Manisha Bewtra, AICP is a certified planner who has built her career on bringing divergent perspectives together, facilitating conversations around change, and generating data-informed solutions that move communities forward. She is driven by public service and champions equitable policies and inclusive community engagement. She can work with you to deliver customized workshops, design an effective public process, analyze community dynamics and local policies, and more. She is available to partner with organizations and individuals, and her clients include municipal government, community development organizations, civic groups, and political campaigns.
Over her career, Manisha has worked with dozens of cities and towns across Massachusetts, as well as in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and the Phoenix metropolitan area. She’s worked as a Special Projects Advisor at Beacon Leadership Collaborative, a planner at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, and has taught urban planning students at the Harvard School of Design and at Arizona State University. Manisha has served on various equity-focused organizations and committees and is a graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership, and the Massachusetts Commonwealth Seminar, three organizations dedicated to training underrepresented groups to influence public policy and to run for office. She lived in Melrose, Massachusetts from 2013-2020, where she served as a Human Rights Commissioner, a City Councilor-at-Large, and where she ran for Mayor in 2019. In August 2020, she moved to Tucson, Arizona, and is currently immersing herself in the culture, politics, and governance of Southern Arizona.
Manisha has a BA from The University of Iowa in Economics and Art, a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She grew up in Iowa, identifies as an Indian-American cisgender woman, mom, xennial, and #plannerd. She is currently quarantining at home with her husband and her elementary school-aged son.
Photo of Manisha at Oak Grove Station by TDM Photography