partner at Foster + Partners, an internationally recognized award-winning multidisciplinary practice based in London and New York. Since joining the practice in 2001, Peter has led globally acclaimed projects such as the Hearst Tower, 2 World Trade Center, Sperone Westwater Gallery, SAMBA Headquarters, India Tower, Apple Headquarters, Ant Group Headquarters, 350 Park Avenue and Vanderbilt University. Peter also managed and successfully delivered several luxury residential developments in New York and Miami —notably 50 United Nations Plaza, 551 West 21st Street, SELENE at 100 E53rd Street and Faena House. In addition to commercial high-rise and residential project experience, Peter was responsible for leading multidisciplinary teams for various Apple Global Flagship Retail Stores across North America, having completed their most recent locations in Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and Toronto. He is currently overseeing several large-scale mixed-use and masterplan projects both here and abroad. Peter holds a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a bachelor’s degree from Yonsei University in Seoul. He is a recipient of numerous design awards, including the AIA Honor Award, RIBA International Award and SARA/NY Design Award. Peter also serves as an expert member of GLG Insight Network, sits on the Global Advisory Panel for LG Electronics Life Innovation Design Center and is a registered architect actively practicing in 16 states.

Jonathan (JP) Flaherty

Managing Director, Global Head of Sustainability and Building Technologies New York, Tishman Speyer

Jonathan Flaherty joined Tishman Speyer in 2007 and is responsible for the firm's evolving sustainability strategy. This includes property and fund sustainability certifications, communication with current and future investors, worldwide performance tracking, energy procurement strategy, building technology innovation, diligence in alternative green investments and execution of the firm's commitment to net zero by 2050. He is also working with the firm’s joint venture, Breakthrough Properties, in creating their ESG strategy in the life science sector. Jonathan joined Tishman Speyer as part of the Leadership Development Program and has held various roles with the company, including in New York Asset Management and Portfolio Management. Prior to joining the firm, he worked as a legislative aide for Sen. Chuck Schumer in Washington, D.C. Jonathan is the chair of the board of directors for the Building Energy Exchange, the co-chair of the REBNY Sustainability Committee, the secretary-treasurer of the board of the Green Building Certification Institute and is on the board of the New York Energy Consumers Council. He holds a BA in political science from Kenyon College and an MBA and MSUP from Columbia University.

Peter Templeton

CEO, U.S. Green Building Council

Peter Templeton has worked for over 25 years to accelerate global adoption of practices that enhance human health, environmental wellbeing and quality of life for all. As president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council, Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) and Arc Skoru, he directs organization-wide efforts to increase the reach and impact of green building and green business market transformation activities around the world. He leads the execution of strategic plans and partnerships that expand local capacity and deliver new tools for advancing smart, healthy, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable buildings and communities. Over Peter’s tenure at USGBC, LEED has become the most widely used and respected green building program in the world. Peter served as president and CEO of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute from 2018 to 2021, working to scale Cradle to Cradle Certified as the globally recognized mark of materials and products optimized for human and environmental health, circularity and social fairness. Prior to C2CPII, Peter served in senior leadership roles at USGBC, overseeing global market development, establishing strategic partnerships and directing the annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, LEED training and professional credentialing programs and USGBC’s green building research initiatives. He joined USGBC as one of its first employees to support the launch of the LEED Rating System as Director of LEED and International Programs.

From 2009 to 2012, Peter was the first president of GBCI, which administers third-party project certification and professional credentialing in over 150 countries and territories for the LEED green building rating systems and other respected environmental leadership standards. During his tenure, GBCI certified over 200 million square meters of new and existing buildings and awarded over 200,000 credentials to green building professionals worldwide. Prior to USGBC, Peter worked as a program manager and environmental planner on international development projects promoting sustainable land use and resource management best practices in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Peter holds a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University. He currently serves as a board member of the World Green Building Council and Sustentabilidad paraMexico (SUMe).

Marcy Block

Global Head of ESG Ratings, Sustainable Fitch

Marcy Block is the global head of ESG Ratings for Sustainable Fitch. She manages ESG Ratings’ regional leadership, covering all sectors across six global offices. From 2020 to 2024, Marcy was the Fitch Ratings analytical lead on ESG risk issues, including ESG Relevance Scores and climate risk issues, for the U.S. Public Finance, International Public Finance and Global Infrastructure credit rating groups, including two years in Sustainable Finance (which subsequently became Sustainable Fitch). Marcy joined Fitch Ratings in 2011 and was responsible for the credit ratings of a portfolio of U.S. states and Canadian provinces for Fitch Ratings Public Finance groups until 2020. Prior to joining Fitch, Marcy was a vice president at Capital Markets Advisors (CMA), a municipal financial advisory firm in New York State. Before joining CMA, she was a senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service in U.S. Public Finance. Marcy began her career working for the New York State Assembly’s Ways and Means and State Redistricting Committees. Marcy earned a master’s degree in public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Rutgers University. She holds a certificate in ESG Investing from the CFA Society of the United Kingdom. Marcy is a member of the Municipal Analysts Group of New York, the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, Women in Public Finance, Northeast Women in Public Finance, Women’s Bond Club, 100 Women in Finance and the Women’s Energy Network.

