Get to Know Rana

Oct 11

October 11, 2022 | Interview by Emilia Charno

Several years ago and before becoming a mom, Rana biked 300 miles from New York to D.C. to fundraise for Climate Ride, a climate change advocacy group.

Rana and her husband, Pete buying fresh bread in Tehran, Iran.

Rana is a Partner at Kyanite Partners. She is a multi-lingual urban planner, architect, and artist with twenty years of direct experience leading planning, cultural/arts policies, and economic development projects in cities around the world. She has developed projects in the aftermath of devastating wars and natural disasters around the world and is interested in devising growth and recovery strategies for cities post-COVID. Rana has worked with large institutions such as Multilateral Development Banks, UN agencies, Cities Alliance, UNESCO and smaller organizations that work on local issues. Rana holds Master’s degrees in city planning and architectural studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master’s of architecture from Azad University in her hometown of Tehran, Iran.

What was your journey to joining Kyanite Partners?

I was previously doing consulting work, and when Cali shared with me her vision to do consulting with Kyanite Partners I was excited about working together. We already share a trust, friendship, and deep understanding of each other’s personalities and workstyles. I knew that working together would be a great match!

Our skill sets and interests are complementary, but we really wanted to get it right. We had several sessions - the first one was in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden - spending a few hours thinking about how to align our projects and interests. For example, Cali is an expert in rail overbuild projects, having served as the Director of Sunnyside Yard. On my end, I’ve worked on the financing and public-private partnerships pieces behind these sorts of projects around the world. I brought a global perspective and Cali brought a deep, contextual knowledge of New York City. Overall, we bring different pieces of a puzzle together.

What are the values that drive your work? How do these values inform how you practice leadership?

I want to serve communities that do not have access to resources. I’m concerned with upward social mobility and how communities around the world and in our backyard lack access to this dynamic. With all that is happening in the world in terms of wars, disasters, and climate change, these communities are even more cut off from resources and are threatened by everyday events. Being able to provide technical assistance and problem solving skills to these communities is the first goal. Internally and on a personal scale, I wanted to have a fair practice and a happy company with happy employees.

What makes this team uniquely capable of executing projects in service of our clients and the communities they serve?

Cali and I started Kyanite Partners with different but complementary expertise in our fields - domestically and internationally. The rest of our growing team is dedicated to the same values that our work embodies. Cali is a visionary, connector, and a big picture thinker. Saritha is an expert in synthesizing information and conducting data-oriented inquiries. Emilia provides support on research and project management, business operations, and communications strategy. I like to go deep into technical issues around culture, financing, and placemaking. I think all around we have a team that complements each other and is able to do a really good job for our clients, while being values-aligned.

How would you describe the company culture at Kyanite?

We are a happy company! When I log on to our meetings or come to the office it makes me happy to see everyone’s faces. I hope as we grow we can keep this quality. I’ve worked across public, private, and social sector entities and in different countries, so I do not take this for granted at all. We are supportive, honest, and communicative - these are all important values for me.

Cultural planning and creative placemaking are increasingly recognized as crucial foundations to thriving places. In this community-oriented framing, how would you define ‘culture’?

In a lot of practices, particularly in international work, discussing “culture” can be divisive for the many different ways that people see and define it. Countries have gone to war asking these questions - and at the same time culture is what brings the soul to urban settings. Without traditions, ways of life, and the arts a city is just a collection of buildings.

We’ve seen that communities that have a stronger sense of cultural cohesion and identity are usually more resilient and able to bounce back from economic, natural, and manmade disasters. I come from an international background, and many countries that I’ve worked in have less funding for preserving tangible cultural heritage than the United States and Europe, for example. I’ve worked in places where centuries-old spaces were under threat from development or disaster. These aren't a priority though as there were matters of education, health, and violence to deal with - considering culture did not feel realistic. Working internationally I really felt I had to be the voice in the room highlighting how culture plays a key role in these existential conversations. I was lucky enough to work on a small team working on this at the World Bank. Now, as I work domestically and internationally, I still see culture as a key framing of my work. I do this for myself and my family - as an immigrant I want my stories to be told and preserved for my children and future generations.

