Impacts & Opportunities of E-Commerce in the New York Region: Speaker Bios

Tom Wright is president and chief executive officer of Regional Plan Association (RPA), the nation’s oldest independent metropolitan research, planning and advocacy organization. A private, non-profit corporation, RPA improves the prosperity, infrastructure, sustainability, health and quality of life of the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region by preparing long-range plans and advocating for their implementation.

As president, Tom led the production of RPA’s landmark Fourth Regional Plan, released in 2017, which proposed 61 recommendations to reform public institutions; modernize our transportation systems; tackle the challenge of climate change; and provide affordable and livable communities for all the region’s residents. RPA is now working to implement the major ideas in the plan, such as charging all drivers to enter the Manhattan CBD; cutting carbon emissions and scaling up renewable energy sources; creating healthy, affordable housing in every community; modernizing the NYC subways; and building a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River connected to a new Penn Station.

Tom is a frequent public speaker and commentator on regional governance, economic growth and development, transit investments, and other policy issues. Prior to being named RPA’s president in 2015, Tom was RPA’s executive director. In his 20+ years with the organization, Tom has participated in many key RPA initiatives, including the historic Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; the campaign to create a mixed-use district at Manhattan’s Hudson Yards; the protection of the New Jersey Highlands; and a vision plan for the City of Newark. Tom was also in charge of producing A Region at Risk, RPA’s third plan published in 1996.

Previously, Tom was deputy executive director of the New Jersey Office of State Planning, where he coordinated production of the New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan.

In January, 2020, Governor Phil Murphy appointed Tom as the Chairman of the New Jersey State Planning Commission. Tom is also a member of New York City’s Sustainability Advisory Board and the Friends of the BQX. A visiting lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Tom has a master’s in urban planning from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in history and a certificate in American Studies from Princeton University. He resides in Princeton with his wife Cameron Manning and three fabulous daughters.

Supply Chain Management Panelists

Rohit T. ​“Rit” Aggarwala is a Senior Fellow at the Urban Tech Hub at the Jacobs Cornell-Technion Institute at Cornell Tech. He is a Senior Advisor at Sidewalk Labs, and an executive-in-residence at the Closed Loop Fund. He also teaches urban policy at Columbia University, and recently chaired the Regional Plan Association’s Fourth Regional Plan for the New York metropolitan area.

Rit was a member of the founding team at Sidewalk Labs, where he was Head of Urban Systems and led its mobility and sustainability work. Prior to that, Rit spent five years at Bloomberg Philanthropies, where started the foundation’s environmental grantmaking program, served as President of the Board of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, and led the sustainability practice at Bloomberg Associates.

From 2006 to 2010, Rit served as Director of New York City’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability where he led the creation and implementation of ​“PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York.” PlaNYC has been hailed as one of the world’s best urban sustainability plans, leading New York City to a 19% reduction in its carbon footprint since 2005. Prior to joining City Hall, he was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Rit holds a BA, MBA, and PhD from Columbia University, and an MA from Queen’s University in Ontario. He serves on the boards of the Regional Plan Association, the Urban Green Council, and the Design Trust for Public Space. He was born in New York City, where he now lives.

Marc Wulfraat is the president and founder of MWPVL International, a global supply chain and logistics consulting firm specialized in helping with companies with supply chain strategy, facility design, and supply chain technology.

Marc has worked with hundreds of companies in North America and the rest of the world to optimize their distribution networks, warehouse operations and overall supply chains. He has 34 years of experience in the strategies and tactics of the most effective logistics and distribution companies. Marc has spent most of his career working in the grocery industry and he has helped many large Grocery companies design, optimize and automate their distribution facilities. His firm is currently involved in projects that involve in excess of $1.1 Billion of capital expenditures into infrastructure. Lastly, Marc is currently working on three separate micro-fulfillment projects for leading grocery retailers.

