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.

John Nevado

President, Nevado Roses, Sweden

John Nevado is President of Nevado Roses. He transformed his family rose business in Ecuador by increasing employment four-fold. Nevado Roses has been certified by most environmental certificates worldwide, making the company the most sustainable rose plantation on the planet. Nevado Roses now produces in excess of 50 million roses per year and is in the process of converting to organic production. Nevado’s past experience includes working at NATO headquarters and at the European Commission. He is the Founder of several computer security companies and a Board Member of many non-profit organizations, including Faces of AIDS, a project that employs young correspondents around the globe to document and present the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Among other achievements, the project produced the opening film for the Global HIV/AIDS Conference in Bangkok in 2004, as well as for many of the previous conferences. Nevado is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Tinna C. Nielsen

Lead, Equitable Transformation, Social and Human Sustainability, EQT, Sweden

Anthropologist and behavioural designer specializing in diversity, equity, inclusion, mitigating unconscious bias, human rights, and accelerating sustainable development.
Co-Founder of the global non-profit empowerment initiative Inclusion Nudges (inclusive behavioral designs) and author of 5 Inclusion Nudges guidebooks (inclusion-nudges.org), with the mission to empower people to be change makers by providing actionable insights about how the human mind works and behavioural designs.

Tinna is a Young Global Leader (Alumni) at the World Economic Forum, Co-Chair of the WEF Global Future Council for Behavioural Sciences (2016-18), and part of the WEF Expert Network.

Previously worked for the Danish Institute of Human Rights, as Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Arla Foods, strategic advisor and educator in gender parity and inclusion at the United Nations (all UN entities), and as a social entrepreneur and consultant in her own organisation Move the Elephant for Inclusiveness.

David Novak

Co-President, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, United Kingdom

Mr. Novak has been with CD&R for 25 years and is a member of the Investment Committee. Based in London, he is responsible for the Firm’s European business and international activities. Mr. Novak has been actively involved in CD&R's investments in B&M Retail, BCA, Belron, BUT, Conforama France, Huntsworth, Kalle Group, Mauser Group, Motor Fuel Group, SIG plc, SOCOTEC, and Westbury Street Holdings, and played a key role in many others. Previously, he worked in the private equity and investment banking divisions of Morgan Stanley. Mr. Novak has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Amherst College.

Jasandra Nyker

Chief Executive Officer, Nala Renewables, United Kingdom

Most recently, Jasandra Nyker was the Chief Executive Officer of BioTherm Energy, a leading African based renewable energy investment and independent project development platform. Previously, she managed the direct investment portfolio on behalf of a US$ 680 million global energy and clean technology investment fund. Nyker played an integral role in transaction sourcing, due diligence, investment execution and post-investment management. The portfolio included investments in green infrastructure (sugar ethanol, co-generation, wind projects and solar base-load applications), solar technologies, wind turbines, water (desalination, purification) and energy efficiency technologies. Nyker has previously worked in investment banking, strategy consulting and private equity and in multiple regions, including the US, London, Kuwait and Asia. She has an MBA from the London Business School, where she was a Merrill Lynch Scholar, and a Bachelor's degree in Business Science from the University of Cape Town.

Tero Ojanpera

Co-founder and Chairman, Silo.AI, Finland

Tero is CEO and Co-Founder of Silo.AI, the largest private AI Lab in Nordics. Silo.AI transforms businesses using AI and machine learning.

He is Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder of Vision+ Fund, early stage VC fund and Chairman of the Board of Tampere University of Technology, Finland. Tero serves as a member of the Board of DNA Plc and Bittium Plc.

Previously, he served as Nokia's CTO and Chief Strategy Officer as well as Head of Research. Tero was a Member of the Group Executive Board of Nokia for seven years. He served as a Member of the Board of Directors of the NAVTEQ Corporation. He also served as Member of the Board of Directors of Veikkaus, a Finnish lottery company.

Tero was nominated as Young Global Leader of World Economic Forum 2006. He has been recognized as 7th Most Creative People In Business 2009 by Fast Company.

Tero has a Ph.D. from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He is married and has three children and in his spare time he enjoys olympic weightlifting, boating, triathlon and skiing.

Jacek Olechowski

Chief Executive Officer, MEDIACAP SA, Poland

Private entrepreneur focused on media; main shareholder & CEO of MEDIACAP SA – a Polish publicly listed marketing group employing 300+ and servicing over 300 clients. He co-founded several successful ventures, including rankomat.pl (Poland’s #1 insurance aggregator sold to Bauer Media in 2015) and Group One SA (a leading marketing group, sold in 2014).

President of the International Advertising Association (Poland). Young Presidents Organization member since 2006. Nominated European Young Leader by BMW Stiftung (2008). Member of the Polish Business Roundtable since 2009, where he served as VP for two consecutive terms. Polish Country Chair of Global Dignity.

Polish national, born in 1977 in Geneva, Switzerland; MA of the Warsaw School of Economics; Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) Global Leadership & Public Policy for the 21st Century program & Georgetown Leadership Seminar (2010) alumni. Married, two sons.

