Prior to starting Karp Strategies, Rebecca served as an advisor in the public and private sectors where she designed and managed the planning, analysis, and stakeholder engagement for private developers, public agencies, and major non-profits. At the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Rebecca managed a legislative portfolio, community grants program, and served as Policy Advisor to executive leadership, advising them on how new resiliency initiatives and transportation policies would affect surrounding communities. At BuroHappold Cities, Rebecca supported the Changing Course engineering design competition with the Environmental Defense Fund, and led engagement with municipal and state agencies, national nonprofits, and corporations. During her tenure with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Rebecca piloted and managed the HireNYC Program, which links the NYC public workforce system with the agency’s real estate development projects to provide targeted access to services for jobseekers and businesses. Her efforts helped generate more than 5,000 job opportunities for New Yorkers by standardizing local workforce requirements through EDC’s standard real estate development RFP processes.
Rebecca has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Bowdoin College and a Master’s in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she wrote her thesis on Community Benefits Agreements. She is a proud alumna of the Coro Leadership New York Program and NYU Stern School of Business/NYCSBS Strategic Steps for Business program. Locally, she sits on Open House New York’s Transit Advisory Committee, is a member of the New York Building Congress and CoreNet, and has most recently been invited to join both the New York State Committee for the Regional Plan Association and the Urban Design Forum as a Fellow. Nationally, Rebecca is a member of the IEDC and APA. A native of New York’s Hudson Valley, Rebecca resides in Brooklyn with her husband Jason and dog Quincy.