TUA welcomes Frazer Baggaley as the new Urban Innovation Lead

We are excited to welcome Frazer Baggaley to The Urban Advisory as our Urban Innovation Lead!

Frazer joins TUA at a time when cities, regions and communities are facing increasingly complex decisions about growth, infrastructure, climate resilience, investment, identity and long-term wellbeing. His work focuses on helping clients make sense of that complexity and translate it into clear, decision-ready strategies.Frazer’s core strength lies in bridging governance, technical specialists, delivery teams and non-technical audiences. He brings a rare combination of urban design, landscape architecture, spatial planning, systems thinking and strategic communication, with a strong focus on turning evidence into practical pathways for action.

A key part of Frazer’s motivation is creating better processes and ways of working that reduce noise, clarify choices and create more time and focus for the people most impacted by decisions. For Frazer, urban innovation is not simply about new tools or technology. It is about enabling better conversations, more transparent trade-offs and more resilient, place-based outcomes.

His recent work and academic focus, including an Executive MSc in Cities from the London School of Economics, have centred on urban intelligence: using systems thinking, scenario-based approaches, data, modelling and AI-enabled decision-support tools to help clients and communities navigate uncertainty and plan for the future with greater clarity.

As Urban Innovation Lead, Frazer will help shape the next generation of TUA’s advisory offer, including new products and approaches that integrate urban strategy, spatial planning, data, modelling and digital decision support.

Frazer brings over 20 years’ experience across Aotearoa New Zealand, the United Kingdom, China and the Middle East. His work has consistently focused on the moments where spatial planning, infrastructure, governance, community outcomes and delivery come together, helping clients move from complexity and competing priorities towards clearer choices, better conversations and more resilient place-based strategies.

We look forward to the strategic leadership, collaborative thinking and future-focused innovation Frazer will bring to TUA, our clients and the communities we work alongside.