Nikhil Kumar, Resource Manager

Nikhil is a public policy professional committed to making governance more democratic and building bridges across borders — particularly as cities and communities confront the global climate crisis.

Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, he has lived in France and the United Kingdom and spent summers with family in India. He worked with the Eurométropole of Strasbourg, France, to make participatory initiatives throughout the metropolitan area more inclusive of marginalized voices. He also collaborated with the city of Helsinki, Finland, to develop a stakeholder engagement strategy in the Helsinki Energy Challenge, an international competition to decarbonize the city’s district heating system in line with the Carbon Neutral Helsinki action plan.

Nikhil holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor’s degree in economics and French from Brown University and has studied at the London School of Economics and Sorbonne Université. He has published articles proposing a green participatory budget in New York City and analyzing European cities’ climate leadership, as well as a series synthesizing the impacts of participatory budgeting written with members of the Global Participatory Budgeting Research Board.

At People Powered, he manages the development of materials and resources, including the Participation Playbook, online resource center and digital participation resources, among others. These resources provide practical guidance to build governments' capacity to adopt, expand and improve equitable and inclusive participatory democracy programs.

In his free time, Nikhil finds inspiration playing the piano, reading French novels and exploring new cities. He serves on the steering committee of a climate justice participatory budgeting process in his city council district in Brooklyn.