Senior Manager for Sustainable Development
UITP (The International Association of Public Transport)

Heather Allen is a Senior Manager for the Sustainable Development Charter of the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), an international network for public transport authorities and operators, policy decision-makers, scientific institutes and the public transport supply and service industry. Launched in 2003, UITP's Sustainable Development Charter has more than 150 members from public and private sector organizations in 25 different countries. These members monitor, measure and report on their own performance in public transport. The charter has been credited with motivating the sector and increasing awareness of the contribution of public transport to achieving international goals.

As Senior Manger of the Sustainable Development Charter Allen is the main contact for UITP's work with international agencies such as the United Nations (Commission of Sustainable Development (CSD), UNDESA, the Environment Programme UNEP, UNFCCC (United Nations Framework for Climate Change), UNHABITAT and others. In addition, Allen leads UITP's international activities on climate change with a focus on the Copenhagen meeting at the end of 2009.

Executive Director
League of American Bicyclists

Andy Clarke was appointed Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists in April of 2004, after successfully leading efforts to create, interpret and implement a number of transportation programs to improve conditions for bicycling and walking as the League's State and Local Advocacy Director. Before joining the League in February 2003, Clarke was on contract to provide technical assistance to the highly regarded Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center on site at the Federal Highway Administration. In addition to his strong policy background, Clarke has managed a range of bicycle and pedestrian planning projects at the state and metropolitan levels and has worked extensively with state and local advocacy groups. Clarke is a 1984 graduate of the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom with an undergraduate degree in Law. He is on the Board of Directors for America Bikes, and a member of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycling Professionals.

Director
NS Fiets BV

Herman Gelissen has been the Director of NS Fiets BV, a company that markets 88 secured bicycle stores and 21 bicycle repair shops throughout The Netherlands, since 2007. His mission is to promote bicycle use as part of the public transport travel chain. Under his tenure at NS Fiets BV, Gelissen has worked extensively with local and regional authorities, consumer organizations and ProRail – the company which manages rail infrastructure in The Netherlands – to achieve this goal.

Prior to joining NS Fiets BV, Gelissen served as the Director of Marketing and Sales for Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) where, among other successes, developed Sternet, one of the first urban district public transport models. He has also served as Senior Product Manager at Intec, an AKZO company, and as Product Manager for the National Tourist Agency in The Hague, The Netherlands. Gelissen holds an MBA from Temple University.

Researcher and Consultant
Shared Space Institute

Pieter de Haan is internationally-recognized for his work researching and evaluating shared space schemes in the Netherlands. Presently, de Haan is a researcher and consultant to the Shared Space Institute in Drachten. In addition, he is the coordinator of the Master course for European Traffic and Transportation within a consortium of 6 European Universities.

Prior to this engagement, de Haan served as a visiting professor at the Nottingham Trent University (UK) and Hasselt University (Belgium), where he taught courses on psychology and sociology, the quality of public space, and European Policy on transportation and research methods. Previously, de Haan was a Professor and the Chair of the Traffic Engineering program at the Hogeschool Leeuwarden, a university for applied sciences. De Haan has also served as manager at the Department of Justice in the Netherlands, where he worked in the Dutch Caribbean islands, the Netherlands Antilles. De Haan holds an M.A. in Cognitive and Perceptual Psychology from Groningen University.

Sustainable Mobility Expert
Balancia

Arjen Jaarsma is a visionary expert with 13 years of experience in urban transport and sustainable mobility. In 2006, he founded Balancia, a consulting company in sustainable mobility which seeks to make traffic and transport systems economically, socially and ecologically sustainable. Balancia focuses its consulting on public transport, cycling policy, parking policy, traffic safety and low carbon cities.

Under his tenure at Balancia, Jaarsma has worked on a large range of projects in the Netherlands and abroad, including the Dubai Master Bicycle Plan (United Arab Emirates), dynamic passenger information for public transport in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), a project called Biking2skool=Cool (in the Netherlands), public transport and parking in Mombasa (Kenya) and a European appraisal of strategies for securing public values in public transportation. In addition, Jaarsma is a representative in the EU research project COST BHLS: Buses with High Levels of Service.

VP, Sustainable Mobility
Rabobank, Nederlands

Willem de Jager is Head of Mobile Business Development for Rabobank. Through his work on sustainable mobility, he has found a unique and innovative way to combine the strongly developed "social" side of Rabobank with its commercial interests. Willem has initiated important joint employers' initiatives, focusing on the demand side of mobility in several urban regions in the Netherlands, including Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam. He has also proposed combining road pricing schemes with positive "rewarding" incentives.

Prior to his work at Rabobank, Willem developed an eBusiness strategy for Corporate Philips Electronics. For twenty five years, beginning in the early 1970s, he focused on business innovation in high-tech firms such as Xerox Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation and KPN Telecom. He was born in 1949 and has four children and two grandchildren.

Executive Director
Velo Mondial

Pascal J.W. van den Noort is the Executive Director of Velo Mondial, the premier global sustainable mobility and cycling network, and is the founder of Velo Mondial's "Amsterdam Cycling to Sustainability" initiative. He is also a partner in CIVITAS MIMOSA, one of Europe's flagship projects in sustainable mobility. Prior to Velo Mondial, he was the founding Executive Director of the Dutch AIDS Foundation, as well as of the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+).

Van den Noort is a Member of the Advisory Board of the World Carfree Network and serves on the board of the foundation "In The Footsteps Of Mandela." He is a correspondent to World Streets and a member of the International Advisory Council to The New Mobility Agenda.

Ruth Oldenziel is a Professor at the Technical University of Eindhoven. Previously she served as a Fellow at the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware, and as a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the Lemelson Center in Washington, and the Social Science Research Insitute in Amsterdam. She was also a Senior Fulbright Fellow at Georgetown University.

Over the past ten years, Oldenziel has been Chair and Team Leader of several international ESF grants, and has been an invited speaker and guest lecturer at many universities, including Stanford, Princeton, Michigan, Sorbonne, Science Museum London, Berlin Free University, Munich TU, University of Antwerp, KU Leuven, Central University Budapest, and University of Athens. She regularly serves as a commentator on American issues for Dutch radio, TV, and print media, and recently joined the talkshow De Tafel van 5, the Dutch version of The View. Her publications include more than seven books and articles in the area of American, gender and technology studies, including her latest book, Cold War Kitchen. Americanization, Technology, and Users, published in 2009. Currently Oldenzeil is completing her research for Islands as Stepping Stones of the American Empire, 1898-2004, and is working on a monograph, tentatively titled Appropriating America. Making Europe, with Mikael Hard, author of Urban Machinery (2008).

Oldenziel received her PhD from Yale University in American History in 1992 after graduate training in American Studies at Smith College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Amsterdam.