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.

Murat Sarayli

Chair, Sarayli AS, Norway

Murat Sarayli served as National Chairman of the Young Businessmen's Association of Turkey during 2004-2008, worked on issues related to entrepreneurship, education, ethics in government, competitiveness, EU accession process of Turkey. Sarayli also chaired YES, the Brussels-based European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs, for three consecutive terms until 2008, representing 40,000 members from 16 countries. Assuming responsibilities at YES in November 2004, Sarayli made the Lisbon Agenda, Europe's strategic plan towards greater economic growth and job creation, the hallmark of his tenure. He worked for a better business eco system for the young entrepreneurs in Europe. He is the co-founder of Visa-Free Europe movement and sits on the Board of the International Competitiveness Research Institute of Turkey He has been active in his family-owned group of companies since 1989. The Group is active in tourism, construction, real estate development and international trade. In addition to his devoted time for the development of entrepreneurship in Europe, he has been active in Sub Saharan Africa during last 20 years both for NGO work and business development. Sarayli graduated with a degree in Management from the Middle East Technical University, attended the Global Leadership and Public Policy module at Harvard KSG and the “Foundations For Leadership in the 21st Century” program at Yale University and living in Oslo.

Adi Sariaatmadja

Chairman, Surya Citra Media, Indonesia

Adi Sariaatmadja has served as CEO of PT Kreatif Media Karya (KMK), a fully owned subsidiary of PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk (Emtek), since 2012 and holds the position of Chairman of Surya Citra Media, the largest media company in Indonesia. He oversaw the digital transformation of Emtek Group. Under his supervision, he founded Vidio (the leading premium OTT/streaming service in Indonesia) and Dana (the top payment app in Indonesia). He also led the group to invest in a few notable tech companies which included Bukalapak (a leading O2O e-commerce that had the largest IPO in Indonesia in 2021), PropertyGuru (SEA’s leading online property company that went public in 2022 in NYSE), Kudo (acquired by Grab in 2017) and many others. Sariaatmadja’s passion to digitize the group’s business has led to a far-reaching cultural and technological transformation of its various businesses.

Prashant Sarin

Senior Partner, Bain & Company, India

Senior Partner at Bain & Company; Asia Pacific Practice Leader, Advanced Manufacturing & Services (Industrials); Member, Bain’s Asia Pacific Leadership Team. With Bain and Company since 2006; lived and worked in Silicon Valley & New Delhi.

Clients across the US, Europe, SE Asia and India. Work with Boards, CEOs and Leadership Teams across Fortune 100 companies, NGOs and start-ups globally; strong expertise in scale transformations, driving growth and turnaround programs.

Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum (2015); India's 'Top 40 under 40' Business leaders, The Economic Times (2015); India's Top 25 Young Executives, Business Today (2014). Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University; Aditya Birla Scholar, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (MBA); Delhi University (B.Engg).

Teruhide Sato

Founder and Managing Partner, Beenext Pte. Ltd., Singapore

Teruhide Sato participated in founding the JV of Softbank Corporation and US online payment company, Cyber Cash (now eContext Asia) while he was in Keio University SFC in 1997. In 1999, he found BEENOS Inc. as Founder, CEO. BEENOS is listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2004 and now consist of over 80 subsidiaries and investment portfolios of E-commerce and Online Payment companies in Japan, US, Europe, India, Turkey and South East Asia countries. Teruhide now plays his role as Strategic Investor and Advisories of those startups and contributes in expansion of global entrepreneur network. In 2008, the World Economic Forum elected him as a “Young Global Leader”.

