Chip Chip 8/25/26 Chip Chip 8/25/26

Chelsea Ritter-Soronen

Chelsea Ritter-Soronen is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, small business owner and public arts consultant. She is the Founding Principal of Ground Shift Studio, a mural company specializing in pavement art, established in 2013 (originally named Chalk Riot).

Chip Chip 8/18/26 Chip Chip 8/18/26

Rahul Kadri

Partner & Principal Architect M.U.P.
Visionary behind the Malabar Hill Forest Trail

Chip Chip 6/30/26 Chip Chip 6/30/26

Michael Edwards

Michael Edwards led the Chicago Loop Alliance from November 2012 to March 2026. The Chicago 'Loop' is America's iconic downtown. Chicago Loop Alliance creates, manages and promotes high performing urban experiences attracting people and investment. Critical accomplishments include a (2) new 5 year strategic action plans, comprehensive street team program, activation of under-performing public spaces, post pandemic Sundays on State and a renewed leadership role in Chicago.

Chip Chip 6/30/26 Chip Chip 6/30/26

Kathleen Rawson

Kathleen Rawson is a place management professional with more than 30 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, public space management, placemaking, and hospitality. Rawson currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for The Hollywood Partnership, the non-profit organization that manages the Hollywood Entertainment District, including the world-renowned Walk of Fame. Before her new role in Hollywood, Rawson served as CEO of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. (DTSM, Inc.) from 1997 to 2022.

Chip Chip 6/15/26 Chip Chip 6/15/26

Cristin Cooper

Rev. Cristin Cooper is a pastor, chef, entrepreneur, and founder of Coop’s Soups, a social enterprise that grew from her experiments gathering neighbors around soup and bread as an unconventional form of ministry. Her work uses food, hospitality, and everyday encounters to build relationships, combat loneliness, and create a deeper sense of belonging and community.

Chip Chip 6/15/26 Chip Chip 6/15/26

Cara Courage

Dr. Cara Courage is a placemaking practitioner, researcher, writer, and cultural strategist whose work explores the relationships between culture, community, and place.

Chip Chip 6/15/26 Chip Chip 6/15/26

Amy Kaherl

Amy Kaherl is a Detroit-based community organizer who helped build and lead Detroit SOUP, the celebrated microgranting dinner that brought people together over a shared meal to hear ideas for improving their city and collectively decide which ones to fund. Building on a participatory dinner model that originated in Chicago, Amy and her collaborators helped turn Detroit SOUP into a powerful local institution—and an approach that would itself inspire similar gatherings around the world—demonstrating how food, small amounts of money, and a simple act of gathering can create meaningful opportunities for civic participation and connection.

Chip Chip 5/26/26 Chip Chip 5/26/26

Chris Murphy

Chris Murphy is the President of the Santa Cruz Warriors and Senior Vice President of Franchise Development for the parent club, the Golden State Warriors. He has spent over two decades with the organization, rising from entry-level ticket sales to leading the NBA G League franchise since the fall of 2015.

Chip Chip 5/26/26 Chip Chip 5/26/26

Molly Alexander

For more than three decades, Molly Alexander has built a distinguished career in downtown revitalization and economic development, spanning leadership roles in both the public and private sectors.

In 2022, Molly founded Imagine The Possibilities (ITP) Consulting, working with clients and communities around the country on retail revitalization, community redevelopment and business strategy. In addition to her consulting work, she owns and operates Elgin Dry Goods an award-winning retail establishment in downtown Elgin, Texas. In April 2025, she sold her flagship store The Owl Wine Bar & Home Goods Store.

Chip Chip 5/12/26 Chip Chip 5/12/26

Shane Zahn

Shane Zahn is Senior Director of Community Safety for the Minneapolis Downtown Council and Downtown Improvement District, where he has helped shape downtown safety strategy since the DID’s creation in 2009.

Chip Chip 4/28/26 Chip Chip 4/28/26

Sarah Luca

Sarah Luca is an urbanist and community builder who served as chair of the board of Jane’s Walk, the global movement of free, community-led walking conversations inspired by the work and ideas of Jane Jacobs.

Chip Chip 4/28/26 Chip Chip 4/28/26

Anastasia Sukhoroslova

Anastasia Sukhoroslova is a Berlin-based urbanist, community builder, and founder and CEO of All Things Urban, a global platform connecting urban professionals with ideas, opportunities, organizations, and one another. What began as an effort to connect a highly interdisciplinary field has grown into a community approaching 100,000 people around the world, spanning planning, mobility, sustainability, technology, design, and other forms of citymaking.

Chip Chip 4/13/26 Chip Chip 4/13/26

tamika l. butler

tamika l. butler (she/her or they/them) is a doctoral student in Urban Planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research employs a critical race, historical, legal, and policy-based approach to examine how transportation policy and infrastructure have been used to segregate, isolate, and prevent the mobility of Black and other historically oppressed groups of people.

Chip Chip 3/23/26 Chip Chip 3/23/26

Jaime Izurieta

Jaime Izurieta is an architect, designer, urban development consultant, and founder of Storefront Mastery, where he works with downtown organizations and small businesses to rethink the relationship between storefronts, sidewalks, and thriving local economies.

Chip Chip 3/23/26 Chip Chip 3/23/26

Michael Berne

Michael Berne is a consultant and thought-leader in all things Retail.

Chip Chip 3/10/26 Chip Chip 3/10/26

Evan Weissman

Evan Weissman was a Denver-based artist, organizer, and civic provocateur who founded Warm Cookies of the Revolution, a “civic health club” that used art, culture, conversation, and a healthy dose of playfulness to get people engaged in civic life. His work explored how democracy could become something people actively practice together—not simply something they participate in at election time.

Chip Chip 2/24/26 Chip Chip 2/24/26

Breonna McCree

Breonna McCree is Co-Executive Director of The Transgender District in San Francisco. She leads groundbreaking programs focused on economic empowerment, public safety, and wellness for trans and TGNC communities. With over a decade of experience in community health and advocacy, Breonna is a powerful voice for equity, healing, and trans liberation.

Chip Chip 2/24/26 Chip Chip 2/24/26

Susan Stryker

Stryker is the author of Transgender History, a widely used introduction to the political and cultural history of transgender communities in the United States, and co-director, with Victor Silverman, of the Emmy Award-winning documentary Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. The film helped recover the history of a 1966 uprising by transgender women and queer people at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin—one of the earliest documented acts of collective queer resistance to police harassment in the United States.

Chip Chip 2/24/26 Chip Chip 2/24/26

Mark Nassar

Mark Nassar was a writer/ producer for Compton’s Cafeteria Riots, an immersive theater production reliving the 1966 Trans uprising in San Fransisco’s Tenderloin District.

Chip Chip 2/24/26 Chip Chip 2/24/26

Kate Robinson

Kate Robinson is the Executive Director of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District (TLCBD) in San Francisco