Claudia Olsson

Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Stellar Capacity, Sweden

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Stellar Capacity, an education company providing digital leadership courses, digital skills trainings and digital skills mapping for organizations and individuals. The company focuses on the impact of new technologies on citizens, businesses, society and global markets. Member of the Industry 2030 high-level industrial roundtable at the European Commission, co-author of the Industry 2030 vision for the European Union. Founder of Swedish for Professionals, a language and cultural training company. Associate Faculty at Singularity University since 2014. Member of the Steering Board of the Software Development Academy. Board Member at Swedes Abroad. Appointed: One of the 40 under 40 European Young Leaders by Friends of Europe; One of Sweden's most impactful women in business; Young Leader of the Year in Sweden, Gifted Citizen, La Ciudad de las Ideas, Mexico; European David Rockefeller Fellowship, Trilateral Commission, One of Sweden's most Creative Minds by Resume. Selected as representative of the European David Rockefeller fellows at the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission. Formerly: with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); with ACCESS in India; set up and managed ACCESS Health International, the policy think-tank, Singapore; Board Member at Project Playground, Senior Adviser to the Office of Strategic Analysis, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Member of the World Economic Forum Europe Policy Group. Member of the World Economic Forum Future Council on Values, Ethics and Innovation.

Burcu Ozturk

Chief Financial Officer, MLP Saglık Hizmetleri A.Ş., Türkiye

Burcu Ozturk is the CFO of MLP Care, which operates with 30 hospitals and c.18,000 employees, the largest private hospital group in Turkey. Burcu Ozturk graduated from the Middle East Technical University, Department of Political Science and Public Administration and then joined PricewaterhouseCoopers. During her 10 years of service, Burcu worked as a consultant in Mergers & Acquisitions activities of international investors. Burcu was transferred to PwC New York in 2010; where she provided consultancy services as a Director for 2 years. In 2019, Burcu was ranked among the Top 10 “CFO’s Best For Investor Relations” in Medtech&Services, in the global survey by “Extel”. In 2020, Burcu was awarded as the “Best CFO” in both Turkey and EMEA by “Institutional Investor”. In 2018 and 2020, Burcu entered the list of "Turkey's Top 50 CFO” prepared by Fortune magazine. Burcu is a member of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey and works in Access to Finance Group, contributing to the development of women entrepreneur ecosystem. Burcu is a Board member of Turkish Food Banking Foundation. Burcu is an Executive Board Member (responsible from fund development) in “Disaster Platform”, a platform created by +30 NGOs to minimize the effects of disasters in Turkey.

Kirsten Parker

Vice-President, Client Operations, Ravelin Technology Ltd, United Kingdom

Kirsten's background is leading growing companies through scale up, acquisitions, and a range of innovation, change, and engagement initiatives.

She's VP of Client Operations at Ravelin Technology, a company that helps clients detect and prevent fraud and increase payment acceptance. Ravelin uses machine learning and a suite of tools to help clients prevent payment fraud and emerging threats like account takeover, marketplace fraud, promo abuse, and refund abuse.

Previously, she was VP of Solutions Strategy at Mind Gym, a consultancy that designs people-led solutions for performance, diversity and inclusion, team effectiveness, resilience, ethics, and organisational change.

Kirsten was co-founder and Managing Director of Exclusive Analysis (EA, acquired by IHS) and head of Country Risk Analysis and Forecasting at IHS Markit (following the merger of Global Insight, Jane’s, and EA). The team forecast war, terrorism, unrest, and political risk to enable strategic planning, market entry, risk management, and social licence for clients across government and industries.

She also worked for Common Ground Community (now Breaking Ground) - an innovative not-for-profit whose flagship projects are bold experiments in financing, developing, and managing urban planning - as well as in a community mental health team in the NHS and a children’s crisis team in New York.

Kirsten holds a BA in Anthropology and Politics from the University of Chicago, an MSc in Applied Social Studies (Psychology, Sociology, and Public Policy) and a Diploma in Social Work from Oxford (Rhodes Scholar), and an MSc in Leadership & Strategy from London Business School (Sloan Fellow).

Her interests include organisational psychology, conflict and social policy, and risk forecasting. Kirsten is based in the UK and has and has lived and worked in the US, Europe, Latin America, and APAC.

Belinda Parmar

Chief Executive Officer, The Empathy Business, United Kingdom

Campaigner & the CEO of The Empathy Business, a consultancy changing the world of work through the science of empathy. Focused on measuring and scaling empathy. Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum. Speaker on the diversity, future of work, tech and female empowerment. OBE for bringing more women into the UK’s technology industry. Voted one of the world's top 20 Global Diversity Figures. Cranfield “100 Women to Watch” list. https://theempathybusiness.com/ https://www.globaldiversitylist.org/public-life

Codrut Pascu

Senior Advisor, Roland Berger S.R.L., Switzerland

Codrut Pascu is Partner of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants Romania and Co-Head of the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) operations. He started as a consultant in 1998 and worked his way up to Partner in less than 10 years, becoming one of the youngest partners in the firm's worldwide partner network. Prior, Codrut worked for a leading Romanian brokerage company and for Morgan Stanley's investment banking division in London. Committed to fostering educational excellence among young talents, he is Founder of the Romanian Education Trust and the Roland Berger Scholarships in Romania, which supports the academic development of talented Romanians studying abroad. In his capacity of thought leader and active promoter of business education, Codrut has been cited in hundreds of articles published in leading publications in Romania and CEE. He studied Business Administration at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, graduating with a full merit scholarship. He also completed an MBA programme at INSEAD, a leading business academic institution in France.

Devina Pasta

Chief Executive Officer, Siemens Software, Siemens, Germany

Devina is transforming the industrial world through digital technology to enable countries and cities to shift towards more sustainable and efficient mobility, infrastructure, and energy systems; European governments have invited her to share her work with other pioneers; she was nominated 'Changemaker' at the London Tech week and is a strong advocate for diversity in tech.