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.

Paweł Surówka

Chief Executive Officer, Eurocash, Poland

CFA Charterholder, AMP from Harvard Business School, MA from Ecoles des Hautes des Sciences Sociales and Paris I Sorbonne, Undergraduate from LMU and HfPh Munich, Young Global Leader, Alumnus of the Robert Schumann Foundation for European Integration.

2006-2012 Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch Bank of America, 2012-2014 Management Board Member, Head of Automotive at Boryszew SA, 2014-2016 Head of Investment and Corporate Banking Germany at PKO Bank Polski, opened first Polish Corporate Banking presence abroad
From 2016 to 2020 associated with PZU SA, Poland‘s biggest Financial Institution - served first as Chief Investment Officer, later CEO Life, since 2017 Group CEO of PZU Group. During that time also Chairman of the Board of Pekao SA Bank.
Since January 2022 CEO of Eurocash SA, one of Poland‘s biggest private corporations and one of the biggest Retail companies in CEE. Chairman of the Board of Frisco SA , Poland‘s biggest e-grocery company.

International and multicultural leader passionate about digital transformation across different sectors.

Christoph Sutter

Member of the Executive Board, Axpo Power Ltd, Switzerland

Christoph Sutter is an entrepreneur and intrapreneur in the field of sustainable development with a focus on renewable energy. He is a Member of the Management Board and Head Renewable Energies at Axpo Power AG. Before joining Axpo, he was the CEO of South Pole Group, a company he co-founded in 2006 and that is globally active in the area of climate change and renewable energy. Prior to that he worked as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company. He has done his PhD on the subject of sustainability assessment of energy projects at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Christoph Sutter is an investor and non-executive Board member of several companies in the field of sustainable development. He was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation.

Sara Sutton

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, FlexJobs, USA

Sara Sutton has long been passionate about helping people find jobs, and a pioneer in doing so. For the past 16 years, she has been a leading advocate and change agent for remote and flexible work as the Founder & CEO of FlexJobs. She also started Remote.co in 2015 as a resource for remote teams and companies, and she began her career in 1995 when she co-founded JobDirect, the first ever online entry-level job site (sold to Korn|Ferry International in 2000). Sutton is an expert and speaker on a wide variety of topics related to remote and flexible work, the future of work, entrepreneurship, gender equity, workforce technology, and economic development, among others.

She has appeared in thousands of media pieces, including the BBC, TechCrunch, Time, the Wall Street Journal, The NY Times, Fast Company, CNN, NBC, Forbes, Inc., and many others. As a result of her many efforts with the employment/underemployment, entrepreneurship, economic development, and gender equity, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2014 and to the Edmund Hillary Fellowship in 2020.

Sara believes that integrating remote work can positively impact people’s lives and transform organizations to be more modern, productive, efficient, healthy, environmentally-friendly, and overall resilient with the various needs and demands going on in the world. Sara holds a BA from UC Berkeley, and resides in Boulder, Colorado.

Noor Sweid

Managing Partner, Global Ventures, United Arab Emirates

Noor Sweid is a visionary and tenacious leader. Recently named one of the World's Top 50 Women in Tech, she drives venture capital in the region. She once served as Chief Investment Officer in the Dubai Future Foundation and made history as the first woman to lead an IPO in the Middle East.

Jacek Szwajcowski

Chief Executive Officer, Pelion, Poland

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pelion S.A., a company with a 33-year history of operations in the healthcare sector. Graduate of Technical University of Lodz. As a part of postgraduate education completed courses at Harvard Kennedy School, George Mason University, Said Business School – University of Oxford and Jackson Institute for Global Affairs – Yale University. Member of the Supervisory Board of several companies, including listed company Pharmena S.A.. In addition to involvement in the further development of the company, Jacek engages in the Polish Business Roundtable, an organization associating owners and key manager of the largest Polish enterprises, and companies operating in Poland, serving as a President of the association until May 2019 and currently being its Member. Initiator of the "I care for my health" Foundation, whose statutory mission is to provide financial assistance to those who cannot afford to buy essential medicines. Currently the Foundation focuses mainly at Seniors support. As a passionate of the tradition of Polish pharmacy, he initiated the opening of a private Pharmacy Museum in Lodz. Publisher of series of monographs about the most famous Polish pharmacies.

