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.

Lila Tretikov

Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft, USA

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.

Claire Tsui

Managing Director and Head, Strategic Business Development, UBS AG, Hong Kong SAR, China

An aspiring financier as one of the youngest Asian female Managing Directors at UBS Group, with extensive capital markets experience in leading landmark jumbo transactions in the APAC region from previous 10-year tenure at Goldman Sachs. As a graduate of United World College and one of the Global Scholars from Columbia University, Claire is a strong believer in international understanding, diversity and inclusion. For more than a decade, Claire has been actively engaged in and promoting equal opportunities via professional and educational initiatives for the underprivileged and under-represented in both work and local community contexts.

Katsuya Uenoyama

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, PKSHA Technology Inc., Japan

Dr. Katsuya Uenoyama is a entrepreneur in the machine learning and artificial intelligence area.

He founded PKSHA Technology in 2012 and the company became a listed company in 2018 as the biggest AI company in Japan.

He is exploring how to shape AI-driven software to empower and diverse human and society.

Prior to founding PKSHA, he received got his PhD in Machine Learning from Tokyo University. And ex-BCG.

Ganzorig Ulziibayar

Chairman, Mandal Financial Group, Mongolia

Ganzo (Ganzorig Ulziibayar) is the founder and chairman of Mandal Financial Group, the largest insurance and capital markets group in Mongolia. Ganzo has been a member of the monetary policy committee of the Central Bank of Mongolia, an economic advisor to the President of Mongolia, and a director at the Mongolian Stock Exchange. Ganzo has held numerous senior executive positions within the banking sector and has been the CEO of Golomt Bank, the second-largest bank in Mongolia. He has published books on finance, sales, and management with a particular focus on productivity psychology and STRATEGY. Ganzorig operates the not-for-profit Ganzorig Business School and World Financial History Museum in Ulaanbaatar. The Museum holds some of the rarest historical artifacts of financial history. He is also the head of the Education Reform Movement NGO.

David Upton

Managing Director; Chief of Staff, Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility, Barclays PLC, United Kingdom

David is based in London and has a broad remit focused on bringing together the different aspects of the global Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility agenda to help drive Barclays' strategy. As part of the Group CEO Office, David works closely with senior stakeholders across the bank on a range of Group-wide issues and is responsible for the operation of the Group Executive Committee. Previously, he helped to lead the development and execution of Barclays Compliance Strategy and advised on issues relating to Conduct and Reputation Risk, regulatory engagement, and executive governance. Before Barclays, David worked at the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority in Strategic Business Planning and Human Resources. He graduated with a degree in Physics from the University of Warwick.

Alice Usanase

Head, Country Relations and Equity Mobilization, Africa Finance Corporation - AFC, Rwanda

Alice Usanase is a highly accomplished executive with over a decade of expertise in developing and identifying business opportunities in frontier/emerging markets. With a strong focus on mobilizing resources for organizational sustainability, she has successfully led diverse teams at the World Bank Group and Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). Usanase specializes in creating tailored solutions for sovereigns, institutional investors and development finance institutions (DFIs), utilizing her extensive local market knowledge to design impactful strategies and policies for sustainable development. Additionally, she co-authored the publication, Infrastructure Financing in Sub-Saharan Africa – Best Practices From Ten Years in the Field, in collaboration with BCG and AFC. Usanase's commitment to social impact is further demonstrated through her co-founding of We*Care, a social community dedicated to creating educational opportunities for vulnerable children in Rwanda, facilitating their return to school and reuniting them with their families. She was also recently selected as part of the WEF 2024 Young Global Leader cohort.

Aakrit Vaish

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Jio Haptik Technologies Limited, India

Aakrit Vaish is the Co-Founder & CEO of Jio Haptik, one of the world's largest AI companies. He founded the company in 2013 as Haptik, which was acquired by Reliance Jio Platforms in 2019 in a $100 million transaction, forming the new entity of Jio Haptik. Aakrit has been a pioneer in the conversational AI space, leading the wave of transforming customer experience digitally. Under his leadership, Haptik has powered more than 200 brands globally, including Whirlpool, HP, Zurich Insurance, Disney+, KFC & more. The platform processes over 4 billion interactions annually and is consistently mentioned as a top industry player by Gartner, Forrester & Everest. Haptik was named a category leader in Bot Platforms by G2 in their Spring 2022 report, based on a rating of 4.5/5.0 by more than 100 customers. Outside of Haptik, Aakrit is an active angel investor in startups in India, having made close to 80 such investments. He is a charter member of the Entrepreneurs Organisation and Co-Chair of H2 India. He serves on the boards of various technology startups, helping them with go-to-market, scaling & team building. Aakrit has been recognized by Entrepreneur 35 Under 35, Forbes 30 Under 30, and Businessworld 40 Under 40. He has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign.

