Cityfi Expands to Europe!

Sep 8

Written By Cityfi

Team Cityfi could not be more thrilled to announce our expansion to Europe! A natural progression of our firm’s growth, establishing a global footprint will bring our holistic and unique strategies, action plans, and practical solutions to public, private, and nongovernmental entities across the continent. We seek to catalyze bilateral partnerships and knowledge exchange between North America and Europe by leveraging our deep expertise in civic innovation, business advisory, mobility, policy design, technology, and government affairs.

The one and only Evan Costagliola, Senior Principal and Co-Leader of our Mobility Systems and Reimagined Streets practice area, will be spearheading the Cityfi Europe office in the emerging innovation hub of Utrecht, Netherlands. As you may well know, he is entrepreneurial, outcome-oriented, both strategic and tactical, and adept at forging partnerships, only a handful of qualities that position him to successfully lead our international expansion. Furthermore, our deep bench of leadership and staff–including Story Bellows, Karina Ricks, Andrew Wishnia, Alexander Kapur, and Brandon Pollak–bring a wealth of global experience and connections to our European and existing clients as we help them thrive anywhere in the world.

As a multidisciplinary collective and team, we have always differentiated ourselves by our humanistic, nimble, and swift approach to enacting meaningful change for cities and communities. Embodying this ethos, we aim to test new futures, accelerate physical and digital transformation in cities, and build a pipeline of innovative policy, product, and investment between North America and Europe. Our insights and methodologies will continue to intersect across our six core practice areas, enabling us to deliver novel, bespoke, and visionary solutions for our clients and the interconnected spaces in which they operate.

Our team is driven by opportunities that advance positive, real-world outcomes for communities, people, and the planet and sees immense potential in extending our reach overseas to help both future and existing clients facilitate this evolution by tapping into international markets and contexts. Whether you could use support at a global, federal/national, state, regional, or local level, we at Cityfi and Cityfi Europe would love to collaborate with you and explore how we can serve as trusted partners to meet your strategic objectives and priorities. Please reach out to anyone on our team, drop us a note at info@cityfi.co, or connect with us on LinkedIn to learn more about our expansion across the pond and discover opportunities to work together. Spreek je snel!

Cityfi Europe: What’s Next?

By Evan Costagliola

Just days away from moving from an American center of civic and mobility innovation (Seattle, Washington) to a global center of sustainable and human-centered city design (Utrecht, Netherlands), I find myself reflecting on how Cityfi Europe came to life. Much like how we engage with our clients, a clear vision built on outcomes, a healthy dose of initiative and creativity, and some guts led to me opening our European presence.

At its core, Cityfi is a multidisciplinary collective that questions the status quo, imagines possible futures, and architects effective tools for action. Cityfi Europe was born out of these three fundamental elements of our firm. While Cityfi leaps into a new era, our point of view, values, and methods remain unchanged. So what’s on Cityfi Europe’s agenda and what gets us excited?

Build bilateral, transatlantic value. Whether we are formulating transnational mobility initiatives, helping European companies scale to the United States, or facilitating policy innovation cohorts, we aim to connect the American and European innovation communities on matters of climate, mobility, technology, data, and more.
Accelerate rapid results on outcomes that matter. We are hyper-focused on positive outcomes in cities–whether it is climate, equity, or building healthy and resilient communities. We are concerned about the pace of action, watered-down implementation, and lack of entrepreneurial spirit and are motivated to drive meaningful impact for our clients. We will build partnerships with policy innovators, experimenters, and organizations looking to see results - fast.
Expand the policy, product, and investment pipeline. We see an opportunity to develop a pipeline of ideas and innovative policies amongst American and European agencies. We want to help European startups and technology companies find pathways to the funding-rich American marketplace, building strong partnerships with public agencies along the way. We will advise investment portfolios and venture capital funds to ensure the biggest and most realistic ideas are capitalized.
Experiment with a people-first mentality. Cityfi is well regarded for developing pilot frameworks, building cohorts of cities and companies to test big ideas, and then telling a compelling story that can lead to lasting policy change. In our mind, ideas are not enough; and so we support our clients as they test, deliver, and scale big ideas–from zero-emission zones and mobility data to digital literacy and ethical AI. This type of activation is needed in Europe, and we are thrilled to partner with cities, think tanks, academia, foundations, and Europe’s start-up community to deliver and celebrate experimentation.
Tell a compelling story. Cityfi crafts human-centered, outcome-focused stories. We want to build alongside you but also ensure that your ideas take root through creative storytelling and data interpretation.