Rebecca Karp

Rebecca Karp is a highly regarded advisor with deep experience solving challenging and complex urban planning initiatives. She launched Karp Strategies in 2015 following nearly a decade in policy, operations, and management roles across the public and private sectors. She has since grown the company into one of the leading urban planning and community economic development consultancies in New York City. Rebecca is passionate about urban development, and is dedicated to creating a thriving urban fabric and helping communities build strong local economies. At Karp Strategies, she serves as an advisor to cross-sector clients, ranging in size, location, and sphere of impact from the public, private, and non-profit spheres. Rebecca’s theory of change is grounded in a holistic data-driven, people-oriented, and place-based approach, that taken together, allow for thoughtful analysis and strategy of economies and communities.

Rebecca has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Bowdoin College and a Master’s in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she wrote her thesis on Community Benefits Agreements. She is a proud alumna of the Coro Leadership New York Program and NYU Stern School of Business + New York City Department of Small Business Services Strategic Steps for Business program. Locally, she sits on Open House New York’s Transit Advisory Committee, the New York State Committee for the Regional Plan Association, and the board of directors of the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and is a member of the New York Building Congress, CoreNet, IEDC, APA, and is a Fellow with the Urban Design Forum.

Jeremy Robinson-Leon

Jeremy Robinson-Leon is principal and chief operating officer at Group Gordon, a New York-based strategic communications firm named the Holmes Report’s Best Boutique Agency to Work For in North America in 2014 and 2015. He oversees all aspects of client service across the firm’s corporate, public affairs, and crisis practices and has considerable expertise in strategy, media relations, social media, and crisis management, appearing regularly as a commentator on related topics in the media. Jeremy advises leading companies and organizations, including Shake Shack, Union Square Hospitality Group, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, DonorsChoose.org, the Ford Foundation, Marcato Capital Management, and Schulte Roth & Zabel, among many others. He sits on the board of Enterprise Community’s Partners’ Gotham Society and early in his career worked with elected officials at both the state and Federal levels. He earned his B.A. in political science from Vassar College.