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.

Jean-Jacques Barbéris

Member of the Executive Committee; Co-Head, Institutional Clients Coverage, Amundi Asset Management, France

Jean-Jacques Barbéris is a former economic adviser to the president of the French Republic. He is currently responsible for the global development of the institutional business at Amundi, a European leader in asset management. He is also chairman of En Temps Réel, a think tank dedicated to social sciences and the future development of the European Union.

Pablo Alberto Barrera Lopez

Chief Executive Officer, Haugaland Kraft, Norway

A passionate multicultural young business leader, Pablo Barrera is determined to transform how large companies act as corporate citizens. Barrera promotes sustainability as an untapped potential rather than a threat and establishes collaborative efforts with other companies to solve some of the key challenges the world faces. Barrera explores new ways to feed a growing population and he works for one of the world's largest crop nutrition companies. Through many years of volunteer work, Barrera has focused on establishing arenas where teenagers and young adults can nurture their talents and develop into responsible forces for good in their societies, regardless of their background.

Katinka Barysch

Chief Human Right Officer, Allianz, Germany

Katinka is an economist, political analyst and consultant. Katinka started out at the Economist Group and then, for over a decade, she helped to build a highly successful policy think-tank in London, the CER. In 2018 she moved into the private sector, to take various leading roles at Allianz group. Katinka has been a successful writer and media commentator and an advisor to several governments, the European Commission, numerous banks and business federations. She was also Strategic Adviser to the Munich Security Conference; David Rockefeller Fellow at the Trilateral Commission; a WEF Young Global Leader and a Fellow at Chatham House. She studied at the London School of Economics and LMU Munich.

Andrew Bastawrous

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Peek Vision, United Kingdom

Dr Andrew Bastawrous is Co-Founder & CEO of Peek Vision, a social impact organization which uses smartphone technology to radically increase access eye care in some of the most challenging places in the world. Andrew is an Ophthalmologist (Eye Surgeon), and Associate Professor in International Eye Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine where he teaches on public health for eye health and leads a research portfolio.

Andrew has worked and undertaken research in over twenty countries including two years living in Kenya where he was leading a major eye disease study and the development and testing of Peek. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles focusing on international eye health and mobile technology in healthcare and has co-authored four book chapters.

Andrew was made a TED Fellow in 2014 and his TED talk has been viewed over one million times. Since then, Peek has run one of the top-ten all-time Indiegogo crowd-funding campaigns in the health sector, for Peek Retina, a smartphone ophthalmoscope.
Peek’s vision check app, Peek Acuity, launched on Google Play store in 2016 and is a certified medical device in use in over 150 countries. Peek's end-to-end services now incorporate their apps and hardware and have been used to transform eye health in Kenya, Botswana and India with new programmes with partners now running in Pakistan and Zimbabwe with plans to expand in to several new countries in 2020.

In 2018, Andrew was invited to address the Commonwealth Service in the presence of the British Royal Family, Prime Minister, and a global live TV and radio audience.

Andrew is working with major banks, eye health organisations and funders to develop innovative financing models for eye health with a $1Bn Vision Catalyst Fund, the subject of his 2018 TED Talk.

Bolor-Erdene Battsengel

Researcher, United Kingdom

Bolor-Erdene Battsengel is a young dynamic leader with over a decade of proven experience working in international organizations, including the World Bank and UN as well as governments and academia.
As the former founding Vice Minister of Digital Development of Mongolia, she led the country's digital transformation, crafting a comprehensive 5-year plan "Digital Nation" policy. She is globally recognised by successfully leading E-Mongolia project which digitalized over 1,500 government services, help reducing red-tape bureaucracy and corruption. Coming from countryside of Mongolia, she founded Girls Code NGO to empower young women and girls from disadvantaged communities to learn STEM education and coding skills.

She has helped many international corporations on AI policies, strategic engagement, public policy and government relations.

Christoph Baumann

Envoy for Sustainable Finance, State Secretariat for International Finance, Switzerland

Christoph Baumann is Envoy for Sustainable Finance at the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF). In this role, he leads the Swiss government's sustainable finance activities, ranging from negotiations in multilateral bodies (such as the G20) to domestic initiatives. Christoph is a Policy Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He holds an LLM in international law from the University of London, a master's degree in economics from the University of Zurich, and is a CFA charterholder.

