Conference Bios

“Culture Builds Communities: The Leadership Behind Great Places” Plans shape cities—but culture shapes whether those plans succeed.

Vaney Hariri is a leadership coach, culture strategist, and community advocate whose work centers on the human side of building strong, resilient communities. With nearly two decades of experience shaping intentional cultures, Vaney helps leaders understand how trust, belonging, and shared purpose directly influence the success of teams, organizations, and the places they serve.

As co-founder of Think 3D Solutions and co-author of Think 3D, A Radical New Approach to Maximizing the Potential of Your Team, Vaney provides practical tools for navigating change, strengthening collaboration, and building high-performing cultures. His background includes more than 12 years leading teams in the financial sector, where he saw firsthand how organizational culture drives engagement, performance, and long-term sustainability insights highly relevant to planners managing growth, redevelopment, and community trust.

At this year’s planning conference, Vaney invites participants to think beyond plans and policies and to consider how leadership, culture, and empathy shape the future of our communities.

Jerry Fogg is an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe and a nationally respected mixed-media artist and Indigenous storyteller whose work challenges audiences to rethink history, place, and cultural resilience. Through his signature Foggma technique, Fogg layers found objects, historic documents, and traditional materials to create powerful visual narratives grounded in Nakota knowledge. Influenced by Native art pioneers Oscar Howe and Donald F. Montileaux, his work is exhibited nationwide.

Across disciplines, his work carries a singular message: Native people are not relics of the past, but vital contributors to the present and future. Through art, music, and storytelling, Jerry Fogg invites audiences to listen, reflect, and recognize that Indigenous nations are and have always been still standing.

Mr. Fogg will join us for the entirety duration of the conference and facilitate an opening prayer, drum circle, provide a session on his art medium at a local gallery, lead a smudging ceremony, conduct work on one of his art pieces, and provide a display and sales of his artistry.