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.

Sven Holstenson

Managing Partner, Pictet Group, Switzerland

Sven Holstenson has been a Managing Partner of the Pictet Group since May 2023. He is responsible for the Pictet Asset Services and Technology & Operations divisions. In addition, Sven is Chairman of the Executive Committee of Banque Pictet & Cie SA.
Before being named Managing Partner, Sven was Equity Partner and Head of Europe for Pictet Wealth Management.
Prior to joining Pictet in 2012, he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co.
Sven holds a Master’s degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and an MBA from INSEAD.
He also serves as Board member of SIX Group.

Lama Hourani

Founder and Creative Director, Lama Hourani Creations, France

Lama Hourani is the founder of her eponymous jewellery line. A designer, artist and adventurer at heart, she applies her background in Product Design and multidisciplinary arts to create one-of-a-kind pieces that are not only commercially appealing but also conceptually meaningful. Hourani launched her first jewellery collection in 2000 in silver, establishing herself as a trendsetter by reinventing Arab heritage. Through her art gallery in Amman Jordan she works on connecting the art scene in the MENA with the world & through her jewellery she builds cultural; bridges fusing architecture, archaeology & methodology to create a universal language beyond ethnicities, religions & languages.
She now resides between Paris and Amman.

Lila Ibrahim

Chief Operating Officer, DeepMind, United Kingdom

Lila Ibrahim is the COO of Google DeepMind, a world leading AI research company that aims to solve intelligence to advance science and benefit humanity. She leads a broad range of functions, including Operations, Governance and Ethics, Policy, Communications, and People & Culture. She plays a key role spearheading the company’s work on critical issues involving the intersection of AI and society, which includes chairing DeepMind’s cross-functional responsibility and AI for Good initiatives.

Marte Jerkø

Chief Financial Officer Yara Europe, Yara International, Norway

Marte Jerkø started her career working in McKinsey & Company. She led transformation projects and was engaged in diversity topics as the leader of the Female Initiative in Oslo. She joined the Corporate Strategy team of Yara International in 2017 to contribute to sustainable food security. Jerkø was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Yara Europe in 2022 and has successfully managed a challenging market context and led major transformations.

Christian Jolck

Co-founder and Partner, 2150, Denmark

Christian Jolck is Co-Founder and Partner of 2150, one of the world’s first climate tech venture capital funds. He is also a board member of Nordic Investment Opportunities, a €2 billion-plus fund-of-fund for private markets focused on private equity, credit and real assets. Jolck has spent his career on transformation and business development in executive leadership positions in leading global industrial B2B companies in healthcare and the built environment. He co-founded and chaired SYNERGI, an industry organization focused on climate and energy efficiency bringing together large industry participants such as Danfoss, Grundfos, Velux and others to lobby for Danish and European policy changes to reach the Paris Agreement. He has been an adviser to the Foundation for Climate Restoration in California and is a co-founding steering committee member of the Venture Climate Alliance, a non-profit organization which encourages the venture capital industry on net zero, representing more than $60 billion and backed by GFANZ and the UN. Jolck holds a Masters in Finance and International Business from Aarhus University, an executive degree from INSEAD, and he is a Kauffman Fellow.

Mohit Joshi

Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Tech Mahindra, United Kingdom

Mohit Joshi is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at Tech Mahindra – a USD 6.5+ billion digital transformation, consulting and business reengineering services and solutions provider with 148,000+ employees across 90 countries.

Before joining Tech Mahindra, Mohit was President at Infosys, responsible for the Financial Services & Healthcare/Life Sciences businesses. In his previous roles, he has led the Financial Services business in Europe. He worked as the CEO of Infosys Mexico and was instrumental in setting up the first subsidiary in Latin America.

He is also a Non-Executive Director at Aviva Plc. He is a member of the Risk & Governance and Nomination committees.

Mohit was also invited to join the Global Young Leader program at the World Economic Forum in 2014. He is the Vice Chair of the Economic Growth Board of the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) and a YPO (Young Presidents Organization) member.

Mohit has previously worked with ABN AMRO and ANZ Grindlays in their Corporate and Investment bank. He holds an M.B.A. from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University and a Bachelor’s degree in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Shira Kaplan

Founder, Cyverse, Switzerland

Shira Kaplan is the Founder and CEO of Cyverse AG, a Zurich-based cyber-security firm which delivers innovative, hands-on Israeli cyber-security solutions to global and local corporations. Shira’s technological training dates back to her military service in the Israeli 8200 Elite Technology Unit of the Intelligence, where she was an Intelligence and Cyber Analyst. She held business management positions at publicly-traded companies including Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (NASDAQ: TEVA) and Bank Julius Baer & Co. in Zurich (SIX: BAER). Shira is an alumna of Harvard University (B.A.), where she studied Government and Chinese, and was a Shelby Davis Scholar. She holds an MBA from St. Gallen HSG University in Switzerland, where she was awarded the “Women in Business” Scholarship. Shira has won several other awards, including the “Seeds of Peace” scholarship, the Goldman fellowship and the Milken Fellowship. She has been featured in the Financial Times, the Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Bilanz, PwC CEO Magazine and other newspapers. She is mother of 3 Montessori children, and resides by the Lake of Zurich.

