Creative Economy Development
Helping Cities Build a Creative Economy That Works
We work with cities and organizations to develop and put into practice policies that strengthen the creative economy. We focus on three connected challenges:
Creating greater economic security for creative workers;
building the infrastructure and systems the creative economy needs to thrive;
and helping governments organize, coordinate, and administer
creative economy policy.
Understand
Start with the place, the people, and what's already there. Listen to stakeholders, examine data and existing policies, map resources and relationships, and understand how things actually work.
How We Work
Explore
Bring expertise to the exploration. Draw on the team’s experience across cities, government, creative industries, and policy, alongside research and lessons from other communities, to examine possibilities and determine what might make sense locally.
Shape
Turn what we’ve learned into practical options and next steps. Help clients clarify priorities, weigh options and trade-offs, identify partners, and decide what is worth pursuing, testing, or developing.
Maryann Lombardi
Maryann Lombardi has spent more than 25 years working across local government, higher education, and the nonprofit sector, bringing together the people, resources, and ideas needed to strengthen the creative economy and the communities they serve.
Her leadership has spanned New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC, with a focus on the intersection of creative economy policy and practice. Most recently In DC government, she served as the first-ever DC Director of Creative Economy and the inaugural Associate Director of the Office of Creative Affairs, helping establish a citywide approach to the creative economy.
Today, through her own consulting practice, Maryann works with clients navigating a rapidly changing creative economy. Her work focuses on three interconnected areas: creative labor policy and economic security; the development of the infrastructure and systems the creative economy needs to thrive; and how cities and governments organize, administer, and coordinate creative economy policy.