Our Team
John Rossant
Founder & CEO, CoMotion
Founder & Chairman, NewCities
John Rossant personally leads the CoMotion team. He is the Founder and Chairman of the New CIties Foundation, a major global non-profit institution dedicated to improving the quality of life and work in cities. He previously led the team producing the famous World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland every January and has been been the producer of major World Economic Forum conferences in China, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. He has also played key roles in Monaco, with the Monaco Media Forum and the ongoing Prince’s Roundtable on Philanthropy. In 2010, French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked John to organize the first global summit on the future of the Internet, the e-G8. John has worked with heads of state and government and leading CEOs from around the world. John is the co-author of the forthcoming Hop, Skip, Go - How the Mobility Revolution is Transforming Our Lives, HarperCollins.
Jonah Bliss
VP of New Media & Marketing, CoMotion; Media and Mobility Fellow, NewCities
Jonah Bliss joined CoMotion in 2019 to lead marketing and media. He brings a wealth of industry-focused experience in launching and growing new mobility providers & media analysis tools, including the world’s first peer-to-peer carsharing company Turo, D2C e-bike leader EVELO, the content analysis platform ContentIntent, and many more.
Timothy Gribaudi
Managing Director, CoMotion Initiative, NewCities
Tim has been working with NewCities since 2015 and has helped develop the program and content of many Foundation events, including Cityquest and the NewCities Summit. He has developed and facilitated workshops and roundtables on urban development and innovation. Based in Europe, he currently manages a number of new partnerships there and is directing the development of CoMotion for NewCities. Before joining the Foundation, he worked at PublicisLive, where he organized a number of leadership events, and for political campaigns in the United Kingdom. Tim grew up in Paris, and after obtaining a BA in History and Politics at the University of York in England, he spent two years working in Spain and London. He then studied for a research degree at the University of Oxford, where he achieved a distinction. A history and urban enthusiast, he speaks English, French and Italian fluently and is competent in Spanish.
Holly Hixson
Project Coordinator, NewCities
Holly is an avid city-enthusiast with a background in Urban Planning and Psychology. In addition to her role as Project Coordinator for NewCities, she is on the Program Team for CoMotion events. She has worked in Portland, Montreal, and Copenhagen, and completed a Master in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Amsterdam. Her approach centres quality of life, sustainability, and equity at the heart of urban policy and design.
Jake Laffoley
Creative Director, CoMotion
Jake joined CoMotion in March 2017. He leads the visual communication for all CoMotion events, programs and research. He has worked in London, Paris and Montreal and holds a BA from the Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, London and post-graduate diploma from the Institut des hautes études en arts plastiques (IHEAP) Paris.
Greg Lindsay
Director of Strategy, CoMotion, Senior Fellow, NewCities
Greg Lindsay joined NewCities in June 2015 as Senior Fellow to lead our Connected Mobility Initiative. Greg is a journalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker. He is a non-resident senior fellow of The Atlantic Council in their Strategic Foresight Initiative. He is also a contributing writer for Fast Company, co-author of Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next, a visiting scholar at New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, and a research affiliate of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and Fortune, among many other publications. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in journalism.
Hannah McCasland
Events and Partnerships Manager, NewCities
Hannah joined NewCities in mid-2018 and is our Events and Partnerships Manager. Prior to joining the NewCities team, she worked in research, events, and communications at Women in Cities International, a nonprofit that advances women’s safety in urban environments. Hannah has a BA from McGill University in history, film studies, and gender studies.
Jim Manning
Senior Writer/EditorCoMotion
Jim joined CoMotion in September 2019 and spearheaded the creation of comotionnews.com. Jim has been a writer in Los Angeles for the past decade, working for various news websites covering everything from transportation/mobility, cryptocurrency and advanced computer science, to viral news and more.
Anthea Zeng
Program Coordinator, CoMotion
Anthea joined CoMotion at the beginning of 2020. As the CoMotion Program Coordinator, she programs the topics and speakers at the CoMotion LA and Miami conferences. Originally from Vancouver, Anthea holds a BASc in Cognitive Science with a minor in Linguistics from McGill University.
Advisors
Grayson Brulte
Senior Advisor, Autonomy at CoMotion, President of Brulte & Company, Co-Founder of Autonomous Tomorrow.
Grayson is the Co-Founder / President of Brulte & Company, a consulting firm that specializes in designing innovation and technology strategies for a global marketplace. He formerly served as the Co-Chair of the City of Beverly Hills Mayor's Autonomous Vehicle Task Force and was an active member of the city’s Smart City / Technology Committee which advises the Beverly Hills City Council on technology.
Boris von Bormann
Managing Partner, renu ventures
Boris is founder and managing partner of renu ventures, a growth capital and venture fund targeting the convergence of transportation and energy. As former CEO of Mercedes-Benz Energy, Boris has been on the cutting edge of transformation in mobility and energy. He was formerly U.S. CEO for Sonnen, a leading global manufacturer of residential energy storage.
Harry Campbell
Advisor/ Ridesharing, CoMotion, Founder & CEO, The Ridesharing Guy
Harry Campbell is CEO and founder of The Rideshare Guy, a media business that covers the rideshare industry and is one of the top content destinations for Uber and Lyft drivers, and gig workers around the world. Harry has quickly established himself as a rideshare and mobility expert with appearances in hundreds of media publications and his site is trafficked by close to a million visitors every single month. His latest book, The Rideshare Guide teaches drivers everything they need to know about driving for Uber, Lyft and other ridesharing companies.
Ashley Z. Hand
Senior Advisor, CoMotion, Co-Founder, CityFi
AIA, LEED AP BD+C is co-founder of the urban change management advisory firm CityFi, advising cities and the private sector on a more human-centered approach to smart cities. Previously, Ashley served as the Transportation Technology Strategist for the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation where she developed public policy, an action plan and pilot program recommendations for shared mobility and autonomous vehicle technologies. Prior to her work in LA, Ashley served as the first Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Kansas City, Missouri and the first female municipal CIO in the nation, creating the most comprehensive smart city in North America among other civic innovation projects. Ashley is a registered architect and green building professional having worked for AECOM and Eric Owen Moss Architects. She currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Carnegie Mellon University Traffic21/T-SET University Transportation Center and Open Architecture Collaborative and is an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy.
Hassan Jameel
Deputy President & Vice Chairman, Abdul Latif Jameel (ALJ) Saudi Arabia
Hassan is the Deputy President and Vice Chairman of Abdul Latif Jameel and oversees the domestic operations in the automotive, land and real estate, and machinery sectors in Saudi Arabia. ALJ is a global operator and investor with a strong track-record of investments in energy and the future of mobility such as US electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian.
Alex Roy
Global Advisory Board, Director of Special Projects
Alex is the founder of the Human Driving Association, Editor-at-Large at The Drive, host of new mobility podcast The Autonocast, co-host of /DRIVE on NBC Sports and author of The Driver. He is a well-known racing car driver and has set numerous endurance driving records, including the famous Cannonball Run record — in which Alex drove from New York to Los Angeles in 31 hours and 4 minutes. Last December, Alex and co-driver Dan Zorrilla set a record for a coast-to-coast sprint in an electric car, when they drove a Tesla Model 3 from New York to Los Angeles in 50 hours and 16 minutes.
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