Community
The Forum of Young Global Leaders is a community of innovators from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Search current members and alumni by year awarded, sector or region.

Maureen Trantham
Maureen Tranthams diverse background spans media, education policy and business strategy. She currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Global Social Impact & Philanthropy Operations and a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Sesame Workshop. In her role, Maureen is responsible for the overall planning and coordination of strategic and financial results across Sesames global, philanthropically funded social impact efforts including the organizations work supporting displaced children in crisis contexts and children from marginalized communities in the U.S. She also oversees the organizations Compliance and Risk Management capabilities, working closely with teams to navigate the challenges of reaching children in conflict zones. A former international journalist with experience in Thailand and China, she has also led a Washington state education policy and advocacy nonprofit, as well as worked as a management consultant supporting global media and technology companies on a variety of strategic, operations and organizational issues. A committed mentor, particularly to early career professionals, she frequently coaches individuals hoping to transition sectors and contribute to social impact. Maureen holds a BA in Journalism and the Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington and an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business. She also serves as an active Term Member on the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lila Tretikov
Lila Tretikov is Chief Executive Officer of Terrawatt (TWI), a global organization that aligns corporate, financial, NGOs and political interests to alter the trajectory of Earth's ecology. TWI brings next-generation clean energy to humankind through innovative models rooted in shared economic value, enabled by technologies such as artificial intelligence and financial engineering.
Named one of the 21 Most Powerful Women in Bay Area Technology by San Francisco Chronicle, one of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes and invited by the World Economic Forum to join the Young Global Leaders in 2016. She has co-authored numerous articles, patents and inventions across areas of policy, management and technology.
Previously, Ms. Tretikov was Chief Executive of the Wikimedia Foundation, an organization supporting Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopedia available in 300+ languages and the fifth most popular internet media site. She transformed the organization to prepare for upcoming changes in the age of ubiquitous Internet and machine learning. She also led Wikipedia’s rapidly expanded regional presence to nearly 100 global organizations, doubled revenues and launched the Wikipedia Endowment to support modernization and expansion of knowledge access in perpetuity.
Ms. Tretikov is Board Director and CEO Advisor at numerous companies such as Rackspace, Onfido, PrivacyShell Corp., OpenEd (acquired by ACT), Zamurai (acquired by Join.me), Crunchbase and Bonsai. She advises leaders on identifying and navigating through major market and consumer behavioral shifts propelled by technical innovations.
Ms. Tretikov launched her first company, Grok, while attending college at UC Berkeley creating intelligent data mapping of the Human Genome Project. She founded and scaled several pre-IPO companies, as well as accelerated 10-100% YOY growth of strategic projects within multi-billion USD corporations. Her cross-discipline background has allowed her to play a seminal role in helping businesses and their leaders synthesize and operationalize successful, lasting strategies and paths of execution.
Born in Moscow, Ms. Tretikov started college at the age of thirteen and emigrated to the United States independently as a teenager. She has more than two decades of experience as a transformational leader in Silicon Valley companies where she honed her passion for harnessing human-focused technologies for global impact. She currently resides in Paris, France.

John R. Tyson
John R. Tyson is a fourth-generation member of the Tyson family and executive at one of the largest food companies in the world. As Chief Sustainability Officer at Tyson Foods, he has the ability to influence the global food supply chain, promoting more sustainable production practices that empower people, conserve natural resources and drive innovation for smart, responsible agriculture. Prior, he worked in investment banking for J.P. Morgan and as a private equity and venture capital investor. He is also a lecturer at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, he serves on the Board of Directors of Winrock International and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Tyson has a BA in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Vasudha Vats
Vasudha Vats has grown several multi-billion dollar businesses in pharma and currently manages one of the highest selling small molecule medicines in the world. Her mission is to not only help patients by delivering high-quality medical therapies, but also to improve care delivery across the entire patient experience. As a leader in healthcare, she has forged and led partnerships across the industry to deliver better outcomes for patients, including patient advocacy groups like the American Diabetes Association, technology (Fitbit), pharmacy (CVS and Walgreens), and government (National Institutes of Health). She is an advocate of supporting emerging thinkers to fuel future societal improvement, actively mentoring emerging biotechnology firms with the New York City Entrepreneurship Lab and having helped to co-found the Chandini Foundation, a charity designed to provide underprivileged youths in developing nations with mentoring support to become ethical, impactful and entrepreneurially minded leaders.

