Jayne Engle leads City Initiatives at the McConnell Foundation, including the Cities for People ecosystem, which fosters inclusive civic innovation through grants and investments, collaborative experimentation, thought partnerships, and experiential learning. Cities for People has recently seeded new ventures, including Future Cities Canada and Legitimacities. Jayne’s background is in urban planning and policy, community and economic development, and participatory practice and research. She has worked in multiple countries and sectors, ranging from a Peace Corps tour of duty in economic development in Eastern Europe post-fall of the Berlin wall, to the formation of Business Improvement Districts and real estate adaptive reuse in US cities, to transnational planning with cities in the European Union, sustainability planning with the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre, and doctoral fieldwork in post-earthquake Haiti. She is passionate about bridging transformative community action on the ground with policy and systems change, particularly in ways that foster freedom and flourishing of people. She holds a PhD in Urban Planning, Policy and Design from McGill University, where she is an Adjunct Professor. Her other degrees are from the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Eastern University. She serves on many advisory boards and juries, including Participatory City, PlacemakingX, Beyond Borders, and the Intelligent Communities Forum, and she is a member of the Club of Ambassadors in Montreal for co-convening the Ecocity World Summit there in 2011. She lives on the Plateau in Montreal with her two wonderful teenagers.

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