Arvind Satyam

Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer, Pano AI, USA

Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Pano AI (WEF Technology Pioneer), the leader in early wildfire detection and actionable intelligence using AI, IOT and satellites; Previously, Managing Director, Global Public Sector at Cisco; led growth initiatives for $13Bn public sector business including critical infrastructure, cyber security strategy for state and national governments and public private partnerships with multinational institutions. Formerly, drove sales, strategic partnerships and venture investments for Cisco’s IOT & Smart City businesses. Undergraduate degree and Master’s in Computer Science and Finance, University of New South Wales, Australia; alumnus, Harvard Business School. Adams Advisor, UNC. Member: Advisory Board, World Sensing, EQITII and Urbanise; Governor of Illinois's Technology Advisory Board. Investor and advisor to several companies. Has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg, the Atlantic, the New York Times, Fortune, Harvard Business School Alumni Magazine and L’Atelier. Young Leader, World Cities Summit (2016); Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum (2018), WEF Technology Pioneer (2023), WEF UpLink Top Innovator (2023). Academy judge for $1M Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize.

Thomas Saueressig

Member of the Executive Board, SAP Customer Services and Delivery, SAP, Germany

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. He heads the Customer Services & Delivery Board area with global responsibility for long-term customer value in the cloud. This includes all business areas in customer services, comprising professional services, premium engagements, customer innovation services, and customer support. In addition, Saueressig leads cloud infrastructure, cloud operations, cloud lifecycle management, and private cloud delivery for SAP’s global customer base.
The goal of the Customer Services & Delivery organization is to further increase customer satisfaction by ensuring that customers get the best services, tools, and support to accelerate their cloud transformation and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) through the immense value of the integrated SAP portfolio. SAP helps customers to drive their business transformation effectively while maximizing the benefits of the cloud and AI.
Previously, as a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Saueressig led the SAP Product Engineering Board area and was responsible for the company’s entire application portfolio. This also included cloud offerings, the global SAP Labs Network, the SAP Enterprise Adoption organization, and development priorities. These priorities encompassed innovation, AI, integration, design and user experience, cloud operational excellence, and the overall quality and security of SAP software products.
Before being appointed the head of SAP Product Engineering, Saueressig was chief information officer (CIO) and global head of IT Services at SAP. As CIO, he was responsible for SAP’s IT strategy and execution following a cloud-first approach. Under his leadership, the IT organization pioneered new business models and significantly advanced SAP’s own cloud transformation. Saueressig started his career at SAP in consulting in 2004 before moving on to spend time abroad and holding various management positions with growing responsibility across SAP.
He was included on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list in 2016. As global sponsor for the Business Women’s Network, the largest employee network at SAP, and the SAP Women in Tech initiative, Saueressig supports corporate initiatives for gender equality. Furthermore, he is the executive sponsor for the Accessible Workplace Inclusion Network, an employee network that embraces accessibility and inclusion across all aspects of work at SAP and beyond.
Saueressig has a degree in Business Information Technology from the University of Cooperative Education in Mannheim (Germany) and a joint executive MBA from ESSEC Business School (France) and Mannheim Business School (Germany).
Since April 2022, Saueressig has been a member of the Board of Directors of Nokia.

Marietje Schaake

Director, International Policy, Cyber Policy Center, Stanford University, USA

Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center’s International Policy Director, as well as an International Policy Fellow Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. UN AI Advisory Body. Former Member of European Parliament for the Dutch Liberal Democratic Party (2009-2019), focussing on trade, foreign affairs and technology policies. Monthly column FT.

Diego Schalper

Member of Congress, Congress of Chile, Chile

Diego Ignacio Schalper Sepúlveda is a Chilean politician currently serving as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, representing District 15 of the O'Higgins Region since 2018. He is a member of centre-right party National Renewal. Vice President of the International Democratic Union (IDU). Legislative coordinator of the Union of Latin American Parties (UPLA). Doctor of Law, University of Marburg (Germany), with the topic ?Constitutional protection of social rights in Chile and Germany. ?A comparative study.? Magister Legum ? LLM from the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany), approved with maximum distinction. Lawyer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, graduated with maximum distinction. Professor at the San Sebastián University.