Christoph is focused on making global financial flows consistent with a pathway to net-zero carbon emissions and a nature-positive state in his multinational roles as head of delegation of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group, Co-Chair of the Working Group on Transition Finance of the International Platform on Sustainable Finance, Member of the Stewardship Council of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, as well as Swiss Sherpa of the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. Domestically, Christoph led the mandatory implementation of climate-related reporting standards - based on the TCFD recommendations. Before joining SIF, he worked in executive positions in the private sector, being instrumental in establishing a securities dealer, a digital bank, and a fintech focused on foundations.

Natalia Bayona

Executive Director, World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Spain

Natalia Bayona, current Executive Director of UN Tourism and the first person under 40 to reach this position, was distinguished as one of the 10 most influential Colombians residing in Spain and one of the most influential in Latin-America (Bloomberg). Natalia is also member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) network, and one of the 100 world leaders in innovation according to COTEC.

With an Executive MBA from the IE Business School, and a degree in International Relations from Universidad Externado de Colombia, Natalia Bayona was recognized with the Eisenhower Fellowship for her leadership and commitment to fostering a more prosperous and fairer world through her work in the tourism sector.

After an extensive career working for Colombia´s public sector, Natalia Bayona was Vice President of Spain Startup-South Summit; she then joined UN Tourism in 2018 and created the Innovation, Education, and Investment Department, where the Organization has undertaken ground-breaking initiatives that include more than 10 global entrepreneurship competitions, numerous national challenges, and over 20 innovation and technology forums.

These efforts have fostered the first Global Innovation Network comprising more than 10,000 start-ups from 100 countries, entrepreneurs, companies, public institutions, educational institutions, accelerators, and investors; this dynamic ecosystem has facilitated the acquisition of over US$214 million (as per Jan 2024) in financing for disruptive companies. Hence, the delivery of important technological results for the tourism industry

Furthermore, Natalia has been instrumental in establishing the first UN Tourism Online Academy to enhance opportunities in education for the tourism industry, boasting students from more than 150 countries and offering courses with scholarships available to students worldwide in partnership with some of the best universities in the world such as Les Roches, HSLU (Lucerne University of Applied Schiences and Arts), Basque Culinary Center, IE University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, or Sharjah University among others. In addition, she enjoys sharing her knowledge as lecturer in different universities including Harvard, Cornell and MIT,

Following her aspiration of generating investment opportunities for tourism, Natalia created the first Official UN Tourism Investment Guideline; she has worked alongside more than 50 countries on the construction of their Tourism Investment Strategies (including Dominican Republic, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Chile among others) generating a concrete outlook that reflects their potential for international investors and the opportunities for diversification.

Venetia Bell

Group Chief Sustainability Officer; Head, Strategy, Gulf International Bank (GIB), United Kingdom

Venetia Bell is the Group Chief Sustainability Officer at Gulf International Bank (GIB), and Head of Strategy at GIB Asset Management. Amongst other responsibilities, Venetia leads GIB’s drive to embed sustainability and responsible banking principles in everything it does. In 2021, she was instrumental in the successful close of GIB’s sustainability-linked loan, making GIB the first Bahrain-headquartered bank to close such a facility. She also led an award-winning multi-stakeholder initiative to enhance data and funnel private capital towards humanitarian and resilience projects.

Venetia is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a fellow of the Forward Institute, faculty for the Competent Boards Programme, and an alumna of the Mentoring Foundation. She is a Chartered Governance Professional, a designated Climate Competent Director, a Certified Investment Fund Director, and the Chair of Trustees of several charities.

Prior to GIB, she had several roles at the Bank of England, and has published a range of policy-focused research. Venetia graduated with an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics, an MA degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge UK, and the Advanced Management Programme at INSEAD, France.

Dan Berelowitz

Chief Executive Officer, Jubilee Foundation, United Kingdom

Dan is Founder & CEO of Spring Impact. Spring works with the world’s most promising social solutions – to end the world’s greatest social needs. At Spring, Dan has developed successful scaling strategies for over 140 organisations including Nike Foundation, Shell Foundation, Oxfam, PSI and Health Foundation. Dan developed Scale Accelerator, a programme to scale up the grantees of the 9 largest funders in the UK. Dan authored the Social Replication Toolkit which has been used by over 4000 social ventures globally. Dan is a regular presenter, writer, Clore Social Leadership Fellow, Young Global Leader at WEF, has a BSc in Management from Nottingham University, and is a Rothschild Fellow at the Cambridge Judge Business School and graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education programme. He is a founding Trustee of the Bike Project for refugees and asylum seekers.

