Welcome to BUILD! The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), in partnership with the City of Bilbao, is pleased to welcome you to the second edition of the Bilbao Urban Innovation and Leadership Dialogues (BUILD). At BUILD’s inaugural convening last year, GMF launched a unique forum for leading transformative change in cities that supports greater sustainability, inclusion, and global engagement. The diversity of voices and contexts represented at BUILD allowed us to identify the common challenges and the potential for shared solutions between U.S. and European cities. Further, participants discussed the common elements of leading change, establishing cross-sector coalitions, and thoughtfully engaging communities. This year’s BUILD will deepen our understanding of the core BUILD themes, while also focusing on moving from ideas to action. This goal is in keeping with GMF’s legacy of empowering and equipping local and regional leaders with new experiences, knowledge, and tools. We hope that this year’s programming will bolster your policy fluency and leadership acumen while strengthening this transatlantic BUILD cohort of forward-thinking urban leaders. In reflecting on the outcomes from BUILD 2014, GMF identified specific opportunities for diving deeper into the BUILD themes and focusing on moving from ideas to action. First, we will draw stronger parallels and explore the connections between the conference themes of leading sustainable and equitable urban transformation and bolstering global engagement. We will dig deeper into how leaders can link and leverage these agendas to establish more sustainable, inclusive, and globally engaged cities. By exploring policy and tactical similarities, you will deepen your understanding of an integrated approach to leading change that cuts across silos, sectors, and scales. In the main plenary session, we will hear from transatlantic leaders who have also taken steps to connect the dots between the BUILD themes. We also look forward to a one-on-one interview with Antonio Villaraigosa, who served mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013; Villaraigosa led the city through a period of dramatic global engagement and advancement of inclusion and equity for its 4 million residents. Second, we will take a closer look at the eight elements of global engagement first introduced last year. As we learned, a comprehensive global engagement strategy can pay dividends for cities, including capturing new audiences and markets and forging durable ties between diaspora communities and their homelands. Through a breakout workshop, we more fully explore the policy innovations and tactics to advance leadership, business networks, and civic engagement to understand and activate eight assets of a city’s global engagement. A second breakout workshop will focus on the pressing challenge of engaging local elected officials and developing global engagement capacity among policymakers. Finally, we will resume our conversation regarding the key issues that surfaced in the breakout discussions last year. This includes the importance of breaking down silos between policy areas and stakeholders and effectively Stay connected while at your session via BUILDConnect or Twitter #GMFBUILD.