Who we are

The Young Global Leaders ® Community is an accelerator for a dynamic community of exceptional people with the vision, courage, and influence to drive positive change in the world.

Our growing membership of more than 1,400 members and alumni of 120 nationalities includes civic and business innovators, entrepreneurs, technology pioneers, educators, activists, artists, journalists, and more.

Aligned with the World Economic Forum’s mission, we seek to drive public-private co-operation in the global public interest. We are united by the belief that today’s pressing problems present an opportunity to build a better future across sectors and boundaries.

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Meet our members

Dominic Wadongo

Chief Risk Officer, Smartcash Payment Service Bank, Nigeria

Dominic Wadongo is the Group Head of Operational Risk at Equity Group Holdings, overseeing operational risk management across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is also in charge of driving the operational risk management in non-banking subsidiaries, which include Equity Investment Bank, Equity Insurance, Equity Group Foundation and Finserve. The scope encompasses driving the integrated operational risk management framework covering operational risk, IT and cyber risk, business continuity management, fraud risk, data privacy and protection, and security. Previously, Wadongo was Acting Chief Risk Officer and Head of Enterprise Risk at the National Bank of Kenya, where he ensured an effective risk management framework covering key risk areas in the company. Before joining National Bank of Kenya, Dominic started his career at Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya (SCBK) in 2007 where he worked for six years. He was the Senior Operational Risk Officer, in Global Shared Services Centre Africa. He graduated from the University of Nairobi with an MBA in 2015. He also has a BSc in Wildlife Management from Moi University. Wadongo is currently pursuing professional certifications in operational risk management (PRMIA) and Certified Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC). He is also a member of the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP).

Ahmed Ali Al-Hammadi

Chief Investment Officer, Europe, Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar

Ahmed Al-Hammadi serves as QIA’s Chief Investment Office for Europe and leads on the fund’s sustainability approach. He served as the Head of Active investments overseeing direct and fund investments from 2015 to 2020. He served as an associate in the asset management department from 2010 to 2014 and was responsible for reviewing and recommending investments for the QIA hedge fund portfolio, the venture capital programme, and for attracting asset managers to Qatar. He serves as non-independent non-executive director at Pavilion REIT Management. He also is a board member of Heathrow Airport and SoFi since 2018. From 2008 to 2010, he served as vice-president, asset management, EFG-Hermes Qatar, where he oversaw the asset management business in Qatar. Prior to that, he was an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton and worked on the restructuring and strategy recommendation for several financial service firms in the Middle East and was a financial reporting analyst from 2003 to 2005.

Al-Hammadi graduated with a BSc in economics, finance and accounting from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in Boston, USA.

Julie Bonamy

CEO, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Saint-Gobain (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Singapore

In 2017, Julie Bonamy was appointed vice-president for strategy at Saint-Gobain. Julie is a member of the Senior Management Committee. Julie is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (IEP de Paris) and the National School of Public Administration (Ecole Nationale d'Administration). She started her career as a civil servant (inspector of finance) for the French Government in 2011, before joining the Office of the French Minister for the Economy, Industry and the Digital Sector in October 2014. She was appointed adviser for the budget and digital sector in July 2015.

H.H. Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the United Arab Emirates, Ministry of Finance of the United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates

Kishin R K

Chief Executive Officer, RB Capital Limited, Singapore

Founded in 2006 by Kishin RK, RB Capital is a privately held real estate group with over USD $5billion in assets. RB Capital is focused on the acquisition and development of hospitality, commercial, and healthcare properties across Asia Pacific. Its portfolio in Singapore includes the RB Capital Building Raffles Place, 25 North Bridge Building and Cuppage Terrace. In Kuala Lumpur, RB Capital owns the HSBC Building in Bukit Bintang.

Kishin launched RB Capital Hotels in 2010, which holds a bold presence in the hospitality sector following the opening of Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay, Holiday Inn Little India and Intercontinental Singapore Robertson Quay. Today, RB Capital Hotels is one of Singapore’s largest hotel owners with over 1200 keys.

