Eileen Crowley

Eileen Crowley is an urban implementation strategist with over 20 years’ experience helping cities move from ambition to action.

She brings a rare combination of municipal insider knowledge, European programme expertise and hands-on financing experience. Having worked within local government as a development planner and EU Funding Coordinator before founding Ascent Creative Consulting, she understands the pressures city teams face -  limited capacity, political cycles, funding constraints and the complexity of cross-departmental delivery.

Her added value lies in making implementation feel achievable.

Eileen works alongside cities to:

• Translate Integrated Action Plans into clear, phased delivery roadmaps

• Align existing strategies with realistic funding pathways

• Structure blended financing and investment-ready projects

• Design governance models that last beyond the project cycle

• Embed participatory groups into permanent decision-making processes

• Build internal confidence and delivery capacity

As a long-standing URBACT Lead Expert, she is known for being dynamic, well-prepared and highly responsive. She creates structured yet engaging working environments, balancing strategic focus with practical outputs. Cities value her ability to simplify complexity, maintain momentum and keep partners aligned.

Her facilitation style is energetic but grounded. She listens carefully, challenges constructively and ensures that meetings lead to decisions,  not just discussion.

Beyond URBACT, she has supported cities through innovative financing under the European Urban Initiative and the New European Bauhaus, helping teams shape financially viable implementation models and articulate compelling investment narratives.

Eileen combines credibility with approachability. Known for being responsive, strategic and easy to work with, she creates trust quickly and ensures momentum is maintained throughout the network lifecycle.

She specialises in helping cities answer the most important implementation question:

How do we make this happen - with the resources and structures we actually have?