Sheila Watson is Deputy Director of the FIA Foundation, a UK-based Charity which is committed to promoting safe sustainable mobility across the world.

Sheila leads the Foundation’s work on environmental and sustainability issues, clean air and gender, as well as its research programme. She is also Executive Secretary to the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI), which seeks to support the development of fuel economy policies across the world, and The Real Urban Emissions Initiative (TRUE) which uses real world emissions data to support the uptake of clean vehicles. Sheila is a board member of several mobility initiatives and projects such as the World Bank’s sustainable mobility for all (SUM4ALL) project. She was recently named as one of the 40 most influential women in transport by the German Government.

An economist, with many years’ experience as an advisor and consultant, her previous role was as Senior Special Adviser to the UK Labour government at the Department for Trade and Industry, The Privy Council, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Foreign Office. During the 10 years she spent at the heart of the UK government, she specialised in a range of environmental and resource protection issues from sustainable farming and food production to international climate security. Her former roles include Deputy Director of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, and Policy Researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Sheila has an Honours Degree from the University of Oxford, and an MSc in Economics from Birkbeck College, London.

Jacob manages data collection, reporting, and evaluation for ITDP globally. He specializes in strategic research that drives the conversation about sustainable transportation and development, assessing new technologies and identifying new, quantifiable ways of meeting program goals.

Jacob has been the lead researcher for many of ITDP’s most recognized publications, including the Bike Share Planning Guide, the BRT Standard, and A Global High Shift Cycling Scenario and Three Revolutions in Urban Transport, quantifying the multi-trillion-dollar savings in transportation costs and massive reductions in CO2 emissions possible through more sustainable urban transport. He also oversaw the production of ITDP’s People Near Transit report, which developed and measured an international metric for rapid transit coverage, which has since been adopted by city, national, and international governments.

Jacob has been responsible for data collection analysis—and, often, metric development—for ITDP projects worldwide, including a walkability study in five African cities and a BRT project in Nairobi, Kenya. Within the World Bank’s Sustainable Mobility for All program, Jacob co-chairs the Urban Access working group, which is developing sustainable urban transport indicators that are shared across multiple international institutions.

Jacob has a master’s in urban planning from McGill University (Montreal) and a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Columbia University.

Before joining ITDP, Gashaw was the team leader of the transport and road network planning department for the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the past six years. His responsibilities included planning the city’s road network, leasing with stakeholders, and planning the city’s parking and terminal provisions. Gashaw has extensive experience as a consultant having previously worked with three consulting firms. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Addis Ababa University and a Masters Degree in Urban Administration and Planning from the University of Seoul in Korea.