Ellen Woodsworth is the founder of Women Transforming Cities International Society and Co-Chairperson. She works to make cities work for self identified women and girls all over the world from local neighbourhoods to global gatherings like UN Habitat 3. She thinks that women and girls work for cities but cities don’t work for women and girls. She believes cities must put a gendered intersectional lens and use disaggregated data on policies, programmes, budgets, funding, staffing and governance in order to create women-friendly cities. 

Ellen is an international speaker and urban consultant on gender and intersectional planning. She is a former Vancouver City Councillor and was their representative on the Executive of Union of B.C. Municipalities and the Lower Mainland Treaty Advisory Committee. Ellen provides workshops for cities and NGO’s using “Advancing Equity and Inclusion a Guide for Municipalities”. She spoke at the UN Habitat 3 conferences in Prague and in Quito and at the Smart Sustainable Cities conference in Montevideo, Uruguay as well as participating in the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights meeting about the “Right to the City” and housing. She also spoke at WUF 9 in Kuala Lumpur and moderated the Women Transforming Cities launch of the Women Friendly Cities Challenge. She spoke at WUF 10 on LGTBQI2S issues in Abu Dhabi and been a consultant to UN Habitat on LGTBQi2S issues. She is coordinating the Hot Pink Municipal Campaign, which focuses on 11 issues that could make cities women-friendly. She gives talks on how to put a gendered intersectional lens on everything from climate change, housing, transit, electoral reform and COVID 19. 

Celene Fung is an accomplished Urban Planner with 20 years experience in building inclusive healthy communities. Her career includes leading interdisciplinary teams in the planning and designing cities, institutional facilities and community projects for government agencies, non-profits organizations and private businesses. She is currently focused on international development work. Celene recently returned from Mongolia, where she helped launch the Mongolian Geographic Indicators Yak Fibre Community Economic Development Project. The Vision of the Project is to create a sustainable economic model to improve rural livelihoods by promoting Mongolian yak fibre to international markets and reinvesting profits to support local economic development initiatives. In support of her professional portfolio, Celene’s background includes a Masters of Arts in Community and Regional Planning, a Bachelors of Arts in Geography and Archaeology, and Certificates in Urban Design and Spatial Information Systems. Celene truly believes that improving access for vulnerable community members and empowering women and girls in leadership roles will help transform our communities to be more equitable and democratic for everyone.