From Strategy to Execution: Orchestrating City Transformation at Scale

As part of Smart Cities Council’s delegation to WEF Davos 2026, SCC continues its Women Leading the Way series, spotlighting women who are not only advancing leadership, but building the operational systems required to turn ambition into outcomes.

This feature highlights Stephania Stavropoulos, cofounder and COO of Orchestra, whose work sits at the intersection of strategy, execution, and trust, where city transformation either succeeds or breaks down.

Across cities globally, bold visions and ambitious strategies are abundant. What remains rare is the ability to execute across fragmented institutions, siloed stakeholders, and increasingly complex technology environments. Stephania’s leadership focuses squarely on this challenge: translating intent into coordinated, real-world delivery.

At WEF Davos 2026, her contribution reinforces a central insight echoed throughout the Smart Cities Council program. Transformation does not stall due to a lack of ideas. It stalls when cities lack shared intelligence, operational alignment, and the systems required to move from decision to action.

At Orchestra, Stephania approaches cities as living systems, not standalone organisations. Progress depends on aligning institutions around shared outcomes, supported by trusted data, clear governance, and infrastructure built to execute. Leadership, in this framing, is not about control. It is about orchestration.

In an AI-driven environment where institutional complexity is the norm, her focus is on execution models that scale in the real world. This means moving beyond pilots and fragmented tools toward intelligence layers that turn data into accountability, transparency, and sustained value across city operations.

As part of the Smart Cities Council delegation in Davos, Stephania represents a growing cohort of women leaders shaping how transformation actually happens, ensuring that technology, capital, and policy converge in ways that improve lived experience for communities.

Her leadership reinforces a core theme of SCC’s presence at WEF Davos 2026. The cities that succeed in the coming decade will be those that treat execution as a discipline, grounded in people, enabled by systems, and delivered through trust.