Carla Mays, the CEO of consulting firm Smart Cohort, is no stranger to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. In fact, she was in Seattle earlier this year as part of the meetings held in the lead-up to November’s main conference in San Francisco.
But she wasn’t prepared for the impact it would have on her SoMa-based business, largely because of a lack of communication. Mays, who also lives in an apartment building within the event’s security zone, said the extensive fencing and limited mobility made her neighborhood less like home and more like a prison.
She ended up moving herself and her business to a hotel during APEC, but she noted that many of her disabled and elderly neighbors weren’t so lucky.
“When I came back to my house, people were shellshocked,” Mays said. “They had essentially been caged in their houses for a week.”