Marc has been a speaker at over 125 supply chain-industry events and has been published in over 130 magazines and newspapers including the Wall Street Journal and the Economist. Marc has a B.Sc. Mathematics and M.B.A. from McGill University/Manchester Business School, UK.

Marc Levinson is an independent historian and economist. He spent many years as an economic journalist, becoming finance and economics editor of The Economist in London. Returning to New York, he spent a decade at JPMorgan Chase, developing a unique industry economics function and then initiating the bank’s environmental research for investors. He later served as senior fellow for international business at the Council on Foreign Relations. Marc has written for leading scholarly publications and reviews books on business and history for the Wall Street Journal. His seven books include The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, a prizewinning history of an innovation that made globalization possible, and Outside the Box: How Globalization Changed from Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas, published in 2020.

Stephanie Finch is Program Manager of the Goods Movement Action Program (G-MAP), a regional freight planning partnership between the Port Authority, NJDOT, and NYSDOT. She is an active member of several Transportation Research Board freight committees and currently a member of a National Cooperative Highway Research Program project on federal policy for automated & connected vehicles. Prior to her work at PANYNJ, Stephanie executed studies on virtual weigh stations, statewide freight planning, and economic impacts of transportation infrastructure investments at the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Stephanie holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Connecticut and a Masters in Urban & Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts.

Transportation Panelists

Tiffany-Ann Taylor is Deputy Director of Freight Programs, Education and Research for the Freight Mobility unit at the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT). Prior to working at NYC DOT, she worked for the New York City Economic Development Corporation on transformative projects that impact passenger transportation throughout New York City. Tiffany has also worked in suburban and regional planning for Suffolk County Government on Long Island, New York where her primary projects were centered on transportation, open space and economic development. She holds a B.A in Government from The College of William & Mary and a M.S in City & Regional Planning from Pratt Institute. Tiffany is a First-Generation American, the brainchild of the annual Hindsight Conference and former Co-Chair of the American Planning Association’s New York Metro Chapter Diversity Committee (also known as DivComm). Currently, Tiffany leads the Chapter as President, making her the first Black woman to serve in this role for the Chapter. Tiffany is also an alumna of the Urban Design Forum Forefront Fellowship and Coro Leadership NY (LNY) program.

Axel Carrión began his career at UPS in 1994 as a loader/unloader out of the Metro New York District 43rd Street facility. Since that time he has held positions in multiple functions including Hub & Feeder, Security and Package Operations out of the East Region territory. Prior to joining UPS, he completed two assignments as a Special Agent Assistant for the United States Marshals Service and for the United States Postal Inspections.

As Vice President, Axel’s responsibility for state government affairs includes territories from Connecticut through Maryland while overseeing Community Relations extending through the Mid-Atlantic States culminating in Virginia.

Axel, who holds a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice, founded the North Atlantic District Latino BRG in 2012 while working with local communities including the New Jersey Governor’s Hispanic Fellowship Program, HISPA, The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families and the Puerto Rican Action Board.

Axel is a Board Member of various State Trucking Associations; the Tri-State Transportation Campaign; serves as the UPS liaison to the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA); serves on the Business Advisory Councils for the Board of Hispanic Caucus Chairs (BHCC) and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL); is a member of the NYC Mayor’s OneNYC Advisory Group and also serves on the Corporate Board of Advisors for HISPA - NJ Governor’s Hispanic Fellowship Program.

Axel and his wife Liz have two children: Rachael, majoring in Human Resource Management at Rutgers University and Madison studying at the Princeton Dance and Theater Studio in New Jersey.

Sarah M. Kaufman is the Associate Director of the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, where she researches, advocates for and educates about cutting-edge technologies in transportation. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Planning, teaching Intelligent Cities and Advanced Projects in Urban Planning. Ms. Kaufman directs several projects related to Covid’s impacts on mobility and improving transportation for all: The Pink Tax on Transportation, an analysis of how safety concerns impact women’s travel patterns in New York City; Intelligent Paratransit, to rethink how we transport seniors and the disabled; and the Emerging Leaders in Transportation Fellowship, a program to enhance innovation at all levels of transportation planning and policymaking. Ms. Kaufman was honored with a Responsible 100 Award by City & State New York in December 2018 and a Tech Power 50 Award in February 2019. She is a member of The List and a contributor to Forbes.com.

