How Do We Invest in City Transitions & The People Who Live Here?

In a career spanning over 30 years, I have worked with some of the leading financial services businesses in the UK and internationally. I have focussed on developing lending propositions across a range of demographics from high net worth through to those that are underserved by mainstream banks. Over the last 15 years, I have been involved firsthand (through for and not for profit organisations) in supporting individuals (and micro businesses) with affordable credit, helping those individuals and the communities in which they live build financial resilience.

Louisa is an established social entrepreneur who founded Benchmark an award winning ethical recruitment firm in 2006 which she exited in 2022 following a successful MBO.

Now Chief Executive of The Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, Chair of Sheffield Business Together ( a consortium of private sector organisations harnessing their resources and expertise to tackle key social issues in the City supported by Business In The Community).

She is also a trustee at St Luke’s Hospice, South Yorkshire Housing Association and a Regional Advisory Board Member for the international leadership development organisation Common Purpose UK, as well as a board member on the Higher Education Partnership (HEP) which is a collaboration between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University to improve educational attainments in structurally disadvantaged parts of Sheffield. Amateur cricketer and keen vegetable grower in her spare time 😉

Indy Johar is focused on the strategic design of new super scale civic assets for transition - specifically at the intersection of financing, contracting and governance for deeply democratic futures.

Indy is co-founder of darkmatterlabs.org and of the RIBA award winning architecture and urban practice Architecture00 - https://www.architecture00.net, a founding director of open systems lab - https://www.opensystemslab.io (digitising planning), seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) - https://www.wikihouse.cc and Open Desk (open source furniture company) https://www.opendesk.cc.

Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub https://bloxhub.org (Denmark Copenhagen) - the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization and was 2016-17 Graham Willis Visiting Professorship at Sheffield University. He was also Studio Master at the Architectural Association - 2019-2020, UNDP Innovation Facility Advisory Board Member 2016-20 and RIBA Trustee 2017-20. He has taught & lectured at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New School.

Most recently, he was awarded the London Design Medal for Innovation in 2022.