Strategic Cities is led by Mark Ames

“Every project has the potential to be significantly impacted by negative engagement. We’re here to help.”
— Mark

Here at Strategic Cities we believe that understanding strategic engagement and communications - how citiies and their citizens interact - is a vital skill for everyone working in cities today (and not just your media team).

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Experience

Mark has led high level stakeholder workshops, designed project engagement strategies, provided politician briefings - and trained more than 1,000 client employees on how to make sense of the engagement, communication and change process in cities. He is particularly experienced in precinct and transport advisory.

Previous clients include the City of Valencia (Spain), Auckland Transport and Boffa Misell (New Zealand), the City of Sydney (Australia) and global infrastructure advisory firm AECOM (Australia).

Project highlights include a 5-day, 6-city, 9-workshop training tour of New Zealand, and leading business engagement for the City of Sydney’s contentious Cycling Strategy and Action Plan 2018 – 2030. Mark is course leader of “Engaging Communities for Changing Streets” at the Urban Cycling Institute in Amsterdam.

In precincts, Mark led the team for five years at Australia’s original innovation district, Macquaire Park. Achievements included coordinating stakeholders around the 20-year masterplanning of that precinct, leading delegations to Parliament, and extensive business and community engagement.

Mark played an influential role in his native London, where he helped secure the former Mayor’s controversial 10-year one-billion-pound cycling strategy and action plan through a mixture of engagement, advocacy and media strategy.

Mark’s thought leadership about cities and transport has been published in The Times of London, The Guardian, the London Evening Standard, the Sydney Morning Herald and WA Today.

Broadcast appearances include Sky News, ITV News, BBC London, Russia Today, Public Radio International’s The World, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s As It Happens and the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.

Recent conference addresses:

  • Sydney Local Government Forum (2024, City of Sydney, Australia)

  • Active City (2024, Leicester, United Kingdom)

  • Velo-City Global Conference (2024, Ghent, Belgium)

  • All Party Parliamentary Friends of Cycling (2021, Canberra, Australia)

  • Transportation Group National Conference (2019, Wellington, New Zealand)

  • Universal Design National Conference (2018, Auckland, New Zealand)

  • XV Iberian Cycling and Cities Conference (2018, Valencia, Spain)

  • Velo-City Global Conference (2017, Utrecht, Netherlands)

  • Bike & the City Summit (2017, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Netherlands)

Mark is from the UK and is based in Sydney, Australia.

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