Lucinda Hartley is an award-winning urban designer, a cofounder of world-leading social analytics company Neighbourlytics, and a globally recognised expert in smart cities and social change.  

Named as one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women by the Australian Financial Review, Lucinda is a technology leader who offers inspiration and practical advice on the future of living, the future of work and how technology can be a force for good in turbulent times.  

Lucinda is an ‘urban futurist’ who has spent the past decade pioneering innovative solutions for improving cities and neighbourhoods, now adopted globally. She helped create the UN Sustainable Development Goals for cities (Goal 11), has delivered more than 100 neighbourhood improvement projects across Australia through her social enterprise CoDesign Studio and is now spearheading world leading technology for measuring neighbourhood lifestyle and wellbeing using digital data, as Founding Director of Neighbourlytics.  

Lucinda’s passion for cities and neighbourhoods began in childhood, growing up in Kenya, Zimbabwe and a host of other countries where she saw first-hand how your postcode is as likely to affect your life expectancy as your genetic code. From this point she built a career seeking new ways to live.  As a keynote speaker, Lucinda draws on her experience across emerging technology and design to inspiration to some of the most important questions of our time: how we live, work, connect and build community.

Current Work

As an urban futurist Lucinda advises government, business, and technology leaders on innovation strategies for smart cities. She has worked with Google, UN-Habitat, Planning Ministers, MPs and major Property Developers to shape some of the world’s most significant urban renewal projects.  

Lucinda is a Founding Director of Neighbourlytics, a social analytics platform for neighbourhoods. Neighbourlytics’ proprietary technology taps into the digital footprint of a neighbourhood to understand it’s lifestyle and wellbeing. Neighbourlytics has scaled rapidly across 2000 neighbourhoods in 12 countries. Neighbourlytics was named as one of 20 Start-ups to Watch by Smart Company, and listed in the Deloitte Fast 50.  Lucinda is one of Australia’s sought after voices on cities and social change, and a regular media commentator on the future of cities. She has been featured regularly in the ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, Qantas Magazine, Vogue Magazine and The Age where she was named one of Melbourne’s Top 100 Most influential people.  

A designer turned technology founder, Lucinda is alumni of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Singularity University. She does not separate work and personal life: first we shape our cities, then they shape us.  

Previous Work

Prior to cofounding Neighbourlytics, Lucinda founded placemaking social enterprise CoDesign Studio. Between 2014-2017 CoDesign a was Australia’s largest placemaking consultancy, delivering over 100 neighbourhood improvement projects from community gardens to pop up parks.  

She served as an elected youth advisor for UN-Habitat for 5 years, advocating for the inclusion of young people in the development of the Sustainable Development Goals. The direct references to women and youth in SDG 11: Cities are directly attributable to her work.  

Awards and Recognition

Telstra Best of Business Awards State Finalist (2022)
Veuve Clicquot Bold Women Award Finalist (2021)
Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence (2019)
Deloitte Fast 50 Rising Star (2019)
Myer Innovation Fellow (2018)
Westpac Social Change Fellow (2018)
 iAwards Startup of the Year, Australian Information Industry Association (2018)  Planning Institute of Australia, Awards for Excellence (VIC Winner (2017)
Westpac Business of Tomorrow (2017)
Place Leaders Award, Place Leaders Asia Pacific (2015)
Social Enterprise of the Year, Social Traders (2015)
Melbourne Design Awards, Winner, Community Category (2014, 2015)
Planning Institute of Australia, Awards for Excellence VIC Winner (2014)
Planning Institute of Australia, Awards for Excellence WA Winner (2014) 

Exclusively represented by Saxton.