Julien Vincelot is on BYCS Board of Advisors, bringing knowledge from Urban, Philanthropy, and Sustainability sectors.
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Julien is an engaged urban planner and strategist working in philanthropy, with experience at the intersection of health, equity, climate change mitigation, policy and spatial planning. As Fund Manager for Built by Nature, Julien oversees the grant-making activities of the foundation.
For Julien, the strategic importance of Built by Nature lies in the large-scale potential of shifting the built-environment from a net CO2 emitter to a carbon sink through the use of timber in construction and a balanced relationship between construction and forest management. The realisation of this potential requires a shift in industry, societal and political mindsets, and the overcoming of technical, behavioural and policy barriers. Julien is honoured to be able to contribute to funding this transformation through his role at Built by Nature.
Prior to his position at Built by Nature, Julien worked as Partnership and Learning Manager at BYCS. Prior to that, Julien was the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s Programme Coordinator for Urban95, the world’s first initiative linking early childhood development and urban planning, policy and design. In this role, Julien managed Urban95’s growth across 8 countries by coordinating grants to advise implementation, build capacity, lead knowledge production and advocacy, and coordinate network-strengthening activities for city governments and their partners.
Julien holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a major in Economics from SciencesPo’s Europe-Asia Programme, through which he also completed a year as an exchange student at Tsinghua University’s Chinese Language and Literature and Architecture Departments in Beijing. He also obtained a dual Master of Science in Urban Policy from SciencePo Paris’ Urban School and the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Geography Department. Throughout his studies, Julien was an intern at the Institute of Urbanology in Mumbai, Sinapolis’ urban research agency in Beijing, and Mexico City’s Urban Innovation Lab. Since completing his higher education, Julien has remained involved in research: he was a research fellow at the Centre for Conscious Design from 2019 to 2021, and has been published in Cities & Health and Landscape Architecture Frontiers, among others.