Port cities face compounding climate risks: rising seas threaten both port infrastructure and adjacent urban areas, while extreme weather events increasingly disrupt trade and daily life alike. This session, will explore how port authorities and cities can move from fragmented risk management to integrated resilience strategies covering infrastructure design, early warning systems, and long-term adaptation planning.
Past President of the International Union of Architects, and Past Secretary General of the African Union of Architects. He is an avid world traveller, experiencing over 500 cities across 105 countries including most of Africa. He has worked on national projects for various Governments on the African Continent, namely, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Senegal, Seychelles, Swaziland. For his contributions to the Architectural and Urban world, he was awarded several honorary membership and fellowships, and elevated to the rank of Grand Officer of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean by the Government of Mauritius, and elevated to the ranks of Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, and de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic. In-depth understanding of men, cities and global issues. Board Director of Futures Cities UK since July 2013. Past Chairperson of State Land Development Company (Smart Mauritius), Current Chairman of Construction Industry Board since 2015. While operating his Architectural practice in Mauritius, he acts as an educator for various universities in France and China, and travels the world to animate conferences on how to build a more resilient world. To further his contributions to society, Gaetan Siew is the founder of the Global Creative Leadership Initiative, a foundation sharing solutions for a more humane world.
Paolo Menegazzo, born in Venice in 1977, graduated in civil Engineering – specializing in Transport –from the University of Padova with a thesis on transport planning discussed at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen. After an experience as adviser to the Municipality of Brescia, he worked on European planning for four years at the transport department of the Veneto Region. Since 2009 he has worked for the Port Authority of Venice in the Strategic Planning and Development Department. Main fields of activities are traffic planning, improvement of accessibility both on land and sea side. He is now in charge, as unique responsible, of important design for dredging and morphological structures in the lagoon of Venice.
Sho has more than 10 years of experience working on environmental sustainability strategies and green initiatives for countries, cities and large organisations. At the OECD's Cities, Urban Policies and Sustainable Development Division, he supports national and local governments in developing better urban policies to enhance quality of life, drawing on internationally comparable data, evidence-based analysis, and tailored policy recommendations. He currently leads the OECD project on sustainable blue economy and regional development, and has co-authored a range of OECD flagship reports on environmental performance, circular economy, water governance, climate resilience as well as sustainable urban development. Prior to joining the OECD, he was a manager at Bain & Company in Tokyo, where he advised private-sector clients across multiple industries on long-term strategy, sustainability, and investment. Sho holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Mees Tesselaar is a Government Relations Manager at the Port of Amsterdam, specializing in strengthening collaboration between the port, the City of Amsterdam, and regional partners. He works at the intersection of port development, public policy, and government relations. His work focuses on some of the major transitions shaping the Amsterdam port region, including the energy transition, circular economy, sustainable industry, urban development, and the evolving relationship between the port and the city. As one of Europe’s major ports, the Port of Amsterdam plays a leading role in driving these transitions, bringing together government, industry, and other partners to shape a more sustainable and resilient port region.
Savina Carluccio is the Executive Director of the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI) and a leading voice in resilient, sustainable, and nature-positive infrastructure. A Chartered Civil Engineer with extensive hands-on experience, she collaborates with governments, infrastructure owners and operators, multilateral development banks, and NGOs to embed resilience, low-carbon pathways, equity, social inclusion, and biodiversity outcomes into infrastructure policy, planning, and delivery. Her work highlights the critical role of engineers in turning global ambitions into practical, on-the-ground solutions, empowering the profession to deliver meaningful impact for both people and nature in a rapidly changing climate. Her organisation hosts Resilience4Ports, a global initiative that aims to accelerate the implementation of resilience in ports and the wider maritime system.