Nicole Vogrin
Nicole Vogrin became Western Union’s first Chief Corporate Affairs and Communications Officer in 2019, when she was tasked with spearheading the company’s global corporate brand, public affairs, and communications strategy with a focus on elevating and protecting the company’s reputation. In this role, Nicole shapes Western Union’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitment while strategically aligning it to the company’s global advocacy. She is based at the company’s global headquarters in Denver, Colorado.
Nicole joined Western Union in 2009. Through her tenure, she has held roles in Europe and the United States. Most recently, she served as Head of Corporate Relations and Chief of Staff to Western Union’s CEO, playing a key role in accelerating the company’s transformation agenda. In August 2019, when Nicole was promoted to her current role, she and her team started to bring together disparate comms functions, combining them with environmental, social, and governance and dedicated corporate brand teams, as well as the Western Union Foundation.
She is also a director of the board of the Western Union International Bank, Austria. In 2020, Nicole was recognized as one of PRWeek’s ‘40 Under 40,’ an annual list spotlighting U.S. PR professionals leading the future of communications and marketing; and was named one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders.
Prior to joining Western Union, Nicole held finance, accounting, and marketing positions in the health care and electronics industries in Europe. She was born in Vienna, Austria and holds a Master’s in Business Administration and Economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria.

Hitesh Wadhwa
Hitesh holds a distinguished position as a seasoned leader in Enterprise Technology, Sales, and Business at Google within the United States. In his role, he leads growth and adoption of Google Cloud with large enterprises in Central US. His responsibilities are centered around elevating Technology, particularly in the domains of AI, web3, Cloud, Quantum Computing, and more, to the forefront of large-scale Enterprises and their associated communities. He is also a GenAI Ambassador at Google.
Before joining Google, Hitesh's career encompassed a pivotal role at Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the 'Principal, Enterprise Business' for a rapidly expanding region, where he orchestrated strategies to expand AWS adoption within substantial and medium-sized organizations.
Prior to his tenure at AWS, he occupied the position of Vice President at Tech Mahindra, the IT division of the Mahindra group. In this capacity, he orchestrated a range of strategic engagements and undertakings within the Telco, Media & Entertainment (CME) sector, leading to a noteworthy growth of Tech Mahindra's business by over $100 million through both organic and inorganic means. Hitesh played an instrumental part in Tech Mahindra's CME vertical, a business segment generating more than $2.5 billion annually. He was selected twice for the company's highly competitive "Shadow Board" program, an exclusive initiative where only six individuals out of over 130,000 employees are chosen each year to shadow the board of directors. As a Shadow Board member, he administered several impactful programs spanning digital transformation, diversity, culture, and sustainability.
Over the course of his extensive 17+ years of professional journey at the intersection of Technology and Business, Hitesh has demonstrated adept leadership in team management, business expansion, strategic endeavors, and effective management of Fortune 500 client relationships. Noteworthy clients include AT&T, USAA, Facebook, Verizon, Oracle, UnitedHealth Group, WarnerMedia, Rakuten, and iHeartMedia, among others.
Hitesh's enthusiasm for Technology is profound, driven by his belief in its potential to address significant global challenges when employed judiciously. In 2021, he was named as a 'Young Global Leader' (YGL) by the World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/press/2021/03/ygl-class-2021/
He has also been chosen by Forbes for "Forbes Business Development Council", an invitation-only organization for Senior-Level Sales and Business Development Executives
Beyond his professional pursuits, he nurtures a penchant for fine Coffee and Bourbon. During his leisure moments, he cherishes quality time with his family - his wife and two children. Presently, he resides in Austin, Texas, USA.

