Cindy Ma, AICP, is director of career and professional development in the Abbey Master of Real Estate Development + Design (MRED+D) program. She coaches and advises current students and alums on career pathways and manages career readiness programs to close the gap between education and professional practice.
As a professional urban designer and planner with over 18 years of experience, Ma continues to collaborate with multidisciplinary professionals to envision and realize community development, facilitate stakeholder outreach, and manage programs through her consulting firm Intersect Planning Urban Design Consulting, LLC.
Prior to starting her own practice, she was the director of planning at KTGY, where she led Oakland’s Community Planning Urban Design studio, working closely with the company's other teams and developers to study, create, and deliver community plans and entitlements resulting in thousands of housing units, homes, and mixed-use developments in communities throughout the Bay Area, Sacramento Valley, Central Valley, and Nevada.
Ma is actively involved with organizations that share the same values and missions of building equitable, resilient, and sustainable communities. She currently serves on the Urban Land Institute (ULI) UrbanPlan Steering Committee and is a frequent volunteer for the program, and she is on the American Planning Association Asian Pacific Islander (APA API) Steering Committee. Previously for nine years, she was the diversity co-chair of the APA CA Northern Section.