Driving Public Innovation: A Global Conversation

Tommi Laitio is the inaugural Bloomberg Public Innovation Fellow at the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University. The fellowship is an opportunity for innovative public sector leaders to take two years to reflect on their work and develop new knowledge.

Tommi Laitio brings to the fellowship a decade of senior city leadership experience from Helsinki. He joined the City of Helsinki as Director of Youth Affairs and was later elected as the first Executive Director of Culture and Leisure – with an overall responsibility for arts and culture, sports, public library, and youth work. Before joining the government, he worked for a think tank in Helsinki, ran a youth video festival in Amsterdam, and worked as a newspaper journalist.

During his two-year fellowship at Johns Hopkins, he speaks and writes on his experience in public service and carries out new international research on the skills and practices local governments need for building partnerships for parks and public libraries.

Laitio holds an MA in Political Science from University of Helsinki and an EMBA from Aalto University.

Susan Pettifer is the Director for People, Performance and Technology at the City of Sydney. She is a senior executive with skills in organisational development, modernisation and organisational reform and has experience in the state public and local government sectors.

As part of the Executive team at the City of Sydney, Susan is responsible for leading the people, customer, service development, data and technology functions – with a focus on joining up the people, process and technology components of organisational change to create sustainable reform.

Susan has a strong interest in creating fair and connected organisations and communities. In 2016 she co-authored a book – New Women, New Men, New Economy – on how Creativity, Diversity, Openness and Equity helps organisations thrive in the new economy. Under her leadership the City was awarded the 2019 HR Award for Best Workplace Diversity and Inclusion program.

Susan has post graduate qualifications in science, management and coaching psychology.

Brian brings more than 25 years of professional experience in the public and private sectors to the role of Director of the Office of Performance & Innovation, and Director of Strategic Management for the City of Minneapolis. His background includes work in nonprofit management, county government, for-profit business development, policy consultation, fundraising, lobbying and reform efforts in juvenile justice, human services, health, transportation and education.

He also currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Fortis Capital, a non-profit corporation engaged in economic development finance with an emphasis on providing access to debt capital for businesses owned by persons of color and in marginalized communities. Before joining the City, Brian was owner and president of the Institute on Culture and Policy, a policy consulting firm dedicated to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities through systems change and community engagement. While maintaining his leadership role with the Institute on Culture and Policy, Brian also served as the State of Minnesota’s coordinator for the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative for five years.

Petra is currently the first Chief Innovation Officer in Bratislava. She has a business and NGO background. During her three year tenure at the city of Bratislava she has created the innovation and digital services department with 15 multidisciplinary professionals. Together, they are redesigning and developing new digital services for the city and its organisations. She has established a Bratislava Living Lab with several pilot projects running, deepened the cooperation with academic and business sector as well as international networks. She was the founding Executive Manager at the Slovak Alliance for Innovation Economy (SAPIE), a policy advocacy body and an association of over 75 innovative companies in Slovakia including Facebook, Google, ESET, Pixel Federation and other notable companies. She was responsible for setting the strategic vision, recruiting members and building networks among policy makers in Slovakia and on the EU level. She is also a co-author of the V4 Startup Report and Titans of Tomorrow: Slovak Scaleup Report. Prior her return to Slovakia she worked as the Digital Communications Manager at the Royal Institution of Australia in Adelaide. She was also co-organiser and licensee of various TEDx events in Adelaide and Bratislava.

Anne-Marie Croce is the Program Lead for the Toronto i-team where she integrates Human Centred Design and transformation principles throughout the organisation to support innovation and implement solutions. Prior to this Anne-Marie dipped in and out of the private section, working in different divisions that support civic infrastructure. She has been an active member of the innovation team for five years. Some of her projects include: Tenant Eviction Support, Digitizing City Planning Applications, Increasing Civic Engagement for better decision making, ArtworxsTO, and most recently Affordable Housing initiatives.