About Us
Our mission is to support innovation in governance that leads to greater human freedom and prosperity.
We aim to inspire, inform and connect people to accelerate the creation of a global market of living together in Free Cities.
How We Can Help

Speaking
For conferences and networking events, we can arrange for and provide enthusiastic speakers on the topic of Free Cities.

Consulting
For those launching their own Free-Cities related projects, we can put you in contact with experts from the industry, offering consulting and advice.

Investing
Through our network of partners and contacts, we provide guidance on investing in new Special Zones, particularly those that try to achieve more thorough autonomy and regulatory independence.
Team
Board
Advisors
Ambassadors
The Free Cities Foundation’s ambassador network stretches all around the world.
Find our current ambassadors in the list below or by clicking on the markers on the map.
Partners
Contact Us

Peter Young
Managing Director
Peter is the managing director of the Free Cities Foundation. He leads the operational management of the foundation, with oversight over project delivery, communications and finance.
Before joining the Free Cities Foundation, Peter spent most of his career based in Beijing supporting trade links between the UK and China.

Jan Bertram
Director of Operations
Jan is the Director of Operations for the Free Cities Foundation. Jan is passionate about advancing liberty in his lifetime and envisions special zone jurisdictions as the biggest opportunity to move forward. He manages daily operations and leads the Foundation’s projects.

Nikola G. Petrovski
Web Administrator
Nikola G. is a web developer working with front end technologies such as WordPress and JavaScript. He has a background in non-profit organizations and libertarian student movements. At the Foundation, he develops and maintains websites.

Juan D. Estevez
Operations Assistant
Juan D. studies political science at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Born and raised in socialist Bolivia, he currently lives in Germany, where he co-founded and chairs the Frankfurt Students for Liberty. He is Campus Ambassador of the Foundation for Economic Education and Young Affiliate at the Network for Constitutional Economics and Social Philosophy.

Kristy Gilger
Head of Marketing
Kristy is the Foundation’s head of marketing, leading on our social media and communications strategy. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. She has over a decade of experience working across multiple industries including non-profits, real estate, and healthcare. She is passionate about expanding the freedom of individuals to pursue a better life.

Zuzana Martáková
Marketing Manager
Zuzana has a background in marketing, communications and yoga. She leads on communication across the Foundation’s social media platforms and helps out with planning the Liberty in Our Lifetime conference. Zuzana sees Free Cities as a step towards finding more human freedom and individual responsibility in today’s world.

Joyce Brand
Writer
Joyce Brand is a writer, editor, film & video editor, and accounting consultant who is dedicated to promoting special jurisdictions for peace, prosperity, and better governance.
She is co-author of the book Economics and the Spiritual Life of Free Men, and the intellectual heir of philosophers Spencer Heath and Spencer Heath MacCallum.
She lives in the ZEDE Ciudad Morazán in Honduras, a prototype Free City based on the ideas of the two Spencers.

Hynek Fencl
Head of Research
Hynek has a degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Cambridge and a background in media and journalism as a writer. His interests encompass political-economic aspects of Free Cities as well as urbanism. At the Foundation, he leads research into free communities around the world and curates the Foundation’s news & blog section.

Vera Kichanova
Senior Economist
Dr Vera Kichanova is an urban economist exploring the future of private governance. Besides the Free Cities Foundation, she works at Zaha Hadid Architects as urban policy advisor. Vera’s career has spanned roles including elected Municipal Councillor in Moscow, Editor-in-Chief with Atlas Network in Kyiv, and President of the Oxford Hayek Society. She is a Frédéric Bastiat Fellow at the Mercatus Center (US), a contributor to the Adam Smith Institute (UK) and a Mont Pèlerin Society member.
Vera holds a PhD in Political Economy from King’s College London, a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford, and a BA in Journalism from Moscow State University.
Baixu
Content Creator
Baixu supports the work of the Foundation by creating videos that explain our core ideas. She is a licensed architect in the UK and Germany with architecture degrees from the universities of Cambridge, Bath and University College London. Baixu sees Free Cities as a means to unleash the creative power of architects by allowing them to build more mixed-use, human-scale urban spaces where thriving communities can develop.

Tamara Milakovic
Graphic Designer
Tamara Milakovic is a visual designer for Free Cities Foundation. She specializes in branding and intuitive interface design.

Timothy Allen
Creative Director
Timothy has had a 25-year career in the media, starting in London’s Fleet Street as a multi-award-winning photographer, then producing films for the likes of BBC Earth and the Discovery Channel. He hosts the Free Cities Podcast.

Titus Gebel
Foundation Council President
Dr. Titus Gebel is the inventor of the Free Private Cities concept and CEO of Tipolis. He is a serial entrepreneur with a doctorate in law who has founded a number of companies, including the multinational energy and resources group Deutsche Rohstoff AG. In 2015, Titus resigned as CEO of Deutsche Rohstoff to devote himself entirely to his new project: Free Private Cities.
Titus wants to create an entirely new product in the “market of living together” which aims to fast-track economic and societal progress. At TIPOLIS, he is focused on creating and developing autonomous cities by partnering commercially with governments and special economic zones around the world.

Marc-Felix Otto
Foundation Council Member
Marc-Felix Otto is a Foundation Council Member of the Free Cities Foundation, having supported the idea of contract-based government for over 20 years and authored scientific articles on the topic of coercion together with Rahim Taghizadegan.
He is a Partner at The Advisory House, a leading management consultancy to the energy industry in S/A/G.
Marc holds a PhD in Physics and lives with his wife and two sons in Switzerland.

