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.
Rolph Antoine Payet
Rolph Antoine Payet, with a PhD in Environmental Science, is currently Executive Secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Convention Secretariat based in Geneva, Switzerland. Prior he was Minister for Environment and Energy in the Government of Seychelles. He has also held the position of President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Seychelles and Special Adviser to the President of Seychelles. Payet is founding member/trustee of the Global Island Partnership, the Sea Level Rise Foundation, the Seychelles University Foundation, the Seychelles Centre for Marine Research and Technology, the Island Conservation Society and the Silhouette Foundation. In November 2007, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize as an IPCC Lead Author.
Yana Peel
Yana Peel is the Global Head of Arts & Culture at CHANEL, serving on the Executive Team since she joined the House in 2020. She is also a board member of Fondation CHANEL, which supports the advancement of women and girls worldwide.
Formerly, Peel was CEO of The Serpentine Galleries in London and co-founded Outset Contemporary Art Fund to drive new philanthropic initiatives across the arts.
She is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Her board commitments include Sadler's Wells Theatre and international councils for TATE, the Metropolitan Museum, and American Ballet Theatre.
Peel studied at McGill University and completed her postgraduate degree in Economics at LSE before starting her career at Goldman Sachs.
Aaron Pereira
Aaron is excited about the interplay between our inner lives and the broader world. Aaron Pereira is currently Project Lead for The Wellbeing Project. The Wellbeing Project is catalysing a culture of inner wellbeing for all changemakers. The Wellbeing Project is co-created with Ashoka, Georgetown, Impact Hub, Porticus, the Skoll Foundation, and Synergos. The Project emerged from a 7 year sabbatical ending in 2012. Aaron has also worked with the Guggenheim on an urban labs project, co-founded a pilot social enterprise to address the inequity and the housing issues in Mumbai slums, and on exploring different threads of how neighbourhood life happens especially in Paris. Pre-sabbatical, Aaron was co-founder of CanadaHelps and Vartana. CanadaHelps engages over 4 million Canadians to raise over CAD$400 million a year to support causes in their community and around the world. CanadaHelps also works with over 20,000 charities on capacity related issues. Vartana was one of the pioneers of the Canadian field of social finance. Aaron is an Ashoka Fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Aaron completed a degree with a minor in Economics from Queen's University, studied at Oxford University as a Skoll Scholar, and completed an executive education program at Harvard.
Gregoire Pictet
For over ten years, Grégoire has been working for the family business, a Swiss private Bank, in Switzerland, the Bahamas, and the UK. Grégoire currently leads the North American market for private clients out of Geneva, his hometown. Developing strong relationships is key in everything he does, both professionally and personally. Grégoire believes that more than ever, the World requires human connectivity and inquisitive minds. Grégoire holds an MBA from IESE and a MA from Edinburgh University. Outside work, he enjoys reading, playing tennis and hiking.
Christoph Pietsch
Christoph Pietsch is part of the management board of Publicis Groupe Germany. As Chief Growth Officer, he is responsible for group marketing, business development, innovation management, partnerships and corporate communications. In October 2015 he was appointed as the youngest Chief Marketing Officer in the country and the first in the global organization's history. From 2017 to 2021, Pietsch was Chief Marketing Officer of Omnicom's DDB Group in Germany. During those years, the 400-people-strong creative company became agency of the year two times in a row and finished all national creative rankings as #1. In 2020 and 2022, he was again named Agency Personality of the year by HORIZONT and New Business Magazine.
Katarzyna Pisarska
Dr. Katarzyna Pisarska is the Founder and Director of the European Academy of Diplomacy in Warsaw, Poland and the Visegrad School of Political Studies run in cooperation with the Council of Europe. She is also the Program Director of the Warsaw Security Forum and a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In the past, she has served as adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Polish Parliament, to the Office of National Security at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland; and continues to work as regular foreign affairs broadcaster in Polish and international media.
In addition to her leadership and management experience Dr. Pisarska pursues a career in academia. She is an Assistant Professor at the Warsaw School of Economics and a Visiting Professor at ADA University in Baku, Azerbaijan. Previously, Dr. Pisarska was a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at Harvard University (2007), a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (2010) at the University of Oslo (2012) and at the Australian National University in Canberra (2015). She is the author of the book "The Domestic Dimension of Public Diplomacy - Evaluating Success through Civil Engagement (Palgrave 2016).
Recent Distinctions: Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum in Davos (2014); "99 under 33" most influential world foreign policy leaders, Diplomatic Courier (2013); Outstanding Young Scholars Award (2013-2016), Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education (2013).
Tom Plümmer
Tom Plümmer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wingcopter, a humanitarian and commercial delivery drone company from Germany, known for its pioneering and life-saving work. His mission is to improve people’s lives around the world thanks to Wingcopter's delivery drones. Tom raised more than $100 Million for Wingcopter and became a World Economic Forum YGL in 2023. Plümmer's commitment to social impact is a cornerstone of his leadership philosophy. He firmly believes in the potential of technology to address pressing societal challenges. This commitment is evident in Wingcopter's humanitarian missions, such as delivering vaccines and medical supplies to isolated regions, especially during crises. Tom thinks globally but acts locally, upskilling young people on the ground where his projects are being built so that they can get ready for the fast-growing billion-dollar drone economy and run the drone networks by themselves.