And lastly, I am part urban planner and part ceramic artist. I cherish both aspects and have seen firsthand what challenges artists deal with at least in New York and how access to space and capital can hamper or strengthen artistic talent. On the other hand, I believe that we should do more in providing arts and culture equity in communities that lack access to arts and culture.

You’ve spent much of your career working across the globe, spanning regional, political, and economic contexts. Is there anything you believe ties your work together?

I can work seamlessly across cultures. Whether it is female agricultural workers in Ghana, policymakers in Colombia, or Puerto Rican community members in Philadelphia - I feel I can say confidently that there is nowhere I go where I feel like a stranger. This could be the result of the immigrant experience, a personal quality, or my past work but I believe it is the passion to make places better that ties my work together. Working internationally you have often encountered new areas of learning and expertise, but ultimately the passion to create sustainable and resilient communities helps you to adjust and deliver the best project possible.

What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning? How do these motivations show up in your work at Kyanite Partners?

From a very young age, I have been concerned with poverty. Based on how and where you are born, certain communities experience levels of privilege over generations that others are entirely excluded from. This has always felt deeply unfair to me.

I planned to work on these topics through architecture and went to architecture school in Iran. I wanted to work on urban issues and started working at a firm in my second year of architecture school in Tehran that tackled large urbanism challenges in the country. I did not have the language for it then, but I’ve always been drawn to work that addresses equity.

Who are the people that have been instrumental in getting you to where you are today?

On a personal level there have been countless (family and amazing friends)! Professionally, I was confused at a younger age about what I wanted to do with my career. In Iran, I met an American woman named Erica, who took an interest in me and helped me find an internship with Architect Cesar Pelli in New Haven and this is how I came here. One of my earliest mentors was my boss at the time in New York; a woman named Patti who guided me through the process of applying to and accepting attendance for graduate studies at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. She is someone that I continue to look up to. When I was in graduate school at MIT, I received mentorship from a professor named Mark Schuster, who introduced me to the field of cultural policy. He passed away my last semester of school and I still think about him and his legacy. I also think back on an informational interview I had with a man named Junaid at the World Bank. Junaid who currently serves as a director at the World Bank took a chance on me by offering me my first consulting role and continued to guide and mentor me in the years that followed. And there have been so many others along the way.

What are the places that have shaped you?

My home country of Iran and my hometown of Tehran shaped me in many ways good and bad. This is where I really realized the power of place, and how it is important to prioritize thoughtful urban environments for people. It helped me realize how public spaces are places for meet and greet, political protest, surveillance, and celebration all at once and this has had a real impact on me. The other places I’ve seen, lived in, and worked have only added pieces to the puzzle of how I view the world. Our global colonial heritage makes us think that Europe and the United States are the sources to look to for tools - but I have appreciated learning from countries around the world, which are wrongly called “the global south.”

Is there anything that you’re reading or watching that’s inspiring you?

I think as you get older it is harder to get inspired too easily! But on a professional level, I recommend reading the book The Amatuer by Andy Merrifield to everyone who provides professional and technical services. This book inspired me to always keep an amatuer mindset towards my projects and be curious and stay an independent thinker. I am also a big reader of urban history literature and now in the middle of a book about Brooklyn’s history called Brooklyn, the Once and Future City by Thomas Campanella. It is a very long, detailed, and very well researched book about how the borough was shaped. For TV, I loved “The Wire” (who doesn't?!) and I think it shows why planning communities is such a difficult and multifaceted task and why racial equity is such a big part of it. I also watch urban planning films and series such as “Show Me a Hero,” which was about the affordable housing crisis in Yonkers, NY. I am lucky that my husband is a closeted urban planner and loves to watch this stuff with me! For fun, I highly recommend “The Great Pottery Throw Down” on HBO, which is like “Top Chef” for potters.