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.

Claudia Sender Ramirez

Board Member, EMBRAER, Brazil

Engineer

Bhavin Shah

Partner; Head, Middle East and North Africa, Forensic Risk Alliance Ltd, United Arab Emirates

I am a senior consulting professional and a trusted advisor to Boards of Directors, CXOs, Governments, and Regulators. I have served clients across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, America, and Europe.

My key areas of expertise are strategy development, business set-ups, transformations, M&A, restructuring, turnarounds, digital, complex regulatory matters, financial crime, public finance, and economic policies. I also have strong experience with financial performance improvement projects, balance sheet recapitalizations, Investor support, and cross-jurisdictional distress cases.

I mentor several Digital/FinTech start-ups in the region and have expertise in investing in venture, private and public markets. I hold an MBA and a Chemical Engineering degree and am an alumnus of Harvard Business School.

Sally Shin

Co-Founder, Raive, USA

Sally Shin is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Raive. Raive is building state of the art multimedia foundation AI models to enable multimedia AI to reach the masses, and solve the fundamental IP problems impeding the widespread adoption of AI by the multimedia industries. Before Raive, she was the Chief Strategy Officer at UnitedMasters. She spent over 10 years in media working at CNBC and Bloomberg. She launched CNBC's first tech show, Squawk Alley and was the youngest ever bureau chief leading the San Francisco office for the network. She is also a scout for Kleiner Perkins.

Bright Simons

President, mPedigree, Ghana

2006-13: Vice President, IMANI; 2013 - Present: Honorary Vice President, IMANI; 2009: Consultant, World Bank Africa Plan; 2012: Consultant, UNECA; 2009: United Nations Secretary-General's Innovation Working Group Taskforce on Maternal Health; Member, APHRC Board; Member, RED Media Board; 2018: George Mallinkrodt & Adrian Cheng Fellow, Harvard University; 2003: Fellow, UKPPARC; 2006: Fellow, Berlin Institute of Comparative Social Research; 2009: Fellow, TED; Fellow, Archbishop Tutu; 2009: Recipient, Tech Museum Laureate; 2016: Fortune Global 50 (World's Greatest Leaders); Aspen AGLN ALIWA & Braddock Fellow; 2019 Skoll Awardee; 2017 Tallberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize Laureate.

H.R.H. Anjhula Mya Singh Bais

Chair, International Board, Amnesty International, United Kingdom

Described by the Sunday Times as “an activist, academic, and an aristocrat out to shatter myths surrounding mental illness and psychology”, Dr. Anjhula Mya Singh Bais is an international psychology trauma specialist, Founder and Director of Fourth Dimension Consultancy, and the Chair of the International Board of Amnesty International. Dr. Bais's focus is human rights and mental health through a feminist lens. She was a thought leader and strategist inspiring on psychology, leadership, and human rights on her Lite FM radio show Mind Matters which had a weekly listenership of 1 million. Named a Fellow of the Apolitical Academy, Prestige Magazine's 40 Under 40, and bestowed the Global Citizen Psychologist Citation from the American Psychological Association, Bais is an alumni of Lady Shri Ram College, University College London, Columbia University, The Chicago School, a member of YPO and is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. With two decades in the international fashion industry as a model and named a super model by Vogue, Bais's prerequisite for appearing on covers is that staunch attention is paid to body positivity. She has received Savvy's people's choice award for being the role model women most believed in.

Birgit Skarstein

Athlete, International Paralympic Committee, Norway

Birgit Skarstein is a Paralympic Champion, World Champion, world record holder in rowing and a prominent global advocate for the value of an inclusive society and opportunities for people with disabilities. Skarstein’s public service includes four years on the Committee of Finance in Oslo City Council and five years on the Norwegian Advisory Board of Biotechnology. She has served as Chair of the board of the Norwegian Association of Youth with Disabilities. She is currently in her second term on the Athletes Commission in the International Paralympic Committee while still competing at top international level. She is Co-Founder of the WE foundation, which promotes disability inclusion in sports, work life and social spheres. Skarstein also holds seats on several boards. She is a six-time World Champion and holds 12 World Championship medals in rowing and Nordic skiing. She has competed in five Paralympic Games and was the Norwegian flag bearer in 2018. Skarstein aims to defend her Tokyo 2020 win at the Paralympic Games in Paris 2024. Globally and nationally, she figures on TV, TEDx, radio and podcasts, in political engagements and programmes such as the US Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program and World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community. Skarstein currently chairs the Future Advisory Board of Reitan Retail, guiding responsible retail practices.

E. Benjamin Skinner

Founder and President, Transparentem, USA

E. Benjamin Skinner is Founder and President of Transparentem. Previously, he co-founded TAU Investment Management, and prior to that was Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism of Brandeis University. He was named one of National Geographic’s “Adventurers of the Year 2008.” His first book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery (Free Press; 2008), was awarded the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction, a citation from the Overseas Press Club in its book category for 2008, and a finalist for The Ryszard Kapuscinski International Award for literary reportage in 2011.

Previously he held a fellowship at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and worked as Research Associate for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His 50+ chapters, monographs, and articles have appeared in numerous publications including Bloomberg Businessweek, Time, Newsweek, Travel + Leisure, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, and others. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Benjamin Soemartopo

Chief Executive Officer, Eureka, Singapore

CEO of Eureka, an AI platform for mobile operators to partner with enterprises and government. Previously Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company, Indonesia and Managing Director, Standard Chartered Private Equity, Indonesia. Experience as an investor, board member or advisor to consumer (healthcare, retail, technology), agriculture and energy companies. WEF Young Global Leader 2010. Cofounder of Young Leaders for Indonesia foundation. Bachelor of Law and Political Economy (first class honours) Murdoch University, Western Australia.

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.

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.

Teh Hua Fung

Co-Founder and Group President, Group ONE Holdings (ONE), Singapore

Hua Fung Teh is the Co-Founder and Group President of Group ONE Holdings (ONE). He co-leads the company’s management team with a focus on group strategy, global partnerships and capital markets.

Prior to ONE, Teh was a Principal at global private equity firm TPG Capital (TPG), and was responsible for the origination, execution and portfolio management of growth and late-stage investment deals in Southeast Asia. He also served on TPG’s China and US teams. Before TPG, Teh was an aviator with the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and held leadership positions both at the RSAF and at Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, where he served as the Ministry’s Formula One (F1) Project Team Leader. In this role he helped secure the F1 Grand Prix hosting rights for Singapore and coordinated efforts between government agencies and the private sector to execute the first night race in F1 history in 2008.

Teh holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MEng and BS in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a member of the men’s varsity basketball team. A Taekwondo black-belt holder, he was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2015, and sits on the board of the Singapore Art Museum (SAM).