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.

James Mwangi

Founder and CEO, Africa Climate Ventures, Rwanda

AB (Hons) in Economics, Harvard University. Executive Director, Dalberg Group, a collection of impact-driven businesses that seek to champion inclusive and sustainable growth around the world. As a consultant, has advised senior public, private and social sector leaders on issues of inclusive and sustainable growth frontier markets, particularly in Africa. 2009 Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellow and Member of the Board, African Leadership Institute. Member, United Nations Global Entrepreneurs Council.

Griffin Myers

Co-founder and Board Member, Oak Street Health, USA

Dr. Griffin Myers is a Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer at Oak Street Health, (NYSE: OSH), a network of primary care centers that delivers value-based care to older adults. He serves on the Board of Directors and is involved in supporting the 5,000+ employees caring for Oak Street Health patients.

Prior to Oak Street Health, Dr. Myers did his residency in emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School at the Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals. Dr. Myers has a B.S. from Davidson College, an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and an M.D. from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, a Research Associate at Harvard Medical School, an Adjunct Instructor at Northwestern University, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, and an Aspen Health Innovators Fellow. He splits his time between New York City and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Jaime Nack

President, Three Squares Inc., USA

Jaime Nack is the President of Three Squares Inc. - an award-winning environmental consulting firm that designs and implements sustainability strategies for corporations, governments, real estate developments, and special events. Under her leadership, TSI has developed sustainability plans for organizations across the globe, ranging from the United Nations Foundation to Honda to ESPN. As a leading voice on sustainable business practices, she advises corporate boards on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria.

Nack served as the director of sustainability for several high-profile events, including the Global Climate Action Summit and the last four US Democratic National Conventions from 2008 to 2020.

Nack was named the “Environmental Conservator of the Year” by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. She was appointed under the Obama administration to serve on the National Women’s Business Council, an advisory council to the President, Congress, and the SBA on economic issues of importance to women business owners. She proudly serves as one of Al Gore’s presenters for The Climate Reality Project.

Nack holds a Master’s in Public Policy from UCLA, where she also earned her Bachelor’s in International Economics with a specialization in Latin America.

A. Nader Nadery

Senior Fellow, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, USA

Law degree, Kabul University; Master's in International Affairs, George Washington University, US. Formerly: 2001, Representative, UN peace talks, Bonn; 2001, Spokesman, Loya Jerga. Commissioner, National Human Rights Commission. Chairman Civil Service Commission, Negotiator and Spokesperson, Peace Talks-Doha. Senior advisor, President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Director, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU). Chairman, Senior Fellow, Wilson Center, Fellow, Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Board Chairman, Open Society Foundation, Afghanistan. Board Member, Afghanistan Education Programs. 2007, Professor, American University of Afghanistan. Fellow, 21 Young Asia Leaders. Recipient of award: Rebook Human Rights Award, Asian Hero, Time Magazine (2004).

Yoshinobu Nagamine

Senior Manager, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Switzerland

Snr Manager at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance mobilising government and private resources to protect children from vaccine preventable diseases. Passionate about leveraging innovation & technology in global health and sourcing financial & political capital for impact (raised over USD 500m in three years). During the C19 pandemic, he was part of COVAX, the global procurement mechanism of C19 vaccines for developing countries with a focus on Africa.
Previously with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) assisting war victims in DRC and Afghanistan. Founded and headed the ICRC office in Japan (https://jp.icrc.org/). As a researcher, he interviewed Taliban members and wrote a book on how to ensure compliance with humanitarian law by non-state actors.
Specialisation: public private partnership, digital for health, innovation and intra-preneurship. MBA IMD Lausanne; PhD in Human Security, Tokyo University; MA from Graduate Institute, Geneva; Publications: "Sekai no genba de mananda shigoto no kihon", Tokyu Communications, 2011; "The Legitimisation Strategy of the Taliban's Code of Conduct", Palgrave, 2014. Young Global Leader in 2010. Languages: English, Japanese, French, German

Subha Nagarajan

Managing Director, Global Capital Advisory, GE Energy Financial Services, USA

Dr. Subha Nagarajan is leading the charge for GE’s ambitious emerging markets investment portfolio. She heads the U.S. Advisory and Execution team for GE Capital’s Global Capital Advisory team based in Washington DC. In this role, Subha leads the structuring, execution and relationship management for US-based export credit agencies (ECAs), development finance institutions (DFIs), and other financing institutions.