Danae Bezantakou

Chief Executive Officer, Navigator Shipping Consultants Ltd, Greece

Danae Bezantakou holds the positions of CEO of Navigator Shipping Consultants and shareholder of KEFI S.A. & MATILDA HOTEL in Zakynthos Island. One of her biggest accomplishments is the organization of NAVIGATOR – THE SHIPPING DECISION MAKERS FORUM which is the oldest Greek Shipping Forum, enhancing the open dialogue among the stakeholders of the Greek and International Maritime Clusters annually since 2001. She is the Concept Founder of Young Executives Shipping (YES) FORUM - the platform of open dialogue among principals, executives and university students, recent graduates and young executives in Shipping and Sea Tourism Sectors. She also serves as Secretary General of International Propeller Club (Port of Piraeus) and President of iforU-Greek Mentoring Network, which empowers small and medium women entrepreneurs through mentoring & networking & chairs the education committee of ICC Women in Greece. Danae was appointed as European Young Leader in 2013 and as Young Global Leader at World Economic Forum in 2015.
Danae represented Greece twice in International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of State Dpt. in 2011 and in 2017. She is founding member and President of the Hellenic U.S. Alumni Association of State Department Programs. Her dedication to the growth of Entrepreneurship made her to be named as a Role Model in the campaign #Makingithappen organized by the U.S. Embassy to Greece. Recently she was chosen among 225,000 alumni of State Dept. As one of the 80 #FacesofExchange initiative highlighting 80 years of the IVLP and the impact of her work on the global community.
She regularly participates as a speaker, judge or mentor in startup competitions, Shipping fora, school and university lectures and events related to entrepreneurship.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Hospitality and Tourism Management from the University of Surrey. She has a 13 year old daughter.

Diane Binder

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Regenopolis, France

Diane is an experienced business executive and social entrepreneur with 20 years of international experience in corporate environments, development organizations and NGOs, mostly in the Mediterranean region and Africa, where she has been developing public-private alliances to foster solutions promoting urban resilience, climate adaptation and mitigation, and the preservation of natural capital.

Diane is the founding partner and CEO of Regenopolis, an international initiative catalyzing solutions for
regenerative cities in Africa, and supporting commercially viable value chains for land restoration and economic development mostly in the Sahel along the Great Green Wall.

Before setting up her own venture, Diane spent 10 years at SUEZ, a global leader in providing water and waste management services to populations and industries, successively as Senior Vice-President for International Development in charge of Africa, and Senior Vice-President for International Relations.

Prior to this, Diane has worked with a number of Development Fiancial Institutions and other international organizations such as the European Investment Bank, the French Development Agency, the World Bank and the OECD.

Diane is a member of the French Presidential Council for Africa since 2017, President and co-founder of Action Emploi Réfugiés (AERé), the French leading service accompanying refugees into jobs. AERé is since January 2022 a subsidiary of Groupe SOS, Europe biggest social enterprise, with activities in over 40 countries. Diane has joined SOS Group International Advisory Board in September 2022.

Diane has been honored as a « Young Global Leader » of the World Economic Forum (2019), a « European Young Leader » of the leading think-tank Friends of Europe (2018), is amongst the Choiseul 200 « Economic Leaders for Tomorrow » (2017) and a Rising Talent of the Women’s Forum (2014).

She is a graduate from E.M. Lyon with a MSc in Management, from Georgetown University with a MSc in
Foreign Service and an Honour Certificate in International Business Diplomacy and has been awarded a certificate of Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century Program from Harvard University.

Adam C. Bird

Director, McKinsey & Company, Germany

Adam Bird is a Director with McKinsey & Company and Co-Leader of the Global Media and Entertainment Practice. He advises the top management of leading global media, entertainment, technology and consumer goods companies on critical business issues and leads McKinsey's Digital Marketing Practice, as well as the firm's Global Digital Initiative. Prior to McKinsey, Bird was the youngest Senior Partner with Booz & Company (formerly Booz Allen Hamilton). He founded the European Media and Entertainment Practice and led the Global Consumer and Media Practice. He also served as a Member of Booz Allen Hamilton's and Booz & Company's Board of Directors, the firm's highest governance bodies. Bird is co-author of Customer Centricity: New Opportunities for the Media Industry. He often speaks on media topics at conferences and is cited in leading publications. Bird is a Member of the International Council of the Paley Center for Media and serves as Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Munich International School. He is an honours graduate of Wesleyan University.