In 2013 , RB Capital expanded with the launch of RB Capital Healthcare, providing innovative and strategic real estate solutions to the healthcare industry, most recently launching Farrer Square Medical Centre.

In the same year, RB Capital acquired Robertson Quay- an extensive and heartfelt 5-year regeneration project along the Singapore River.The project has since transformed Robertson Quay into one of the most trendy neighbourhoods in Singapore. It is anchored by Intercontinental Singapore Robertson Quay which adjoins The Quayside, a lifestyle retail and dining destination along the historic Singapore River.

In 2019, Kishin founded Tiffinlabs with the focus on converting underutilised real estate into delivery enabled kitchens combined with a brand development platform to create digital first restaurants built for global scale. Tiffinlabs has expanded to the USA, EU from its home base of Singapore to bring delivery first restaurant brands to consumers around the world through its committed global network of over 1,000 cloud kitchens.

Kishin is a member of Young President’s Organization (YPO) and sits on the Board of Singapore River One and Raffles Place Alliance which are private - public partnerships, charged with rejuvenating strategic locations across Singapore. He also sits on the board of Weybourne Holdings as a non-executive director, the holding company of Dyson.

Sarah Nicholls

Global Head of ESG, Sourcing & Procurement, Jones Lang LaSalle, Netherlands

Sarah Nicholls is Senior Director and Head of Global Sustainability at JLL, a professional services firm specializing in real estate with over 90,000 employees. She is currently spearheading the roll-out of JLL’s sustainability strategy, Building a Better Tomorrow (BaBT) across Europe. BaBT seeks to embed sustainable thinking across all of JLL activities.

In her prior role leading the Global Sustainability Team, she was instrumental in developing and launching BaBT worldwide. Sarah set JLL’s first-ever energy and carbon reduction targets. She also served as a founding member and first chair of the Global Sustainability Board.

Sarah has a master's degree in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Cyrus Habib

Priest, Society of Jesus (Jesuits), USA

2016, elected Lieutenant Governor, at the age of 35. Had previously served in the State House of Representatives and the State Senate, as Democratic Whip and a member of the Democratic leadership team. As Lt. Governor, he is President of the State Senate, serves as Acting Governor whenever the governor leaves the state, and oversees an agency whose key issues include economic development, trade, and higher education. Currently, Co-Chair of the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association. A three-time cancer survivor, has been fully blind since age eight. Parents immigrated to the US from Iran; the first and only Iranian-American to hold statewide elected office in the United States. Graduate, Columbia University, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School. Former Editor, Yale Law Journal. Practiced law at Perkins Coie and served as Distinguished Lawmaker in Residence at Seattle University Law School. Truman Scholar, Soros Fellow, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Peter Biar Ajak

Visiting Fellow and Adjunct Faculty, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, USA

Peter Biar Ajak is a prominent civil society leader, political dissident, and scholar from South Sudan. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies of the National Defense University. Peter is also the Chairman of the South Sudan Young Leaders Forum, Senior Advisor to the LSE-based International Growth Centre, and the Founder of the Juba-based Center for Strategic Analyses and Research. He was previously a Senior Advisor to the Minister of National Security in the Office of the President of South Sudan and an In-Country Economist for the World Bank. An outspoken advocate of human rights, free and fair elections, he was arbitrarily detained and convicted in a politically-motivated show trial for “disturbing the peace” and jailed for eighteen months in South Sudan’s notorious Blue House prison. Peter is also a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow, and a Millennium Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He holds a Ph.D. in Politics & International Studies from the University of Cambridge, a Master of Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a BA in Economics from LaSalle University.

Nathaniel Harding

Managing Partner, Cortado Ventures, USA

An innovator and entrepreneur, Nathaniel Harding's company in 2018 helped discover one of the largest new natural gas resources in the United States, pioneered waterless completions, and is a founding investor in an Environmental Protection Agency approved fluid with application in medicine and energy. Viewing education and jobs as critical to fighting poverty, he is a recognized leader for both. The Governor of Oklahoma previously named him chairman of the Council for Workforce and Economic Development, and to the White House STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) Summit to develop the five-year federal STEM education strategy.