I work on ambitious ideas to help cities keep pace with the 21st century.

Cara Eckholm founded and runs the Pilot Pitchfest, a non-profit initiative that helps match city agencies to the free, expert resources available in their local academic community. Cara also runs AKA Urban, an advisory firm which crafts and launches public-private-partnerships to help cities modernize their built environment. In the past two years, AKA has helped structure over $1BN in spending.

Previously, Cara was a Fellow at the Jacobs Urban Tech Hub at Cornell Tech. At Cornell, she authored Pilot: New York City, the City of New York’s 5-year innovation plan, and served on the New York Governor and Mayor’s “New” New York expert panel, tasked with reviving the region’s economy coming out of COVID-19. In 2024, she was named City & State's "Women 100."

Cara writes and speaks frequently about cities, with recent essays in the New York Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg's City Lab, Vital City, and Brookings Metro, and an exhibit at the 2025 Venice Biennale. In 2014,  she was a National Geographic Explorer, covering the geopolitics of cities in Eastern Europe. While Cara is a proud fourth generation New Yorker, she grew up in Beijing, spent her post-college years in Copenhagen, and later worked in the Bay Area—experiences which shape her work and writing.

Before she started working with government, Cara was an executive, investor and advisor to urban technology startups. Most notably, she was on the early team at Sidewalk Labs, Google’s urban tech incubator, the Chief Revenue Officer at Nabr, a housing company, and an investor at Zigg Capital, a venture fund focused on real estate.

Cara graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton's School of Public & International Affairs, with a focus on urban policy and planning, and attended Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where she concentrated on real estate finance. She is also a graduate of Coro Leadership New York, a leadership development program for mid-career civic leaders.