Raquel Wilson

Designing new frameworks in capital, governance, and ownership for more equitable cities

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Raquel Wilson is an urban economic strategist and entrepreneur working at the intersection of capital, governance, and ownership. Drawing on more than two decades of experience in international development and development finance, she designs strategies and frameworks that help cities translate investment into stronger local economies, more durable forms of ownership, and greater retention of locally created value.She is the Founder and CEO of Building Equity, an urban intelligence firm reimagining how wealth and opportunity circulate through cities. Building Equity partners with municipal leaders, civic institutions, development agencies, and values-aligned investors to help communities retain more of the value created through development, with a growing focus on post-industrial regions seeking new models for economic renewal. Its work is anchored in the Local Capital Loop, a proprietary framework for assessing whether incoming capital builds lasting local assets or exits through absentee ownership and non-local institutions.Complementing her municipal work, Raquel serves on the Board of Advisors of Kasi Desert Circuit, a planned climate-aligned innovation district in Kenya that uses advanced mobility and motorsport as platforms for accelerating clean technology, battery manufacturing, and sustainable industrial development.Throughout her career, Raquel has advised governments, multilateral institutions, investors, and growth-stage enterprises across North America, Africa, and Europe. As a consultant to the African Development Bank Group, she supported resource mobilization, strategic positioning, and communications for major development finance initiatives. Her work on the 17th replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF-17) translated complex financing instruments, institutional priorities, and development results into compelling, evidence-based investment cases that supported a historic $11 billion in partner commitments.Her broader private-sector and cross-border experience spans venture capital, logistics, diplomacy, and civic enterprise. She has sourced and evaluated high-growth startup opportunities for Roselake Ventures, supported investor positioning for Senegal’s National Office of Sanitation, co-founded the Accra-based logistics company Jetstream Africa, and launched the Dakar Farmers Market to strengthen local food production.Earlier in her career as a diplomat with the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Raquel led the launch of the organization’s first digital platform for hate crime monitoring. As Head of Strategic Communications for the USAID-funded Somalia Stabilization Initiative, she developed a national radio program connecting rural women with essential public services. She is also the co-editor of No Tees Please: Why Africa Aid Campaigns #FAIL, led Social Media Week Lagos’ #55FORWARD youth initiative, and spearheaded How to Build a Community, a NYC Partnership for Parks-funded civic engagement project.Raquel will begin the Executive MSc in Cities program at the London School of Economics and Political Science in September 2026. She holds an MBA from Imperial College London, where her studies focused on strategy, energy, and clean technology, and a Bachelor of Science in New Media from Indiana University.Known for her ability to connect people, ideas, and institutions across sectors and geographies, Raquel brings a systems perspective to questions of investment, development, and local economic transformation. She is based in the United States and works internationally.