Shannon Entz is a Program Planner at the City of Oklahoma City Planning Department where she manages the city’s Strong Neighborhoods Initiative. With more than 22 years in urban planning and project management, she specializes in neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, community engagement, placemaking and public/private partnerships. She is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and a member of the American Planning Association and the Congress of New Urbanism. Since 2012, the SNI program has utilized a targeted and holistic approach to revitalization by engaging three neighborhood associations and dozens of local partners that has resulted in more than $14 million dollars of private investment and a 48 percent reduction in crime. The SNI program received awards from Keep Oklahoma Beautiful and the Oklahoma Chapter of the American Planning Association.

Megan leads local Oklahoma City development projects and an investment portfolio across the United states for Robinson Park Investments. With a passion for driving economic growth, Megan’s position as a partner in Convergence has led her to spearhead the groundbreaking mixed-use development in Oklahoma City’s Innovation District. The development will reshape Oklahoma’s economy through collaboration, innovation, and advanced technology. Megan manages capital for a hospitality portfolio spanning across five cities and is fiercely committed to executing investment strategy promised to investors and maximizing returns.

Michelle V. Mestayer M.Sc. holds the role of full-time Project Manager at Willowbrook. Additionally, she serves as a remote Watershed Specialist for the Southwest Louisiana Regional Planning Commission. Michelle earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the dual disciplines of Commercial Construction Engineering and Real Estate Management from the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Prior to establishing roots in Oklahoma in late 2021, her professional journey has taken her through diverse locations around the globe including, Germany, England, Nigeria, and Louisiana, where she honed her experience in historical reservation and redesign, design engineering, construction management, highway infrastructure, and team building. Michelle serves on the membership committee of the Urban Land Institute, and played an integral role in the STEAM Engine community, co-chairing the inaugural STEMware Fundraising event. Michelle’s recent graduation from Leadership OKC LOYAL Class XVIII has further solidified her commitment to community leadership, as she assumes the role of Class Representative and joins the Leadership OKC Alumni Board.

Cassi Poor joined the Alliance for Economic Development in 2012 and serves as the Director of Real Estate Development. She holds a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from Oklahoma State University and a master's degree in sustainable design with emphasis in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Sydney, Australia. She is a graduate of Leadership Oklahoma City’s Young Adult Leaders and Signature programs. She also serves as President of the Board of Directors with Uptown 23rd District Association and as the Treasurer for ULI Oklahoma.

Gina Sofola, AICP is the President and Principal Consultant of Sofola & Associates, Inc a planning and project management consulting firm. She has thirty-nine years of experience as an engineer, project manager and planning professional. She has managed projects around the country for Fortune 500 Companies in NYC; with the City of Kansas City Missouri on multiple municipal projects; with Denver International Airport’s Infrastructure Management Group; and currently she acts as developers agent for Colony Development Partners on the Page Woodson Restoration Project, a multi-phase, mixed income, mixed use development that will consist of Affordable and Market Rate Housing along with dynamic public spaces and for White River Development Partners/Colony /Carlyle on The MUSE (formerly 700 West) Development Project, a 302 Unit Multi-Family Mixed Use product. Gina has been part of multi-disciplined planning, design, and implementation teams that have impacted, catalyzed and/or completely re-envisioned communities and/or companies as well as, collaborated on multiple planning and public engagement projects around Oklahoma City, Oklahoma State, and the continent of Africa that are firsts of their kinds in the jurisdictions in which they have occurred. Many of her projects have been recipients of multiple awards, a testament to the caliber of the teams she has collaborated with. Her training gives her an eye towards how humans interact with the built and work environments. She is interested in environmental, transportation, and international planning issues and has a great passion for urban design that seeks to optimize the human experience, especially for underserved communities. She has worked with underserved communities in OKC and the state since 2004, and continues to pioneer ways to help communities of color champion their community destinies through civic engagement. She has a proven track record of navigating through strong community, o