Tiffany Xingyu Wang
An award-winning marketer and social entrepreneur, Tiffany Xingyu Wang’s deep technological understanding, digital trust stewardship and marketing prowess have positioned her at the nexus of the future of media, corporate ethics and the emerging community economy.
She currently serves as the Chief Marketing & Trust Officer of OpenWeb – a role that reflects her leadership in the field. The leading community engagement platform powers over 3,000 publishers and brands and is leading the way in creating trusting spaces for healthy conversations and diverse, engaged communities in the Web3 era. At OpenWeb, Tiffany Xingyu oversees marketing as well as the entire trust and safety P&L and is working closely with the company’s vast partner networks to scale market-leading best practices.
Tiffany Xingyu is also the President and Co-founder of Oasis Consortium. As part of the nonprofit created to define a digital sustainability model for businesses, she launched first-of-their-kind User Safety Standards for Web3, minting industry-backed consensus on digital safety early in the Web3 revolution and earning interest from TIME, MIT Technology Review and more. The momentum continues with over 20 platforms, including Roblox, Pandora, Grindr, Fandom, The Meet Group and Together Labs, pledging to the standards.
Tiffany Xingyu’s pioneering approach to marketing, innovation and advocacy serves as a model for future leaders looking to drive positive change at a global scale. She’s democratizing access to critical digital trust and safety knowledge through a first-of-its-kind LinkedIn Learning course for brand leaders. Active with global organizations that are elevating the dialogue around the future of media and the web, she is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders program, the Atlantic Council’s Trust & Safety Taskforce and a board member of AdCouncil.
Prior to joining OpenWeb, Wang was the Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Spectrum Labs, a leading contextual AI platform that keeps over 1 billion users safe online. She also holds two USPTO patents in machine learning applications for marketing.
Tiffany Xingyu stays abreast of blockchain and quantum computing technologies through investments and advisory board roles. She’s also a venture partner at Tribe, a Singapore government-backed blockchain accelerator, where she leads investor relations in the US.
Her leadership continues to be acknowledged within the industry and the global business community. She was recently on the cover of Adweek’s first edition of 2023 in the “Year of the Tenacious CMO” feature and her work has been highlighted in leading publications including Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Digiday, and VentureBeat. With further recognition from Forbes’ Most Entrepreneurial CMO List and the CMO Club’s Most Innovative Awards under her belt, Tiffany Xingyu has solidified her reputation as one of the seminal innovators of her generation.

Nolan Watson
President and CEO, Sandstorm Gold, a NYSE American-listed company with a market capitalization of $1.1 billion. Founder and President, Nations Cry, a registered charity building and operating schools in Sierra Leone, Africa. By the age of 26, was the youngest CFO of any NYSE-listed company in the world. Recognized as one of the "Top-40-Under-40", Canada and "CEO of the Year". In addition, Nolan is the youngest "Fellow" of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia and he has been recognized as one of the "Most Motivated" Chartered Financial Analysts in the World by CFA Magazine. Nolan is a regular contributor on various radio programs, television programs, and government conferences on topics ranging from mining, to environmental sustainability and he has been seen on CNBC, Fox Business News, BBC, BNN and CNBC Europe among others.