Danny Harris is Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, New York City’s primary walking, biking and safe streets advocacy group. He is a leading voice in building cities for people, not cars. Previously, he spent four years as a program director with the Knight Foundation in San Jose, CA, where he supervised grantmaking related to placemaking, transportation, and affordable housing. Danny has taught at San Jose State University, was named a Vanguard Fellow by Next City, and received a citation from the American Institute of Architects. A graduate of Connecticut College and Princeton University, Danny is a native New Yorker and currently resides in Manhattan with his family.

Economist and policy-analyst Charles Komanoff co-founded the Carbon Tax Center and the pedestrian rights group Right Of Way and ​“re-founded” the bicycling advocacy organization Transportation Alternatives. His work includes books (Power Plant Cost Escalation, Killed By Automobile, The Bicycle Blueprint), the spreadsheet model used by state government and transit advocates to optimize congestion pricing for New York City, scholarly articles and journalism. An honors graduate of Harvard and married parent of two grown sons, Charles lives in lower Manhattan.

Robert Freudenberg is vice president of RPA’s energy and environmental programs, leading the organization’s initiatives in areas including climate mitigation and adaptation, open space conservation and park development, and water resource management.

He oversees a comprehensive program of projects and policies to improve public health, quality of life, sustainable development and climate resilience in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan area. Rob works closely with other RPA staff to integrate these objectives with RPA’s economic, transportation, land use, design and community development initiatives.

Rob has been with RPA since 2006 and most recently served as New Jersey director, where he managed the state program with a focus on sustainability planning and policy. He led projects including developing an arts and revitalization plan for Paterson and a neighborhood revitalization plan for East Camden; producing an economic and land use study for a future bus rapid transit corridor in Union County; advancing regenerative design efforts in the New Jersey Highlands; and facilitating land use and urban design recommendations and leading local demonstration projects for the 13-county Together North Jersey effort.

Prior to joining RPA, Rob served as a coastal management fellow at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where he focused on policies for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Rob holds a master’s of public administration in environmental science and policy from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a bachelor’s in environmental biology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Land Use, Workforce, & Finance Panelists

Dr. James W. Hughes is University Professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, named to that position by the Board of Governors in 2017. He reports solely to the chief academic officer of Rutgers and has the university-wide privilege of conducting research and educational activities across the disciplines and schools of his choice. This position follows his 22-year tenure (1995-2017) as the dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Policy Development, achieving that rank in 1983.

He is a nationally recognized expert on demographic, housing, and economic issues and is author or co-author of 35 books and monographs and more than 150 articles. Among his books are The Atlantic City Gamble, published by the Harvard University Press and three published by the Rutgers University Press, including America’s Demographic Tapestry: Baselines for the New Millennium. Two additional books are currently under contract with the Rutgers University Press: Population Trends in New Jersey (to be published in the fall 2021) and Rutgers Then and Now: Two Centuries of Campus Development—A Photographic Odyssey (to be published in 2022).

He also directs the Rutgers Regional Report which, since 1990s, has produced more than 45 major studies on both New Jersey and the broad multistate metropolitan region centered on New York City. A new monthly Rutgers Regional Report series, Fast Track Research Notes, was introduced in 2020. It focuses on the changing pandemic-driven economic conditions impacting New Jersey, New York City, and the nation.

He has provided extensive budgetary and economic testimony before many New Jersey State Legislative committees as well as numerous policy briefings both in Washington and Trenton. He has served on numerous commissions and boards such as the NJ Governor’s Commission on Jobs, Growth and Economic Development, and the Economic Advisors Board of the Council of the City of New York. Dean Hughes is a military veteran who served as an artillery officer in the U.S. Army.

