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.

Roy Sosa

Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Rêv Worldwide Inc., USA

Roy Sosa is Founding Partner of MPOWER Ventures and Chairman and CEO of MPOWER Labs. He founded the socially committed venture fund and affiliated business accelerator with his brother Bertrand in order to identify, create and invest in early-stage financial services companies focused on underserved markets. The MPOWER Ventures portfolio companies span international payments, mobile payments, retail financial services and asset-building and investment products and operate in regions across the globe, including North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Sosa is an accomplished entrepreneur who pioneered the multi-billion-dollar prepaid debit market as the co-founder of NetSpend Corporation, a highly successful company that serves millions of unbanked Americans. As a leading voice for underserved consumers around the world, he pledged to the Clinton Global Initiative to bank five million consumers in five years through the work of the MPOWER group of companies, and he serves as Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Financial Empowerment.

Sanaa Souidi

Head P&C Facultative EMEA, Swiss Re, Switzerland

Appointed Managing Director, Souidi is responsible for a team of 50 risk experts across two continents. As an excellent strategic thinker, she has positively influenced many of SwissRe's Risk Management Leadership Team's complex topics. She is also Ambassador for the work of the Fondation Marocaine de l'Etudiant (FME).

Wesley Spindler

Managing Director, Global Sustainability Leadership, Accenture, USA

Wesley Spindler is a catalyst for change, working with organizations around the world to reimagine the global economy into a circular, regenerative and equitable one. As Managing Director and member of the Global Sustainability Leadership Team at Accenture, Spindler runs the firm’s global Circular Economy and Nature & Biodiversity agendas. Her focus in all her work is to drive genuine sustainability transformation – from strategy to delivery – with partners and companies across industries to achieve outcomes at the intersection of growth and sustainable innovation. Spindler also acts as People Experience Lead for the entire Global Sustainability Group. She is a frequent public speaker, lead co-author of The Circular Economy Handbook (Palgrave, 2020), Program Director of The Circulars, Expert Advisor to the Earthshot Prize and a delegate to the World Economic Forum Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy. Spindler is active in her regional community, supporting critical environmental initiatives on the livelihoods and well-being of individuals and positive outcomes for nature.

Mirjam Staub-Bisang

CEO, BlackRock Asset Management Switzerland AG, Switzerland

Dr. Mirjam Staub-Bisang is Head of BlackRock Switzerland, member of the EMEA Executive Committee and Senior Advisor to BlackRock Sustainable Investing. She currently serves as a non-executive director of the global shoe retailer Bata as well as the leading global business school INSEAD.

Prior to BlackRock, Mirjam Staub-Bisang co-founded and was formerly Managing Partner of Independent Capital Group AG an investment management firm focusing on sustainable investing based in Zurich. She served on the investment committees of pension funds and endowments and on the board of several several public and private companies, among which as chair of Profond Sammelstiftung, one of Switzerland’s leading multi-employer pension plans. Prior to these roles she held senior positions in asset management and private equity at Commerzbank and Swiss Life, Quadrant and was an investment banker at Merrill Lynch.

Mirjam Staub-Bisang holds a PhD in Law from the University of Zurich and an MBA from INSEAD. She authored the standard work “Sustainable Investing for Institutional Investors: Risks, Regulations, Strategies" (Wiley 2012) and co-authored the second edition of "Infrastructure as an Asset Class" (Wiley 2016). In 2009 she was elected a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