Felipe Valencia-Dongo

Managing Partner, Grupo Estrategia, Peru

Felipe Valencia-Dongo is Managing Partner at Grupo Estrategia. In Grupo Estrategia they work with large-scale investment projects in emerging markets to achieve Social Acceptance (permission to enter or start a project) and Sustainable Relationship (long-term harmonious relationship with the communities and social organizations of the project's area of influence). He articulates efforts between the private sector, communities, and the public sector to achieve sustainable development for the three of them. They work with several projects of +1 billion USD investment, and Grupo Estrategia is a social-purposed firm that has articulated investments for social good for +USD 500 million.

He served as CEO & Fund Manager of an investment fund in higher education. He also served as Advisor to Peru’s Prime Minister and as Advisor to Peru’s Minister of Education while implementing the educational reform. He worked in poverty reduction with Muhammad Yunus at the Grameen Creative Lab and in the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion of Peru.

Felipe is a former Global Shaper. He has served as Vice-President of IPAE (distinguished private sector non-profit). He was appointed as the youngest President in 60 years of CADE Ejecutivos (the annual gathering for Peruvian business leaders, politicians, and civil society). He is Board Member of IPAE and Sistema B Perú (B Corps); Member of Es Hoy (Movement of private sector leaders working for Peru) and L+1 (leaders for sustainability).

Felipe graduated with honours in Economics from Universidad del Pacifico (Lima, Peru) and holds a Master’s degree in the University of Cambridge as a Chevening Scholar. He was selected as Young Global Leader in 2023.

Andrés A. van der Horst

General Manager, Fiduciarias Reservas, Dominican Republic

Andrés van der Horst Álvarez is Secretary of State, Founder and Executive Director of the National Competitiveness Council of the Dominican Republic. He has successfully engaged the public and private sector to develop a comprehensive competitiveness strategy for the Dominican Republic, resulting in the first National Competitiveness Plan of the Dominican Republic, praised by international organizations and donors such as the Inter-American Developing Bank and European Union. Under his leadership the DR has committed to initiatives such as the Country-Brand Strategy, the Business Climate Initiative with the IDB, and cluster development, consistently increasing the number of clusters in the DR since 2004. He has presented more than 10 policy reforms on competitiveness, resulting in the country's recognition as one of the top 10 reformers according to Doing Business 2009. An author and former negotiator for the Dominican Republic, Central America and the United States Free Trade Agreement, he has been invited as professor, lecturer and special guest speaker at over 100 international events.

Coen van Oostrom

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EDGE, Netherlands

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EDGE, one of Europe’s largest commercial property developers and a global leader in tech-enabled sustainable building design for ambitious customers worldwide. Since founding the firm in 1997, has led the growth of EDGE (formerly OVG Real Estate) to its current scope with more than a million square meters of development across the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany and United States. Recently introduced EDGE Next: a sensor and data-driven platform that can optimize any office building’s performance, making it smarter, healthier, and more sustainable.

Nathalie van Ypersele de Strihou

Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer; General Manager, Communication, Syensqo, Belgium

Nathalie van Ypersele de Strihou is Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer as well as General Manager, Communication at Solvay. She was previously partner at Akkanto, a consulting firm in communication, based in Brussels and Editor-in-Chief of Trends-Tendances, the number one business weekly magazine in Belgium. She won two press prizes. Nathalie van Ypersele is leading a Foundation with social projects (schools) in the Philippines, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mariana Vasconcelos

Chief Executive Officer, Agrosmart, Brazil

Mariana Vasconcelos is the Chief Executive Officer of Agrosmart, a technology pioneer alumni of the World Economic Forum and serves as an advisory board member at Thought For Food, Fundação Espaço ECO (BASF) and Instituto Interamericano de Cooperação para a Agricultura (IICA). She is a climate activist and an expert in digital agriculture, considered one of the most influential people in Latin America by Bloomberg Linea. An advocate for gender equality, she was recognized by Globant with a "Women That Build" award in the game-changer category. With a business background and degrees from UNIFEI, LSE and Singularity University, she was also recognized as an Innovator under 35 by MIT Technology Review, Forbes 30 Under 30 Brasil and Fast Company world's 100 Most Creative in Business.