As Managing Director of Public + Non Profit Solutions, Larisa Ortiz brings over 25 years of experience advising public, private, and non-profit sector clients on retail real estate strategy in urban environments. She has led hundreds of comprehensive retail planning efforts across communities large and small, both nationally and internationally. Larisa is the author of Improving Tenant Mix, published by the International Council of Shopping Centers, and currently serves as a Mayoral Appointee to the NYC Planning Commission. A Fulbright Scholar and Watson Fellow, Larisa has traveled the world studying successful downtown and mixed use environments. She holds an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s in city planning with a certificate in urban design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kate Wittels is a Partner with HR&A Advisors where she advises governments, developers, and businesses on leveraging technology and forging connections to create districts, workforces, and economies that are ready for the future. From New York to Sydney, she has structured strategic plans, public-private partnerships, policies, and programs to help her clients grow innovation ecosystems in cities around the world. Kate focuses on how to best shape places, train people, and deliver infrastructure to prepare today’s cities for tomorrow’s opportunities.

Working at the company, district, and city scales, Kate helps her clients leverage technology for economic development. At the company scale, Kate’s clients include some of the leading tech and creative organizations including Airbnb, WeWork, Intersection, and the Motion Picture Association of America. At the district scale, Kate contributed to the development of the Brooklyn Tech Triangle Strategic Plan (which is credited for fueling Brooklyn’s growth as a tech hub), established the development framework for the Providence Innovation and Design District Framework, created the Western Queens Tech Strategy, which is encouraging equitable growth of Long Island City’s innovation ecosystem and is guiding the endowment for Rice University on the development of Houston’s newest innovation district. At the city scale, Kate supported the City University of New York’s efforts to expand the number of students working in the tech ecosystem, guided the City of Pittsburgh in their bid for Amazon HQ2, and is now helping the city to transform their approach to economic development by restructuring the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Kate has also managed many of HR&A’s most complex projects including the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s 200-acre Sunnyside Yard Overbuild Feasibility study, MTA and Westfield’s public-private management partnership of the $1.4 billion Fulton Center, and David Beckham’s efforts to develop an MLS soccer stadium in Miami. Prior to HR&A, Kate managed Sony’s corporate real estate portfolio. Kate has a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters of Science in Real Estate Development from MIT. Kate resides in Brooklyn with her husband and two kids.

Jun Choi is CEO of Menlo Realty Ventures, a real estate development firm focused on building modern industrial assets with nearly 2 million square feet of projects completed or under development since 2018. Menlo specializes in converting contaminated brownfield sites to clean, productive industrial uses. Prior to founding Menlo, Jun advised large industrial developers on strategy, acquisitions and sales, leasing and public policy at Cushman & Wakefield. He has held leadership roles in government and business. Previously, he served as Mayor of New Jersey’s 5th largest municipality, Edison Township, where he led a good government movement to stabilize the town’s finances ($140 million budget), promote economic development, improve education and public safety, protect the environment and redevelop older, dilapidated sites. During his tenure, he led the planning and negotiations of over 2 million square feet in redevelopment while preserving 37 acres of open space. Under his watch, Edison received several honors including the ​“Best Place to Raise Kids” in NJ according to BusinessWeek magazine.

Jun serves on the Executive Committee of the RPA and as Co-Chair of the NJ Committee. He also served as Chair of NJ Policy Perspective where he dedicated himself to help rebuild the policy and advocacy organization from 2012-2019 and to expand their work on economic and education policies for lower-income and disadvantaged populations in NJ.

Jun began his career as a management consultant where he helped advise Fortune 500 companies on strategy and tech issues. He earned his BS in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Master’s in Public Policy from Columbia University.

Aditya co-leads McKinsey’s Global Real Estate Practice. In this capacity, he serves leading companies across the value chain in both residential and commercial real estate. His clients include developers, investment managers, real estate investment trusts, services companies, and technology disruptors. Aditya focuses on the disruptions happening across real estate, such as digital, advanced analytics, new business models, capital sources, and tenant needs. In addition, Aditya serves occupiers of real estate on re-thinking experience, footprint, and cost optimization across retail, office, and industrial.

