We are part agency, part publisher. Our team includes journalists and editors, digital marketing and business development executives, events logistics officers and creative directors with more than a decade’s experience of working with local government, international trade and finance organisations and private sector clients.

2024
PFD Media Group rebrands

PFD Media Group is rebranded to Cities Today Institute Ltd. to better reflect our organisation’s strengths and priorities.

New association launches

The Cities Today Institute creates and serves as the secretariat to the Airports AI Alliance, which aims to facilitate the adoption of AI by the aviation industry. We also launch the City Micromobility Association, which gathers shared mobility stakeholders from the public and private sector to collaborate on formulating effective and sustainable micromobility strategies.

2023
Airport Leadership Forum

We expand our forums into the airport innovation space to commence our ongoing Airport Leadership Forum series.

2020
COVID-19

Amidst a global lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cities Today Institute serves as a beacon for officials around the world. Through regular virtual panel discussions, we enable city leaders to share experiences and best practices as they navigate unprecedented urban challenges.

2019
Cities Today Institute is founded

We found the Cities Today Institute to formalise our commitment to public sector capacity building. We complement our City Leadership Forums with dedicated training, site visits and research for local government officials.

2018
Continued growth

Leveraging our internal editorial and marketing expertise, as well as the strength of the Cities Today channels, we expand our portfolio with content creation, account-based marketing and inbound marketing services to enable our clients to optimally position themselves in the B2G segment.

2015
First leadership forum

We organise our first leadership forum, hosted by London’s Deputy Mayor for Transport. It is the start of our ongoing City Leadership Forum series; in-person meetings in North America, Latin America and Europe, that gather city officials, solution providers and other relevant stakeholders to tackle the prevalent challenges in urban digitalisation and city mobility.

2011
PFD Media founded

PFD Media Group is founded as a publishing company. We extend our contract publishing services to various international and multilateral organisations. Magazine and report titles include UN-HABITAT’s The State of African Cities, UNESCO’s World Heritage Review, the International Development Finance Club’s Best Practices in Development Finance, the International Water Association’s The Source, as well as UITP Summit’s Daily News. We also lay the foundations for our platform Cities Today, which covers news and in-depth background stories around sustainable urban development issues, aimed at local government officials, academics and relevant private sector solution providers.

From trusted news site to global catalyst

of knowledge exchange

Our Cities Today platform is one of the most respected sources for local government leaders. What started as a news and thought leadership blog, developed into a specialist agency that facilitates bespoke, high-value encounters for the exchange of knowledge, experience and best practices for a global movement of city and airport leaders, as well as their ecosystem partners.

City & Airport leaders convened

Social Media Followers

global influencer ranking (top 100 brands)

*Top 100 Influencer brands for Cities & Sustainability
Source: Onalytica, 2016

What our clients

& partners say

Cities Today excels in building and developing relationships between stakeholders in urban development

Jamie Cudden

Smart City Program Manager, Dublin City Council

“It is a fantastic presentation which you have prepared and thank you again for the hard work and the wonderful product.”
Joseph Maseland

State of the Cities Reports, UN-Habitat

”I would like to thank you for the collaboration at the Summit as the team over there was so professional.”

Cynthia Bonsignore

Head of Communications, International Association of Public Transport (UITP)

“Congratulations to for a great job on the launch of the IDFC publication.”

Dr Johannes Feist

Corporate Strategy, KfW Banking Group

Some of our clients & partners

For more information please visit:
cities-institute.com