Leana Wen
Dr. Leana Wen is an emergency physician, professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and an op-ed columnist for the The Washington Post, where she anchors a weekly newsletter "The Checkup with Dr. Wen". A nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, she is also an on-air commentator for CNN as a medical analyst and author of When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests (St. Martin’s Press, 2013) and Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health (Henry Holt, 2021).
Previously, she served as health commissioner for the city of Baltimore, where she led the nation’s oldest continuously operating health department to combat the opioid epidemic and improve maternal and child health. She has also worked as director of patient-centered care research in the department of emergency medicine at George Washington University; president of Planned Parenthood; global health fellow at the World Health Organization; consultant to the China Medical Board; and distinguished fellow at the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity.
Currently, Dr. Wen serves on the board of directors of Glaukos Corporation (NYSE: GKOS) and UroGen (NASDAQ: URGN) and as the chair of the advisory board of the Behavioral Health Group. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Baltimore Community Foundation, and on the advisory boards of B-Generous, MANUAL, and Shatterproof. Her previous board experience includes being board chair of Behavioral Health System Baltimore for four years and serving on boards and advisory of boards to more than ten nonprofit and venture-backed health innovation companies.
Dr. Wen obtained her medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine and studied health policy at the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She completed her residency training at Brigham & Women's Hospital & Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Wen has received recognition as one of Governing's Public Officials of the Year, Modern Healthcare's Top 50 Physician-Executives, World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders, and TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People.
Dr. Wen lives with her husband and their two young children in Baltimore.

Adam Werbach
Adam Werbach is a media sustainability leader working at the intersection of technology, business and politics. He recently joined Kapital Entertainment as head of Digital and Unscripted Television and is creating shows across major networks and streamers. Previously, he developed the sustainable shopping customer experience as the Global Lead for Sustainable Shopping at Amazon.com. After a YGL journey, he founded Trove (formerly Yerdle), the re-commerce company that manages resale for Patagonia, Nordstrom's, Eileen Fisher, Arc'Teryx, and REI. He previously founded Act Now, which was acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi and the Publicis Groupe, after he helped Walmart launch its sustainability efforts. At age 23, Werbach was elected President of the Sierra Club, the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the US, after helping pass the legislation to create Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks in California. He spent almost ten years producing an indie-rock documentary film entitled "This is Noise Pop," which was named one of the top five music documentaries of the year by Rolling Stone Magazine, even though it was only shown once. Werbach lives between San Francisco and Bolinas, California with his wife Lyn and their three kids, Mila, Pearl and Simon.

will.i.am
Creative innovator, Futurist, entertainer, producer, technology investor, and Founder & CEO, FYI.AI. Member: World Economic Forum Fourth Industrial Revolution Advisory Committee. Honorary Fellow, Institutions of Engineering and Technology. Recipient: James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award (2023), TIME 100 IMPACT Award (2022), seven Grammy Awards; Emmy; CLIO; World Economic Forum Crystal Award (2016).
As an advocate for STEAM education, started i.am Angel Foundation, which uses project-based learning modules to deliver STEAM education for at-risk youth via dedicated STEM Academy preparatory schools, after-school tutoring and enrichment activities within the US. At-risk students participate in project-based learning modules for robotics, coding, app development, geographic information system mapping, and study Mandarin Chinese. The i.am Angel Foundation recently teamed with the Los Angeles Unified School District, America's second-largest state-run public school system to offer robotics clubs as an official after-school activity, with capacity to serve 12,000+students. Keeping child safety and protection at the forefront in the US as pertains to school and community shootings that urgently require gun safety law reform, Co-Executive Producer, "Parkland Rising", a documentary film about the students and families that survived a mass school shooting and their journey as advocates for US gun safety reform. Interests: promoting the health and planetary benefits of a plant-based (Vegan) diet; alternative energy-powered cars.

Kiah Williams
Kiah Williams is Co-Founder and Managing Director of SIRUM, a non-profit social enterprise that drives the future of healthcare by connecting people with surplus medications. Prior to SIRUM, Williams helped create the Alliance Healthcare Initiative, a public-private partnership spearheaded by the American Heart Association and Clinton Foundation that engaged Fortune 500 companies to expand healthcare benefits for 2 million children. Her work at SIRUM has been recognized by Forbes 30-Under-30 and Marie Claire's America's 50 Most Influential Women. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University.