TUMI 2026 Conference

Pablo Quiñonez is the Deputy Mayor of Loja, Ecuador, and chairs the Commission of Production, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship on the Loja City Council. Since becoming a councillor in 2023, he has worked on legislative initiatives spanning several areas, including economic development, digital transformation, sustainable mobility, and green infrastructure.

He is an economist and holds a master’s degree in Development Economics and Policy from the University of Manchester (UK) and a master’s degree in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford (UK). For a decade, he has worked in academia as a university professor and accredited researcher, teaching at several universities across Ecuador.

Dr Philipp Rode is Executive Director of LSE Cities, Associate Professorial Research Fellow and Associate Professor (Education) at the School of Public Policy. He is Co-Director of the LSE Executive MSc in Cities and Visiting Professor at University of St Gallen’s Institute for Mobility. Dr Rode is Co-Chair of the Bloomberg LSE European City Leadership Initiative and leads its City Government Innovation Observatory and Lab. He has been leading interdisciplinary programmes in urban development and transport, sustainable urbanism and climate change, and city policy and governance at the LSE since 2003. Across his work, he is interested in multi-dimensional aspects of global urbanisation, sustainability and urban change.

Sartaj Lamba is Founder and CEO of Buddy Mobility Care in Chandigarh, India, providing accessible, dignified transport for senior citizens and persons with disabilities. She built the company after struggling to arrange safe hospital travel for his bedridden father-in-law, who lived with Parkinson’s disease. Lamba now works to make accessibility a standard part of India’s transport infrastructure, built in from the start rather than added on as a specialised service later.

Dr. Sergio Oliete Josa is Head of Unit for Sustainable Transport and Urban Development at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships. A civil engineer by training, Dr. Oliete Josa holds a PhD in Transport Engineering and Infrastructure from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and a DESS in Urban Planning from the Université de Montréal.

He joined the European Commission in the Delegations to Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cameroon, where he spent 15 years and gained extensive experience in international cooperation in the field of transport infrastructure. In the context of the EU Global Gateway, he is now based in Brussels advising EU Delegations on policy and providing support to ensure the quality of the operations.

Heavy transport is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, and East Africa has had to do it without waiting for infrastructure that doesn’t yet exist. Tamara led Scania to become the first in the region to introduce Euro 4 and Euro 5 engines, and East Africa’s first biodiesel truck fleet, all while training a new generation of women drivers in a nearly all-male industry. Tamara made a simple bet: the fastest way to change an industry’s habits is to change who gets to drive that change from inside it. The driver training programs she has built into Scania’s strategy are her following through on that.

Ted Wong is a Data Scientist on the Urban Analytics team at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. He develops data products, analytical tools, and training resources to support governments and communities in equitable, data-driven planning processes for sustainability, resilience, and livability. His projects include indicator design and development for the CityMetrics data platform, geospatial data analysis supporting community planning for nature-based solutions, data analysis and modeling of urban mobility and exposure to extreme heat, probabilistic modeling of future climate hazards, trainings on data strategy for clean energy planning, and an online course on data strategy for urban biodiversity planning.

Ted has a PhD in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, and a Master of Forest Science degree from the Yale School of the Environment. He teaches occasional courses in data analytics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he lives.

Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel has been representing GIZ as Chair of the Management Board since 2022. He has been a member of the GIZ Management Board since 2019 and is responsible for the Human Relations Department as Labour Relations Director​.

Vishwajeet Chaudhary serves as CEO of Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited and Additional CEO of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority. In these roles, his responsibilities span public transport operations, urban infrastructure, and long-term development planning for a city of several million residents.

His current portfolio includes city bus operations and the induction of electric buses under the PM-eBus Sewa scheme, intelligent transport systems, a public-private partnership medical college project valued at approximately ₹830 crore, stormwater and drainage infrastructure, and metro-adjacent urban development. He also oversees water and sewerage infrastructure planned to a 2047 horizon, alongside public-private partnership agreements structured for 30-year operating periods.

His earlier assignments include district administration in Charkhi Dadri and Gurugram, as well as election management.

He holds an engineering degree from Delhi College of Engineering and a management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Outside his professional work, he competes in 10m Air Pistol shooting and reads and writes Urdu poetry.

As the Director of Infrastructure at the Central Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency (CCTTFA), she leads and manages large-scale regional infrastructure projects across the Railway, Road, Ports, and Maritime sectors. Her role also includes harmonizing transport policies, advising Member States, and facilitating public-private partnership dialogues.

With a proven track record in resource mobilization and securing funding, she has worked with major development partners including the European Union, European Investment Bank, Islamic Development Bank, World Bank, TMEA, AfDB, JICA, AUDA-NEPAD, BADEA, and Exim Bank.