Outside of real estate, Aditya serves leading private-equity organizations across the deal life cycle, with a particular emphasis on serving the general partner, including support in strategy, governance, and investment processes.

Examples of Aditya’s recent client work include the following:

• Re-imagining the customer experience in real estate through building proprietary digital platforms and high-quality physical service delivery

• Scaling investment management as a new business for a world-class developer

• Building advanced analytics as a competitive advantage for a leading vertically-integrated real estate owner and operator in multi-family

• Serving a leading institutional investor on building direct investing and operating capabilities

• Re-doing the footprint architecture of a retailer based on the omni-channel value of stores—beyond four-wall sales

Aditya is active in the community on issues of economic inequality and mentorship. He is the chair of the board of America Needs You, which provides intensive mentorship to first-generation, low-income students at public universities.

Sustainable Wastestream panelists

Paul Gertner is a longtime advocate for alternative transportation in the NY region. Among other projects, he founded the Harbor Ring campaign at Transportation Alternatives and initiated RPA’s Five Borough Bikeway plan. He has a Master of Regional Planning degree from Cornell University, and prior to his business career he worked as a City and County Planning Director and on energy conservation planning at the state level. For the last three decades he has been the CEO of Starborn Industries, which has grown from a small Brooklyn hardware wholesaler to one of the largest suppliers of deck fasteners in the world. Starborn designs and sources proprietary components for contractor installation kits globally and domestically. These are assembled and shipped out from the company’s packaging plant in Edison NJ. While Starborn’s main customer base are lumber manufacturers and distributors, it also sells its products to a number of web distributors, for whom the company provides order fulfillment services.

Bridget Anderson is the NYC Department of Sanitation’s Deputy Commissioner for Recycling and Sustainability. She is responsible for planning, implementation, and tracking of DSNY’s sustainable waste management activities with particular focus on recycling, composting, HHW and ewaste, textile recovery, and waste reduction. Ms. Anderson directs DSNY’s sustainable waste management policy research and program development, and strategic partnerships with the local reuse and community composting sectors. During COVID-19, she advanced ​“GetFood NYC” Emergency Home Food Delivery serving over 200 million meals.

Eric A. Goldstein is a senior attorney and NYC Environment Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. More than three decades ago, he helped create NRDC’s Urban Program. He gained nationwide attention in the early 1980s for spearheading the public campaign to get lead out of gasoline. Since then, Eric has been one of the New York region’s leading environmental advocates on such issues as solid waste, drinking water, clean air and environmental justice. He helped draft, support and enforce New York City’s landmark 1989 mandatory recycling law and has led NRDC’s efforts to transform the way trash is handled across the state from primary reliance on landfilling and incineration to making recycling, composting, waste prevention and equity the cornerstones of waste policy. He is co-author of the award-winning New York Environment Book, blogs frequently on New York environmental issues and co-directs the Environmental Law Clinic at New York University School of Law.

Kevin Lyons’ research includes the integration of sustainability and diversity criteria into Supply Chain, procurement, and manufacturing processes and operations. Dr. Lyons developed the Supply Chain Environmental Archeology research program/lab, which involves the archeological study of climate change and environmental impacts via the supply chain, big data analytics, risk assessment, decision analysis as well as product end-of-life and new product innovation research. He is the principal investigator for Newark Anchor Collaborative Research Institute, the New Jersey Economic Development Off-Shore Wind Port Purchasing Disparity Study, the Jersey City Purchasing Disparity Study, and the Mandela Washington Fellows Program. Previously, Dr. Lyons was the Chief Procurement Officer at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and he is an U.S. Air Force Veteran.

Books:
Buying for the Future; Contract Management and the Environmental Challenge (2000)
A Roadmap to Green Supply Chains: Using Supply Chain Archaeology and Big Data Analytics (2015)