Operations Consultant
Strategic Initiative Implementation

Context

The global age demographic is shifting, as older adults are living longer and birth rates are on the decline. In New York City, there are more older adults than school aged children, with one in five New Yorkers aged 60 years or older. The World Health Organization has developed a global initiative to build “Age Friendly Cities” to enhance the well-being and engagement of older people.  While New York City was the first American city to meet this standard, it identified a need to look broader to plan for a future aging population.  In September 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams launched an inter-agency Cabinet for Older New Yorkers to establish a new “age-inclusive” standard focused on designing systemic and structural changes through policy, legislation, and programmatic innovations.

Consulting Engagement
New York City engaged Jennifer Geiling, President of 1digit, to operationalize the Cabinet and to position it to establish a national age-inclusive agenda at the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s 91^st Annual Meeting – all to be accomplished in three months. Within two weeks of the consulting partnership, an internal programmatic and administrative team were in place, operating procedures were established, and cross-agency workstreams with well-defined projects were moving at a quick pace.  Disciplined project management became a cornerstone for timely implementation and frameworks for data collection and evaluation were designed to measure impact and support scaling decisions. 

Today, two dozen City agencies are part of the Cabinet and New York City residents in all five boroughs are engaged in Cabinet programming in the areas of health, transportation, education and housing.  At the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s, member cities passed New York City’s resolution to advance a national age-inclusive standard.  Through this consulting collaboration, the Cabinet for Older New Yorkers is firmly in place within New York City, the foundation for a national movement has been established and the goals of the consulting partnership were realized on time and within budget.