Kirstine Stewart

Founder, Media Mughals Inc., USA

Former Head, Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Information and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum.
Kirstine Stewart is an internationally award-winning technology and media leader with a reputation for turning around revenue performance and driving new market expansion on a global scale.
Her work spans executive roles with Twitter, Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), Crown Family Media/Hallmark, the World Economic Forum, as well as other media corporation and technology companies.
Kirstine is presently focused on her work serving across a number of public and private company boards, and serving as advisor on projects in the US and Canada.
In her last executive role at the World Economic Forum, Kirstine headed the Future of Media, Entertainment, & Sport as a member of the WEF Executive Committee, collaborating with C-level leaders from multinational enterprises like Facebook, Google, ByteDance, Publicis Groupe, P&G and others, addressing emerging trends in areas such as digital disruption, AI, metaverse and Web3, revenue creation in the media ecosystem, consumer data privacy, and the future of work.
Prior to joining the WEF, Kirstine had moved from recognized media leader to the tech industry when she was appointed by Twitter as the Founding Head of Canada, setting up their first Canadian offices and establishing it as
a sales leader for Twitter globally with the highest per capita revenues. She soon moved to New York when asked to
take on the role of Twitter VP Media, responsible for Entertainment, Sports and all content partnerships for Twitter across North America.
Kirstine was recruited to Twitter from the CBC, where she sat as the first women in the top programming role at the national broadcaster. She is credited with catapulting ratings and launching into the digital market as CBC’s EVP of TV, Radio & Digital. Prior to that, she served as Senior Vice President growing the subscriber base and revenues for Alliance Atlantis, a media company with a portfolio of lifestyle channels including HGTV, Food Network, BBC Canada, National Geographic, History, and many others.
As Head of Programming for Crown Media/Hallmark in Denver, CO, she opened new international markets, positioning the portfolio for a profitable sale, directly following her as General Manager and Head of Programming for Trio/Newsworld International where she helped secure the $300M sale of those channels to NBCUniversal.
Kirstine launched her media career fresh out of school at Paragon, a media licensing and distribution firm where she rose from her initial entry-level position to become president, leading a multi-million dollar business in content licensing and global distribution..
In 2016, Kirstine authored the bestseller, Our Turn, an internationally award-winning book on leadership published by Penguin RandomHouse.
A sought-after board member and corporate advisor, Kirstine serves as the World Economic Forum Advisor for Young Global Leader (YGL) and member of the board for Think Research, a publicly traded medical technology company and Rivalry a global Esports and Gaming company. She was recently appointed as Chairwoman of Blink49Studios, a venture between former Eone leadership and Endeavor Content. Her leadership extends into non-profit advocacy as well, after serving as a member of the Founding Board for CILAR (Coalition of Innovation Leaders Against Racism) and as a member of the board for the Center for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH) Foundation and serves on the Board of Ingenium, Canada’s National Museums of Science, Tech, Space and Aviation.
She is also a Founding Member of Chief and Soho House as well as a Board Member of C-100 a collection of Top Canadian Technology/Business Leaders in the US. Her husband Zaib Shaikh is currently Canada’s Consul General to Los Angeles, Nevada and Arizona. They have two children and live in Los Angeles.
Kirstine is internationally known as an industry leader having earned recognition including membership in the YGL - Young Global Leaders, The Power 50: Canada's Most Powerful Business People by Canadian Business in 2016, Person of the Year by Playback Magazine for 2012, Woman of the Year by Canadian Women in Communications, Media Player of the Year by Marketing Magazine, Canada's Top 40 Under 40 Award in 2007, among others.
A native of Canada, Kirstine earned her bachelor of arts from the University of Toronto before completing executive leadership programs including the Global Leadership in the 21st Century through the Harvard Kennedy School, the Transformational Leadership program through the University of Oxford, Saïd Business School, and Leading with Finance, Capital Markets and Valuation through the Harvard Business School.

Shelley Stewart

Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company, USA

Shelley Stewart III is a Senior Partner within McKinseys Growth, Marketing and Sales Practice, where he works across the US, Europe and Asia with industrial and technology companies to help them scale their businesses in a global context. Shelley leads the firms research on inclusive economic growth in his role as leader for McKinseys Institute for Black Economic Mobility. In this capacity, he focuses on conducting research related to Black economic development and translates these insights into tools that corporations, philanthropists and governments can use to create meaningful impact for Black individuals and communities. Shelley is on the Board of Directors of the National Black MBA Association, a non-profit supporting 15,000 members with career placement and development. He is also on the Board of the Brooklyn Community Foundation, the first and only public foundation solely dedicated to Brooklyns charitable community. He is a member of the United Justice Coalition, a non-profit working across disciplines to raise awareness around social justice issues, emphasizing the need for criminal justice reform. Shelley has a BA in economics from Boston College, an MBA with a focus on finance from Columbia University, an MPA in political economy from Harvard and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of New Haven.

Mark Stoffels

Global Business Unit Leader, Image Guided Therapy Systems, Philips, Netherlands

Mark Stoffels is a senior global health tech executive. As Global Business Unit Leader and Senior Vice-President of Royal Philips’ Image Guided Therapy Systems, he is highly driven to improve global access to healthcare. Other roles at Royal Philips include Managing Director and Senior Vice-President Connected Care North America, Vice-President and General of Latin America, Country Manager Mexico, General Manager Health Systems Mexico and Strategic Marketing Director for Latin America. Stoffels is the author of "3 Billion Heart Beats", a novel on Buddhism which principles he works tirelessly to implement in his leadership style.