Prior to GE, Subha was the Managing Director for Africa at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. She opened OPIC’s first overseas office in Africa in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. In this role, she was responsible for coordinating business development across insurance, project and corporate finance, and private equity investments.

Subha also worked in various leadership roles at the African Development Bank, where she was responsible for originating, structuring and executing private equity and project finance transactions in infrastructure, energy, and oil & gas sectors.

She has co-authored Understanding Power Project Finance, Understanding Power Project Procurement, Committee of Ten Policy Brief: Financing of Sustainable Energy Solutions, and contributed to the WEF publication Paving the Way: Maximizing the Value of Private Finance in Infrastructure, along with other publications.

Subha has a Ph.D in Applied Economics from the George Washington University, and a MA in Finance and Economics from McGill University.

Euvin Naidoo

Distinguished Professor, Global Accounting, Risk and Agility, Thunderbird School of Global Management, USA

Euvin Naidoo currently serves as the Distinguished Professor of Practice in Global Accounting, Risk and Agility at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, at Arizona State University (ASU). ASU has been ranked #1 in Innovation by US News 8 years in row and Thunderbird #1 in the world for International Trade in 2022. Prior to accepting the invitation to join Thunderbird as Distinguished Professor, Euvin Naidoo was a faculty member at the Harvard Business teaching in the Accounting and Management Unit as a member of the core faculty delivering the required curriculum in Financial Reporting and Control as well as programs focused on Risk, Agility and Performance Management.
Euvin brings a wealth of global and international experience across sectors and regions having served as a practitioner in senior leadership positions in banking, management consulting and venture capital, having lived and worked over the past 2 decades in Johannesburg, New York and San Francisco. His personal focus and work is on agile management and leadership in financial services (banking/insurance) as well as healthcare, the future of work, public and private sector transformation and turnarounds, risk management, performance controls and governance incorporating the themes of customer and citizen centricity.
An alumnus of the Harvard Business School, Euvin was previously part of the senior African leadership team at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) joining as the first South African Partner and Managing Director based out of the Johannesburg office, where he led the Financial Institutions (Banking/Insurance) and Public Sector Practices. Euvin began his banking career at one of Africa's leading pan-African banks, Standard Bank, within Corporate & Investment Banking, where he focused on Acquisition Finance (M&A), initially based in Johannesburg and then, from 2005, in the New York office. As a New York based investment banker focused on emerging market companies, Euvin worked through an invaluable global learning curve, witnessing the ripple effect of the US financial crisis in 2007 and the risk, credit, organizational and leadership lessons this has for both developed and emerging market companies and regulators. He returned to South Africa from the USA in 2009 to head up the Risk Appetite & Credit Portfolio Management team for Standard Bank, covering a 17-country pan-African footprint across all personal and business banking product lines. In 2013, Euvin was recruited to join Barclays Africa’s EXCO as the Head of Strategy, leading the strategy execution for the 'Rest of Africa' (Regional Management) across an 11-country pan-African portfolio.
Selected in 2009 as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (WEF), in 2012 he was recruited to the Forum’s Global Agenda Councils, where he served 2 terms on the United States Council. He is a current member of the World Economic Forum's Expert Network. Columbia University’s Journal of International Affairs, in recognition of his work, and impact across Africa, has previously named Euvin as one of the ‘Five Faces of African Innovation and Entrepreneurship’.

Kumi Naidoo

Global Ambassador, Africans Rising For Justice, Peace and Dignity, South Africa

Political Sociology and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Became an activist early in youth but after having been arrested as a result of anti-apartheid activities and going underground for one year, lived in exile in England until 1989. After Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990, returned to South Africa to work on the legalization of the African National Congress. During the 1994 democratic elections, was the official spokesperson of the Independent Electoral Commission and directed the training of all electoral staff in the country. Recognized internationally as a forceful advocate for gender equity and against gender violence.