Marion Poetz
Marion is Associate Professor of Innovation Management at the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and Scientific Director of the LBG Open Innovation in Science Center (LBG OIS Center). She gained her PhD from WU Vienna and has been a visiting scholar at MIT Sloan School of Management, Bocconi University and ETH Zurich. Inspired by phenomena linked to open innovation and open science, her research focuses on strategy, management and organization of open and collaborative knowledge production in scientific research and science-based innovation.
As a principle investigator in several large-scale research projects, she currently manages research groups around these topics in Denmark and Austria. Marion’s work has been published in leading journals such as Management Science, Research Policy or Harvard Business Review, featured in various media and received several awards such as the 2019 TIME Best Paper Award for the most impactful paper published within the past five years in an INFORMS journal.
Marion has been an academic advisor, board member and consultant to organizations from various industries including national and international firms, research organizations and policy-making institutions. She has co-founded several institutions such as the Institute for Innovation Capability Building, engages as director, coordinator and teacher in different educational programs in the fields of strategy and innovation and created the Lab for Open Innovation in Science (LOIS). Marion is affiliated with the Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics (DRUID), the Academy of Management (AoM) and the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Mark Pollock
Mark helps people to build resilience and collaborate with others so that they achieve more than they thought possible.
Unbroken by blindness in 1998, Mark became an adventure athlete competing in ultra- endurance races across deserts, mountains, and the polar ice caps including being the first blind person to race to the South Pole. He also won silver and bronze medals for rowing at the Commonwealth Games and set up a motivational speaking business (www.markpollock.com).
In 2010 a fall from a second story window nearly killed him. Mark broke his back and the damage to his spinal cord left him paralysed. Now he is on a new expedition, this time to cure paralysis in our lifetime by exploring the intersection where humans and technology collide.
As a speaker, Mark is best known for his 2018 TED Talk focused on resolving the tension between acceptance and hope (go.ted.com/markandsimone) delivered jointly with his fiancée, Simone George. It gathered over 1.5 million views in its first 6 months online and has been translated into 12 languages. He has inspired millions of people in hundreds of organisations and is a Davos, World Economic Forum, InnoTown, F.ounders, EG and Wired speaker.
Co-Founder of the global running series called Run in the Dark (www.runinthedark.org), Mark has been selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and is a former member of the Global Futures Council on Human Enhancement. He is a UBS Global Visionary, is on the Board of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation (USA) and is a Wings for Life Ambassador (Europe).
Mark is the subject of the acclaimed documentaries ‘Blind Man Walking’ and ‘Unbreakable – The Mark Pollock Story’, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and also from Queens University Belfast. And, he holds a diploma in Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century from Harvard University, degrees from Trinity College Dublin and The Smurfit Business School.
Vikas Pota
Vikas Pota is the Founder and CEO of T4 Education, a digital media platform he established as a response to the challenges posed by the pandemic to education globally. T4 is building the world’s largest community of teachers and schools and is providing opportunities for educators to network, collaborate, share best practices, and support each other’s efforts to improve learning. T4 works to amplify teachers’ voices because the world in which every child receives a good education will only be built by listening to those at the heart of education. Vikas was previously CEO of a philanthropic foundation, has been recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and as one of London’s 1,000 most influential persons. Vikas was recently named European regional honouree for the 2022 YPO Global Impact Award.
Cristina Pozzi
🚀 Co-Founder and CEO of Edulia, Italy's cutting-edge edtech hub, transforming formal and non-formal education within the Italian Enciclopedia Treccani.
💡 With a fiery passion for innovation and technology, Cristina has been driving change since 2016 when she co-founded Impactscool. This groundbreaking venture, now integrated into Edulia, aims to make knowledge accessible and equip young minds with the skills needed to shape our future society.
👩🏼🏫 In 2020 she served as a member of the government task force for he future of Italian schools and between 2020 and 2021 contributed as an International Advisory Board Member to the work of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education.
💼 Prior to Edulia, Cristina's entrepreneurial journey saw her co-founding Wish Days, a prepaid services company. Under the Emozione3 brand, they achieved a remarkable turnover of 40 million euros and caught the attention of Smartbox Ltd, leading to its acquisition in 2016.
🌍 Recognized globally for her leadership and expertise, Cristina is honored to be a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (2019-2024) and a European Young Leader in 2020.
📚 As an influential author, Cristina has penned thought-provoking books like "Benvenuti nel 2050" (EGEA, 2019) and its English translation "Destination 2050: A Practical Guide to the Future" (BIP, 2020). She also co-authored "After: Il mondo che ci attende" (BOMPIANI, 2021) and the captivating podcast "Casual Future" (Piano P, 2020).
🎙️ Cristina has graced hundreds of events as a sought-after speaker on future trends, education, new technologies, and sustainability. She also has been teaching in renowned universities and business schools both in Italy and abroad.
📰 Cristina's articles can be found in publications like the Agenda of the World Economic Forum, Corriere della Sera, and 7.
🌐 To learn more about Cristina and her journey visit her website: http://www.cristinapozzi.com
Faisel Rahman
Social entrepreneur Faisel Rahman founded Fair Finance in 2005 to tackle financial exclusion and high-cost lending in the UK. He has a background in campaigning on issues related to poverty in the UK and in international development with the Grameen Bank and the World Bank in Bangladesh. He created the UK’s first microcredit programme in 2000, which he grew into Fair Finance.
He remains an occasional Guardian columnist, writing about exclusion, and was awarded an Ashoka fellowship in 2007. In 2009 he was recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, in 2014, made an OBE for Services to Community Finance, awarded Honorary Doctorate from the University of East London in 2016, and made an Honorary Fellowship for Social Enterprise in the UK.