Olivier Kessler
Foundation Council Member
Olivier Kessler is an economist, publicist and director of the Liberal Institute in Zurich. Previously, he worked for several public affairs, media and finance companies. Olivier studied International Affairs & Governance at the University of St. Gallen.
In 2017-18 he led the campaign for the liberal “No Billag” initiative in Switzerland as the president of the association for the abolition of compulsory media tax. He is a member of the Friedrich A. von Hayek Society and the jury for the Roland Baader Award.
Olivier is co-author of the book “64 Klischees der Politik: Klarsicht ohne rosarote Brille” (2020) and author and co-editor of several books.

Johannes Viehbacher
Foundation Council Member
Johannes N. Viehbacher is an attorney at law and public notary in the Principality of Liechtenstein. He has extensive legal experience across countries in German-speaking central Europe.
He is a member of the European Bar Association D.A.CH., the Deutscher Anwaltsverein (DAV) (German Bar Association), the “International Legal Relations” working group in the German Bar Association, the Deutsche Anwalts- und Steuerberatervereinigung für die mittelständische Wirtschaft (DASV) (German Bar and Tax Advisors Federation for Medium-sized Enterprises) and the International Association of Young Lawyers (AIJA), and he represents Munich within the International Business Law Consortium (IBLC)
His focus for many years has been economic (criminal) legal mandates between Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Rahim Taghizadegan
Chief Economist
Rahim Taghizadegan is the last Austrian economist of the Austrian School in the direct tradition and has been teaching at universities in Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Germany.
As one of the last Viennese polymaths, he is also a physicist (specialization in nuclear physics and complex systems), philosopher, investor and entrepreneur.
He has written more than a dozen books, some of them best-sellers, and is the founder of the private university Scholarium in Vienna, where the Austrian School is kept alive in its original interdisciplinary form of the Hayek- and Mises-Circles. He is originally from Iran, but has grown up in Austria and studied in Switzerland and the US.

Alex Voss
Senior Advisor
Alex is a Senior Advisor of the Free Cities Foundation. He has a background in investment banking and joined Titus Gebel as the CFO of Tipolis from its beginning.
Alex lives in Chicago and is working to expand the ideas of the Foundation to the Americas. He studied economics and finance at University of Chicago and Notre Dame and holds the CFA Charter. More recently Alex has formalized his study of Austrian Economics under the tutelage of the Mises Institute.

William Markus
Free Cities Ambassador
William Markus is a co-founder and partner at the Pacioli Network, an international consulting network focused on Corporate Performance Management.
William is also a staunch supporter of the Free Cities movement. He believes that more decentralization and competitiveness in governance improves the lives of people from all walks of life.

Joe Quirk
Free Cities Ambassador
Joe Quirk is President of The Seasteading Institute and co-founder of Blue Frontiers.
Joe is also a science writer, novelist, and memoir ghostwriter, with a national bestseller in each category. He is co-author with Patri Friedman of Seasteading, an Amazon bestseller in the category of marine engineering.
Joe leads a team of lawyers, engineers, business leaders, artists, and investors to establish the first floating community with unprecedented political autonomy in the waters of a host nation.

Annette Heinisch
Free Cities Ambassador
Annette Heinisch is a lawyer with special expertise in international banking, currency, and constitutional law, including financial constitutional law. Apart from her own practice, she works as a consultant for medium-sized companies.
Annette’s belief that the opportunity to live the life that one wants to live is the most essential part of human dignity has led her to support and promote Free Cities as a way to give more people such a chance.

Patrik Schumacher
Free Cities Ambassador
Dr. Patrik Schumacher is principal of London-based Zaha Hadid Architects, with a track record of highly esteemed and award-winning projects.
He is teaching at various architectural schools in Europe and the US including Harvard University. Additionally, he has been involved in several master plan projects worldwide, such as Singapore One North. His contribution to the discourse of contemporary architecture includes the concept of a market-based urban order. He will support the planning and design of Free Private Cities.

Magatte Wade
Free Cities Ambassador
Magatte Wade is a U.S.-based entrepreneur who manufactures products in Senegal that are sold at US Whole Foods Markets. She serves as the Director of the Center for African Prosperity of the Atlas Network, and is an advocate of entrepreneurship and economic freedom in Africa. She seeks to empower Africans to become prosperous innovators.
Magatte has spoken at the U.N., Aspen Institute, Clinton Global Initiative, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Wharton, UC-Berkeley, and more. Forbes named her one of the “Twenty Young Power Women of Africa.” She is working on developing new zones in Africa that create jobs and broad-based prosperity.
Annual Conference
Every year we host the Liberty in Our Lifetime conference where speakers share updates about Free Cities-aligned projects.
The in-person connections that this event generates help build a strong global Free Cities community capable of bringing about tangible results.
This year we are expecting around 300 attendees for a program in Prague on the theme “Parallel Structures for Progress”.
Media & Resources
We use social media, our website, blog posts, and interviews to spread our message to a worldwide audience.
Our news articles and blog posts feature coverage of key global developments and the human stories behind Free Cities-aligned projects.
Free Communities Directory
We are developing a directory of freedom-oriented projects that will allow settlers and investors to access detailed and up-to-date information about places they can move to or invest in.
It will feature an interactive map and a profile page for each project explaining progress to date and elements of the Free Cities model it incorporates.
Engaging Decision Makers
The Foundation engages with forward-thinking governments who are interested in establishing Free Cities within their territories.
Conversations with decision-makers have helped us advance several new law projects in different countries that will allow Free Cities-aligned special zones to be developed.