Nerissa Naidu

Chair of the Board, CreditXpert Inc., USA

Nerissa is a seasoned entrepreneur, CEO and board member. She was a co-founder and CEO of āxil, a Fintech creating a smart wallet for small businesses.
Nerissa has served as a board member to multiple businesses globally over the last 5 years. Her directive is to advise on the overall ESG, technology enablement, and revenue generation strategies as businesses grow or gain strategic funding. She has been appointed as Chair of the Board to multiple companies, Audit Chair, and sits on Governance and Compensation committees.
During her two-decade corporate tenure, Nerissa has filled numerous senior executive roles, to open, manage and grow global businesses whilst at AIG and Accenture, provide board oversight, manage a 5000+ global workforce, and perform multinational strategic turnarounds through M&A and divestitures in Fortune 100 companies. She has worked in over 40 countries, navigating cross-border working environments and regulators including the Fed.
As a native South African who grew up in Apartheid, Nerissa has been a proponent of equality and strives to break the mould of stereotypes in gender, race, and professional norms. She has been a keynote speaker on diversity and inclusion, systemic inequality, and racial injustice.
Nerissa was selected as a Young Global Leader in the World Economic Forum in 2019, and subsequently elected to its Advisory Group, including Chair of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion sub-committee in 2021. She was featured in the Financial Times as a leader to watch, holds an executive MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a BTech in Industrial Engineering from the Durban University of Technology. More recently, she continues her executive education at London, Harvard and Wharton Business Schools.

Sandeep A. Naik

Managing Director, Head of India & Southeast Asia, General Atlantic, India

Sandeep Naik is a Managing Director at General Atlantic and serves on the firms Executive Committee. He head’s the operations for India and Asia Pacific. Mr. Naik manages and oversees all of GA’s investments in these regions, which include Byju’s, Jio, Reliance Retail, Ruangguru, PT MAP Boga Adiperkasa (MBA), Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences Limited, BillDesk, House of Anita Dongre, IIFL Wealth Management and KFin Technologies Private Limited.

Previously, Mr. Naik served as a partner and co-head of the India office for Apax Partners, leading their investments in healthcare, financial & business services and retail & consumer sectors. Prior to joining Apax, he was a Global Marketing Manager at Medtronic Inc, a scientist at Mayo Clinic and a Consultant with McKinsey. He is also the co-founder of a medical device start up firm, InfraScan Inc., which is focused on detecting bleeding inside the brain using a handheld device.

Mr. Naik is an avid community worker. Among other philanthropic endeavors, he co-founded ToolBox India, an organization that brings professionals and non-profits together to improve productivity and efficiency within the social sector.

Mr. Naik holds a BTech in Instrumentation Engineering from the University of Mumbai, an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the Medical College of Virginia and an M.B.A. in Finance from The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Naik was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and served on the Global Agenda Council of ‘New Order of Economic Thinking’. Mr. Naik is also a member on the Wharton Asia Board.

Zuriel C. Naiker

Managing Director, Marsh & McLennan Companies, South Africa

An African leader in financial services who has worked across multiple geographies on projects that have attracted interest internationally. Through various leadership roles, he has sought to meaningfully drive equality, diversity, inclusion and education in the corporate and non-profit environments. He has worked with both government and the private sector as a contributor, advisor and board member.

Erika Najarian

Managing Director, Large-Cap Banks and Consumer Finance, UBS AG, USA

Erika Najarian is managing director and head of Americas financial sector research, comprising $4.5 trillion in market capitalization. An expert and thought leader on financial services and global financial regulation, she advises institutional investors, bank executives, central banks, finance ministers and regulatory agencies. She founded the Future of Financials conference, the premier annual forum on disruptive technology, regulatory change and investment themes within financial services. She is a passionate advocate of the professional advancement of women and people of colour.