Dr Wei Yang OBE
Chairman
FAcSS, FRTPI, MCIHT
Dr Wei Yang OBE is an internationally renowned town planner and urban designer who champions a place-based, whole-systems approach to tackle the grand challenges of our time. She is an influential thought leader and a powerful advocate for climate action, nature-based solutions, health and well-being, and social equality. In the 2025 New Year Honours list, she was awarded an OBE for her services to town planning.
Wei has extensive experience in leading multidisciplinary teams on strategic planning and delivering large-scale regeneration and low-carbon master planning projects in Britain and internationally. Her professional strength lies in combining innovative planning inspiration with feasible implementation solutions. She is also a popular keynote speaker, author, and scholar.
Wei was President of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) in 2021, Chair of the Construction Industry Council (2023-25), and an independent trustee of the Landscape Institute (2018-22). She champions a revival of spirit and a modernised planning profession to tackle global challenges in a systematic way and achieve collective well-being and fulfilment for all.
Wei is a leading figure in researching, promoting, and implementing 21st-century garden city and green and low-carbon development approaches worldwide. She is a co-author of the bestselling book, "Humanistic Pure Land and Garden Cities" (Shi & Yang, 2021).
Wei is a co-founder and CEO of the Digital Task Force for Planning, a not-for-profit social enterprise with a mission to unlock the full potential of spatial planning in the digital era. Wei co-authored "A Digital Future for Planning – Spatial Planning Reimagined" (Batty & Yang, 2022), which outlines a blueprint for the digital transformation of spatial planning and the sector's future.
Leading the modernisation and digital transformation of the planning profession, Wei developed a new digitally enabled integrated methodology for spatial planning. She was named a Net Zero Hero by Digital Leaders in 2022.
Through her leadership in various areas, Wei builds a bridge between research, development, and policy via her understanding of and belief in the full potential of spatial planning as a pivotal applied science discipline. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the RTPI, a Member of the Chartered Institute of Highway and Transportation (CIHT), and an Honorary Professor at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London.
Wei has been at the forefront of shaping national planning policy and practice in the UK. She was a member of the New Towns Taskforce (2024–25) and served as an Expert Adviser for the London Plan Review: Report of Expert Advisers (2023–24).
Wei also holds a number of board-level and advisory roles across different sectors. Currently, she is a board member of the British Library and Chair of its Capital Portfolio Committee. She is Global Planner Networks (GPN) representative at the UN Habitat Professional Forum, and Professionals Co-Chair of the UN Habitat World Urban Campaign Steering Committee.