Piia-Noora Kauppi

Partner, Odgers Berndtson, Finland

Partner, Odgers Berndtson. Member of the Board of Directors, UPM Kymmene plc & Gofore plc. Member of the Trilateral Commission. Member of the Board of Trustees of Helsinki Deaconess Institute. Managing Director of Finance Finland 2009 - 2022. Member of the European Parliament 1999–2008, Head of the Finnish Delegation in the EPP-ED Group 2004–2008. President of the European Banking Industry Committee EBIC 2010-2011. Chairman of the European Banking Federation Executive Committee 2014-2015.
Mrs Kauppi is married to Mr. Jussi Antero Järvinen (Partner, KPMG Finland) with four children, born in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2017. On her freetime she loves skiing, running and triathlon.

Georges Kern

Chief Executive Officer, Breitling SA, Switzerland

Georges Kern studied Political Science in Strasbourg, France, and graduated in Business Administration
from the University of St.Gallen in Switzerland. He acquired experience in the fast-movingconsumer-goods
sector at Kraft Foods Switzerland before moving into the watch industry at TAG Heuer.

In 2000, he joined Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods group, and was active in the integration of
the brands A. Lange & Söhne, Jaeger-LeCoultre and IWC Schaffhausen following their acquisition.
In 2002, at the age of 36, he became the youngest CEO within Richemont when he was chosen to
run IWC Schaffhausen. In 2017, he was promoted to Head of Watchmaking, Marketing and Digital
at Richemont and focused on supervising the Specialist Watchmaking Maisons.

In 2017, Georges Kern was appointed the new CEO of the independent watch company Breitling
SA, where he is also a shareholder. In his new position, Georges Kern’s mission is to foster the
global development of one of the world’s most established watch manufacturers, and to focus on
further developing Breitling’s digital and retail footprint, in particular with a view to accelerating
growth in the important Asian markets.

Georges Kern served as a member of the Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum from
2005 to 2010, and became Founding Curator of the Global Shapers Community in Zurich in 2011.

Nora Khaldi

Founder and Chief Science Officer, Nuritas, Ireland

Nora Khaldi is an award-winning TEDx speaker and a highly published mathematician and scientist. Her revolutionary and innovative ideas and inventions have been awarded and recognized by the likes of Forbes, Wired and the European Union Commission. She is the founder of Nuritas, the first company in the world to introduce artificial intelligence to the food arena, with the aim of creating the future of food and personalized nutrition, in a nutshell, the future of health. Nuritas was recently classified among the 21 most innovative start-ups in the world along with Uber.

Maryam Khansari

Managing Director, Herison Construction Company, France

Maryam Khansari, born in 1984 in Tehran, serves as the Managing Director of Herison Company, one of Iran's foremost construction firms with a rich history spanning over sixty years. The company has been instrumental in a variety of infrastructure projects, including industrial sites, power stations, refineries, sports complexes, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, roads, and bridges.
Additionally, Maryam holds a pivotal role as a board member and International Relations Manager at the Syndicate of Construction Companies of Iran, the oldest syndication in the country. She plays a key part in advocating for the private sector's rights in engineering and construction.
Maryam is also a Global Member of the Trilateral Commission, reflecting her engagement and influence in international affairs.
Committed to a sustainable future, Maryam aspires to integrate eco-friendly practices within the construction industry, fostering environmental stewardship.
She is also an advocate for gender diversity, actively supporting the empowerment of women in business leadership.

Uday H. Khemka

Vice-Chairman, SUN Group, United Kingdom

Mr. Uday Khemka is Vice-Chairman of the SUN Group of Companies, a diversified family- owned, investment and industrial group headquartered in India with activities in varied emerging markets in new and renewable energy, electric mobility, natural resources, real estate, electronics/aerospace and private equity. Prior to the SUN Group, Uday worked at Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley in London and New York and then established and headed up Morgan Stanley's activities in India. Uday has been on the boards of all SUN Group companies and has been responsible for the establishment of the investment management activities of the group.

Uday is also Vice Chairman of The Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the first, and still one of the only, foundations in India to focus centrally on climate change mitigation, which it has done for 30 years, since COP1 in Rio in 1992. He was also previously the Co-Chair of the Clean Energy Finance Forum (CEFF) jointly established by Prime Minister Modi and President Obama to catalyse investment towards India's 175 GW clean energy target for 2022. Among other climate philanthropic endeavours, Uday resourced the entry of the Climate Group into India and has been on its board ever since. Uday’s key policy interests focus on large scale institutional climate finance (with respect to which he has been advising associations of sovereign and pension institutions since 2004), renewable energy policy and government policy to promote the electrification of transportation. Uday is also a Senior Climate Advisor (2019 to date) to the Institutional Investors Roundtable, a group of 45 of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund representing over $13 trillion.

Uday’s philanthropic interests outside the field of climate change mitigation include his work as Co- founder of Just Giving (which became Europe’s leading online charity fundraising portal), his leadership of Youth Reach (focusing on street and slum children in India) and the Nabha Foundation (rural development in India).

Uday is on the Board of Governors of the Indian School of Business and the Public Health Foundation of India, the Board of Directors of the Synergos Institute in New York and the Board of Advisors of the Climate Group in India and has been elected a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Uday has recently been appointed on the Advisory Board of the Smith School of Enterprise & the Environment at Oxford University. He is also a member of HRH Prince’s Sustainable Markets Initiative and Senior Climate Advisor to the Institutional Investors Roundtable.

Today, Uday leads the New Energy activities of the Group which include renewable energy, energy storage and electric mobility energy infrastructure. His passion for New Energy led him to set up SUN New Energy Holdings, which today includes SUN Mobility (aiming to be a global leader in electric mobility energy infrastructure), in a partnership with Chetan Maini, as well as SUN Renewables.

Educated at Eton College and Cambridge University, Uday received an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).