Marlène Schiappa

Diploma in communication and new media. She started as Assistant, new media, Euro agency RSCG. Journalist for Yahoo.fr. Editorial Director of a news agency. Founder and President of the network “Mom works”. Deputy to the Mayor of Le Mans, Mr Jean-Claude Boulard. Responsible of the department Gender Parity of the Party En Marche!. Community Advisor, representative French Tech at Le Mans Métropole.

2016, joined the government as Advisor for the economic competitiveness and technological innovation; and then joined the Minister of Family, Children and Rights for Women. Since May 2017, current position.

Author of numerous articles on the gender parity. Wrote numerous papers, researches and books.

Christopher Schläffer

Founder and Executive Chairman, NYOUM, United Kingdom

Christopher Schlaeffer is the Founder and Executive Chairman of NYOUM, the London-based generative AI company. Previous roles include Chief Digital Officer of VEON (NASDAQ: VEON), Chief Product & Innovation Officer as well as Chief Strategy Officer of Deutsche Telekom (XETRA: DTE), CEO of T-Online International and CMO of T-Mobile International. Christopher served as a Member of the Board at Amnesty International. Together with Andy Rubin, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Peter Chou and Cole Brodman he unveiled the world's first mobile phone based on Android, T-Mobile G1 in 2008. In 2007, he and Tim Cook closed Apple's first partnership on iPhone outside the US. Christopher started his career with Accenture. Christopher has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and ranked one of the Top50 Innovators To Watch. He takes an avid interest in promoting an open information society, science, equality and arts and graduated from the Vienna University of Economics.

Leo Schlesinger

Founding Curator and Alumni, Mexico City Hub, Aliat Universidades, Mexico

Leo Schlesinger has an MBA from London Business School and additional courses at LBS, Yale, Harvard and Michigan University. He began his professional career in 1992 at Sun Chemical in New York and then joined Citigroup´s Global Leadership Program which took him to Santiago, Sao Paulo and London where he stayed until 2002 when he moved to Cigna International Europe and then Cigna USA. In 2005 he joined Gruponueva, a USD 1.4BN Swiss Private Equity fund as Corporate Vice President and he sat at the boards of the controlled companies (Masisa, Amanco, Plycem) where he restructured, merged and sold several of them. In 2007 Leo moved to Mexico as the CEO of Masisa.

In 2015 he became the CEO of Aliat Universidades (a PE company from Tresalia Capital); one of the major higher education private-for profit groups with presence in 15 Mexican states, +50 campus and 54,000 students. Aliat it’s the fastest growing Private for profit University group in Mexico and it includes 16 higher education institutions/ brands that teach from High School, Bachelors, Master and post graduate degrees both in traditional classrooms and online.

Leo in 2010 he was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, also he has been awarded the Global SEN award as the CEO of the year by the Young Presidents Organization, was named Chairman of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Natural Capital, and currently is the president of the Young Presidents Organization Mexico City Chapter.
He also is a board member of KIO Networks, Subastas Ventura, a mentor at Endeavor and Ashoka and the Vice President of the Board of Trustees at the American School Foundation. He is the writer of “Mi mejor yo” (“my best self”) published by Pearson which has sold over 40,000 copies.

Sophie Schmidt

Founder and Publisher, Rest of World, USA

Sophie Schmidt is the Founder and Publisher of Rest of World, an award-winning non-profit journalism organization focused on the impact of technology in the non-western world. Since launching in 2020, Rest of World has published thousands of stories from over 100 countries, filling a critical information gap with rigorous and accessible tech journalism. Working with reporters and photographers to produce immersive storytelling, Rest of World reaches a global audience of several million readers. Schmidt began her career in the Middle East with Afghanistan’s MOBY Media Group and subsequently worked in technology and politics in the UK, China, United Arab Emirates, South Africa and Myanmar. Before founding Rest of World in 2018, she held public policy and communications roles at Uber, in its San Francisco HQ and European offices. She has spent extensive time outside the West, including as part of technology delegations to North Korea, South Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Schmidt earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a BA in Islamic Studies from Princeton University.