Gunhild Anker Stordalen

Founder and Executive Chair, EAT, Norway

MD and PhD in Pathology/Orthopedic Surgery, University of Oslo. Founder and Chair, Stordalen Foundation. Founder & Executive Chair, EAT Foundation. Gunhild sits on several boards and advises on councils including the United Nation’s Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Lead Group, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Stewardship Board on Food Systems, REQ Capital Advisory Board, the UNICEF’s Advisory Group, member of Africa Europe Women Leaders Network, and the international advisory board of the SRC. In addition, Gunhild is an ambassador for Friends of Ocean action, a member of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP) for the Blue Economy, A HELENA member, and a part of the International Leadership Committee for a Net Zero NHS.

In 2020, Gunhild was appointed to a a leading role at the UN Food Systems Summit 2021. She is the Chair of the Summit’s Action Track 2: Shifting to Healthy and Sustainable Consumption Patterns, with a wide mandate to build a broad, multistakeholder coalition around this key challenge and opportunity, and leveraging the EAT platform to the full.

Richard Stromback

Founder, Stromback Global Advisors, USA

Richard D. Stromback is the founder of Stromback Global Advisors. He is a former professional hockey player, entrepreneur, investor and advisor. Stromback founded several successful ventures in the information technology and the clean technology space, most notably Web Group and Ecology Coatings. He currently serves on multiple boards and advisory boards and is a shareholder in many ventures. For the past 10 years, he has advised Fortune 1000 CEOs on business strategy, leadership development, market development and positioning within global spheres of influence. In this capacity, Mr. Stromback leverages his deep global relationships and knowledge of influential organizations and international markets to assist businesses with their global business interests.

Mr. Stromback’s repeated successes have been acknowledged by both the media and the global business community. His insight has been sought out by such publications as The New York Times, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. His accomplishments as founder and CEO of Web Group were recognized by Inc. Magazine, which named Web Group the 189th fastest growing private company in the United States in the year 2002. In 2006 his leadership of Ecology Coatings garnered a Wall Street Journal Innovation Award and a Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum. In 2007, Stromback was named a Young Global Leader and in 2008, Crain's Business listed him as one of the top 40 leaders under 40 years of age.

Stromback holds a Bachelor of Computer Science Degree from Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. He also completed Harvard Kennedy School’s invitation only program in Global Leadership and Public Policy.

Alexander Stubb

President of Finland, Office of the President of the Republic of Finland, Finland

PhD in International Politics, London School of Economics. Formerly: 2004-08, Member of the European Parliament; 2008-11, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland; 2008-14, Minister of Foreign Affairs; 2014-15, Prime Minister of Finland; 2015-16, Minister of Finance; Adviser to the President of the European Commission; Visiting Professor, College of Europe, Bruges; Counsellor and Researcher, Permanent Representation of Finland to the European Union; Researcher, Academy of Finland and Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Since March 2011, Member of the Finnish Parliament. Since June 2011, Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade of Finland. Since August 2017, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank. Has participated in several EU intergovernmental conferences as Member of the Finnish government's delegation. Has published 11 books and numerous academic articles on the European Union; regular columnist for several papers.

Andrea Stürmer

Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Austria, Zurich Insurance Company Ltd, Austria

Andrea Stürmer is a senior executive at Zurich Insurance Group and serves as Chief Executive Officer of Zürich Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft in Vienna, Austria. She joined Zurich in 2007 and has since served as Chief Operating Officer for Business Insurance at the subsidiary Farmers Insurance Group and as the Strategic Assistant to the Zurich Group's Chief Executive Officer. She previously held various positions as finance and M&A professional at Zurich Insurance Group, Allianz and JPMorgan. Stürmer is Member of the Board of Zurich Reinsurance Company as well as of the Austrian Insurance Association. Stürmer is a sought-after public speaker on a wide range of topics including sustainability in the financial service sector, innovation and leadership. Stürmer holds a Master's degree from the London School of Economics as well as the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2012 she was nominated to the Forum of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum.

Federico Sturzenegger

Visiting Professor of Public Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, USA

Degree in Economics, Universidad Nacional de La Plata; PhD in Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Former: Chief Economist, YPF; Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles; Professor and Dean, Business School, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT); Visiting Professor of Public Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Started career in the public sphere as Secretary of Economic Policy of the Republic of Argentina; then President, Banco Ciudad of Buenos Aires; then Congressman in the Chamber of Deputies. Currently, Governor of the Central Bank of Argentina. Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum. Author of books on economic issues and various academic papers on international finance and macro-economic topics. Recipient, Konex award, for contribution to economic theory.