Rohit Aggarwala

Commissioner, NYC Department of Environmental Protection

Rohit T. “Rit” Aggarwala (he/his) was appointed commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and the city’s chief climate officer in February 2022. Under his leadership, DEP has embraced a leadership role on both stormwater and coastal resilience, streamlined its procurement processes to be able to invest more money in infrastructure each year and improved DEP’s water revenues by reducing accounts receivable and delivering revenues $250 million above budget in his first year. As chief climate officer, he also led the development of New York City’s most recent sustainability plan, PlaNYC. Prior to the Adams Administration, Rohit served as the first director of the New York City Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, where he led the creation of the first PlaNYC. He later founded the environmental grantmaking program at Bloomberg Philanthropies and served as president of the board of directors of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. He was part of the founding team at Sidewalk Labs — Google’s urban technology startup — and more recently was a senior urban tech fellow at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. He co-chaired the Regional Plan Association’s Fourth Regional Plan for the New York metropolitan area and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University. Rohit holds a PhD, MBA and BA from Columbia University and an MA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.  

Susanne DesRoches

Vice President of Clean and Resilient Buildings, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)

Susanne DesRoches is NYSERDA’s vice president of clean and resilient buildings, leading the Authority’s work on building decarbonization, advancing programs and policies to deliver a carbon-neutral building stock. Prior to joining NYSERDA in April 2022, she served as regulatory director for energy policy at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate & Sustainability and Mayor’s Office of Climate Resiliency. While there, she was responsible for the city’s energy policy and regulatory affairs at the local, state and federal levels and directed the city’s policies and programs designed to adapt regional infrastructure systems to climate change, including electric, gas and transportation systems and the city’s efforts to transition to 100-percent clean electricity by 2040. Susanne led the city’s long-term energy planning efforts, which centered on decarbonization while prioritizing a just and affordable energy transition for all New Yorkers. Susanne also led the city’s efforts to ensure climate resiliency was integrated into utility and bulk power system planning and oversaw the development of the NYC Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines. She led the NYC Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which works to identify climate risks and coordinate adaptation strategies, and was a chapter author for the fourth National Climate Assessment. Susanne was previously the chief of resilience and sustainability for the Engineering Department at the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. She is highly regarded in the clean energy and resilience space, bringing expertise and rich experience in areas including climate policy, resiliency, city and state partnerships level relationships and building decarbonization. Susanne holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University and is a LEED Accredited Professional. Susanne is on the faculty of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and School of Professional Studies. 

Nicole Abene

NY Senior Legislative & Regulatory Manager, Building Decarbonization Coalition

Since 2022, Nicole Abene has served as the Senior NY Legislative & Regulatory Manager at Building Decarbonization Coalition. Before joining BDC, Nicole served as the Deputy Director for Legislative Affairs at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability, where she worked to pass priority legislation, including bills to electrify buildings and school buses. Prior to the Mayor’s Office, Nicole worked as a senior legislative attorney at the New York City Council. At the City Council, Nicole worked on legislation including Local Law 97, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in large buildings, and legislation creating commercial waste zones and advancing waste equity. Nicole holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from New York University, and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

Stellene Volandes

Editor in Chief of Town & Country and Editorial Director of Elle Decor

Stellene Volandes is the editor in chief of Town & Country and the editorial director of ELLE Decor. She is the author of two books on jewelry history and is on the board at Lincoln Center Theater. 

Paul Goldberger

Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair

Paul Goldberger, whom the Huffington Post has called “the leading figure in architecture criticism,” is now a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. From 1997 through 2011, he served as the architecture critic for The New Yorker, where he wrote the magazine’s celebrated “Sky Line” column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at the New School in New York City. He was formerly dean of the Parsons School of Design, a division of the New School. He began his career at The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, the highest award in journalism. He is the author of several books, including Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, which was published in 2019 by Alfred A Knopf. His other works include Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, published in 2015 by Alfred A Knopf; Why Architecture Matters, published in 2009 by Yale University Press; Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, a collection of his architecture essays published in 2009 by Monacelli Press; and Christo and Jeanne-Claude, published in 2010 by Taschen. He is now at work on a full-length biography of the architect Frank Gehry, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf. He lectures widely around the country on the subject of architecture, design, historic preservation and cities, and he has taught at both the Yale School of Architecture and the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, in addition to the New School. 

Betsy Smith

President & CEO, Central Park Conservancy

Elizabeth “Betsy” Smith has served as president and CEO of the Central Park Conservancy since 2018. For the last six years, Betsy’s top priorities have been to guide the Conservancy in its efforts to preserve Central Park’s essential purpose as a retreat from the pressures of city life and to elevate the profile of the Conservancy as the park’s primary steward and an anchor institution critical to the health and vibrancy of the city. Under her leadership, the Conservancy released its first-ever strategic plan, “A Plan for the Stewardship of Central Park: 2020–2027,” added professional capacity to address challenges and innovations needed to care for the park and will soon complete construction on its largest capital project to date, the Harlem Meer Center, a new state-of-the art facility in the park’s north end replacing the former Lasker Pool and Rink. Before assuming the role of president and CEO, Betsy served on the Conservancy’s Board of Trustees; was a former NYC Parks assistant commissioner in the Bloomberg Administration; and served as a Board member of Friends of the High Line, the Open Space Institute and as vice chair of New Yorkers for Parks. Prior to joining the Bloomberg Administration, Betsy had a 25-year career in finance, starting in commercial banking at J.P. Morgan before transitioning to venture capital and private equity management at Prospect Group, Inc. and at the family offices of Harry F. Oppenheimer and the Rockefeller Financial Group. She later ran client services and finance at Sotheby’s. Betsy is currently chair of the Board of Library of America, a not-for-profit publisher of significant American writing.