Khaldoon Tabaza

Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, iMENA Group Ltd, Jordan

Dr. Khaldoon is the Founder & Managing Director of iMENA Group. In the last 25 years, he has participated in the development of the regional technology venture capital ecosystem in the MENA region as a founder, investor, and advisor. Khaldoon was a founder at Arabia.com (first venture backed online business in MENA), Arab Advisors Group, NetAdvantage, OneCard, Riyada Ventures, and Impact MENA. Key funds that he managed include IDEAVELOPERS (first regulated regional VC fund), Riyada, and iMENA, while companies that he invested in include OpenSooq, SellAnyCar, Jeeny, ReserveOut, Telr, JRD, Hellofood, Akhtaboot, IdealRatings, and Rufoof. As an ecosystem builder, he has participated in the development of iPark, ABAN, Oasis500, PICTI, and Wamda. Khaldoon was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. He is also a Kauffman Venture Capital Fellow and a member of the Young Presidents Organization. He holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from The University of Jordan and has completed the Young Global Leaders Leadership and Policy education program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, and the YPO programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford, and London Business School.

Shoko Takahashi

Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Genequest Inc., Japan

Starting the bio venture in 2013 while a doctoral student in molecular bioscience at the University of Tokyo, Takahashi's company anlyzes saliva to see what a people's genetics can tell about their current and future health. Individuals send the same directly to the firm, and it returns the results in four to six weeks, all for around $400. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Sciences and Technology recognized her as one of the researchers who are contributing to major innovation in science and technology in Japan in 2016.

Kohey Takashima

Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Oisix ra daichi Inc., Japan

Kohey Takashima is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Oisix, an online grocery store that has built its business delivering organic foods to individuals throughout Japan. The company went public in the FIrst section of Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2020.
October 2017, Oisix integrated their operations with "DAICHI WO MAMORU KAI CO., Ltd.", which is the pioneer of the organic chemical-free vegetables sales. In October 2018, we realized business integration with Radishbo-ya Co., Ltd., and he take assumed office as President of the new company "Oisix ra daichi".
He was nominated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007 and he also received the Porter Prize in 2008. He is one of founders of Table for Two, a non-profit organization which addresses the problems all over the world.
July 2018 he took office as Chairman of the Japan Wheelchair Rugby Federation that aims to take the gold medal at the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2020.

Nick Talwar

Senior Partner, K50 Ventures, USA

Nick Talwar is a Senior Partner at K50 Ventures, a leading pre-seed venture capital fund which invests in access and affordability for SMEs and the mass market and below. . Nick has over 20 years of experience as an operator, builder, advisor and investor in financial technology, mobility, and marketplace businesses. Some notable roles in Nick’s career include running Visa’s credit card business for North America, launching and building Amazon’s embedded lending business into a 100M+ profit business around the world, scaling and running all vehicle supply globally for Uber, and serving as President and as CEO of CircleUp (USV, Canaan, Rose Park, GV).

Nick serves as an advisor and board member for a variety of other venture firms and private companies. Some of Nick’s investments, where he has also sat as a board member, include Payjoy, Shipper, Rapido, TravClan and AltBank. In 2013 the World Economic Forum named Nick a Young Global Leader in recognition of his work on financial inclusion and innovation, and he is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Finance Leaders Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Nick received a B.S. from Georgetown University and MBA from Wharton. Nick lives in Palo Alto with his family.

Nina Tandon

President and Chief Executive Officer, EpiBone, USA

Master’s in Bioelectrical Engineering, MIT; PhD/MBA, Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University. Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, EpiBone, a company using stem cells and digital fabrication to engineer patient-specific skeletal implants. McKinsey Alum, Fulbright Scholar. Co-author, Super Cells, a book exploring how biology is powering the 4th industrial revolution. Interests: yoga, meditation, surfing, drinking wine and eating cheese, cats.

Donald Tang

Managing Partner, Celadon Partners, Hong Kong SAR, China

Donald Tang is managing partner of Celadon Partners. Prior to that, he was the Chief Executive Officer of D. E. Shaw & Co. (Asia Pacific) Limited, in which capacity he oversaw the operations of the D. E. Shaw group’s main investment office in Asia. He started his career at Citadel Investment Group, L.L.C. Donald graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University with a bachelor of science degrees in computer science and business administration, and a minor in computational finance.

Shuyin Tang

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Beacon Fund, Viet Nam

Shuyin Tang is CEO and Co-Founder of the Beacon Fund, an innovative investment vehicle providing fit-for-purpose financing to women-led and women-focused businesses in South-East Asia. She has been living and investing in Viet Nam since 2013 and has played a pivotal role in developing the country's impact investing sector. In addition to her role at the Beacon Fund, she is also a Partner at Patamar Capital, a leading impact investing platform in South-East Asia. Tang spearheads gender lens investing initiatives at Patamar, including launching and managing the groundbreaking Investing in Women Fund. She has been recognized as one of Australia's 100 Women of Influence, an Asia 21 Young Leader, and one of the Most Influential Asian Australians: 40 Under 40. She currently serves on the board and investment committee of the Equality Fund and as the Jury President for South and Central Asia for the Cartier Women's Initiative. Tang graduated summa cum laude from the Australian National University, where she also received the University Medal.