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.
Katharina Amann
Katharina Amann is an Allianz executive with more than 11 years of general management experience in top-tier strategy consulting, product management and digital business development, specializing in insurance and mobility and their beneficial impact on society. She leads the German Automotive Business of Allianz and is CEO of Allianz subsidiary Volkswagen Autoversicherung AG. Amann has managed P&Ls of up to €400 million and large teams comprising more than 150 members. She strives for societal impact, focusing on a safe and sustainable future of mobility as her core ambition. By connecting the insurance and mobility industry, she creates innovation that not only serves customer needs but also increases safety and sustainability on the road. Amann introduced the first insurance tariff reflecting ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) in the German market.
Salim Amin
Salim Amin is Chairman of Camerapix, Founder and Chairman of The Mohamed Amin Foundation, and Founder of A24 Media. As Executive Producer and Presenter, Amin finished a documentary chronicling his father's life in March 2006 entitled “MO & ME”, which has won 15 awards for best documentary in the United States, Canada, India and Africa, including the Grand Jury Award at the New York International Film Festival. He is a Fellow of the African Leadership Initiative and a Member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. In 2010, Amin was one of only 150 people from around the world invited by US President Barack Obama to the Presidential Entrepreneurship Summit in Washington, DC. In December 2012, he was named as one of the “100 Most Influential Africans” by New African Magazine and the same magazine named him in their “top 50 Under 50” Africans May 2013 issue. In October 2014, Salim launched his weekly Talk Show “The Scoop”, speaking to great African personalities around the Continent, and reaching a global audience of over 200 million people on television, radio and online. In 2016, he produced the multiple award-winning documentary “The Sound Man” on the life and work of Camerapix Sound Recordist Abdul Rahman, and published his first book in December 2018 titled KENYA: Through My Father’s Eyes, a coffee-table book showcasing his father’s unique images of Kenya. It is also the first historical book on Africa incorporating Augmented Reality with 12 videos embedded in the pages of the book.
Renato Amorim
Renato Amorim is Executive Director for Latin American public policy and corporate responsibility at Merck & Co. He previously worked at Brazilian mining company Vale as Director of International Public Affairs, and founded the China-Brazil Business Council, a business-advocacy group. Prior to moving to the private sector, Renato was a Member of the Brazilian diplomatic corps, working in Brasilia, Buenos Aires and Beijing. He holds degrees in Diplomacy from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry's Rio Branco Institute and Electrical Engineering from the State University of Campinas.
Refik Anadol
Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and Lecturer in UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. Anadol’s site-specific data paintings and sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, collective experiences, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of AI. Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Art Basel, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Ars Electronica, Istanbul Modern, and ZKM | Center for Art and New Media. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award. Refik is also a 2024 Young Global Leader
Anadol’s global projects have received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, iF Gold Award, D&AD Pencil Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts Award, SEGD Global Design Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award. His site-specific audio/visual performances have been featured at iconic landmarks, museums and festivals worldwide, such as the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Pompidou Centre, Pinakothek der Moderne, EMMA Museum, Art Basel, Haus der elektronischen, Kunsthalle Praha, Palazzo Strozzi, Casa Batlló, National Gallery of Victoria, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Hammer Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Artechouse, the Portland Building, Daejeon Museum of Art, Florence Biennale, Art Basel, OFFF Festival, International Digital Arts Biennial Montreal, Ars Electronica Festival , l’Usine|Genève, Arc De Triomf, Zollverein | SANAA’s School of Design Building, Santralistanbul Museum of Contemporary Arts, Outdoor Vision Festival, Istanbul Design Biennial, Sydney City Art, and Lichtrouten, among others.
Anadol has a Master of Fine Arts degree from UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts.
Matthew Anderson
Matthew Anderson is Chief Marketing Officer of Roku, the Internet TV pioneer. He is also a senior adviser to 21st Century Fox and serves on the boards of MOBY Media Group, the emerging-markets broadcaster, and Team Sky, a top World Tour Cycling team and twice winner of the Tour de France. Previously, Anderson was Group Director of Strategy & Corporate Affairs, Europe & Asia, of News Corporation. Before that he was Group Director of Communications & Brand Marketing at the British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB). Anderson was instrumental in News Corp's Global Energy Initiative and to Sky becoming the world's first carbon neutral media company. Before Sky, he was Chief Executive, Asia Pacific & EMEA, of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, a global agency network and subsidiary of WPP. He is also an Advisory Board Member of Tokyo University's health policy think tank, a Board Member of the Institute of Public Relations and a Trustee of Malaria No More UK. Anderson graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard's Global Leadership and Public Policy program.
Mark Boris Andrijanič
Mark Boris is Vice President at Kumo.AI, a Sequoia-backed deep learning venture based in California. He also serves on the Governing Board at the EIT, the EU's innovation agency. In 2021 and 2022 he was Slovenia's first-ever Minister of Digital Transformation. During Slovenia's EU presidency, he led negotiations between the Member States on Digital Services Act and digital files in the EU. In 2022, he received the Ukraine Peace Price from President Zelenskyy for his contribution to Ukraine's digital resilience. From 2016 to 2021, he headed Uber's public policy and government relations efforts in Central and Eastern Europe. Mark Boris received a master's in public policy from the University of Oxford and a law degree from the University of Ljubljana.
Matthew Anestis
Matt Anestis is Managing Director and Global Head of Investment Process and Operating Risk for BlackRock Private Markets. He has previously served as Chief of Staff to the President and COO of BlackRock, as the COO of BlackRock's Aladdin Product Group, the COO of BlackRock Alternative Investors and the Global Head of BlackRock Platform Innovation. He has served on various firm leadership committees including on BlackRock's Global Operating Committee, Global Human Capital Committee and Firmwide Risk and Complexity Committee. He also served as Head of BlackRock's Boston office.
Prior to joining Blackrock, Matt Anestis was a Partner and Managing Director with The Boston Consulting Group in Hong Kong and also worked with Microsoft and in the White House. He serves as a Senior Advisor to the Presidential Scholars Foundation and founded the Boston Volunteer Bridge and Toronto Volunteer Bridge. He is also a Founding Curator of the World Economic Forum's Boston Global Shapers Hub.
Matt Anestis earned an undergraduate degree (magna cum laude) in Economics from Harvard, an MBA (with high distinction) from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar) and a JD (magna cum laude) from Harvard Law School.
Bernise Ang
Bernise Ang is Chief Alchemist at Zeroth Labs, a research lab on complex systems that applies complexity science to advance the understanding of “wicked problems” confronting the world today. To this end, they support developing countries and cities in making sense of the underlying system dynamics that make their complex policy challenges the way they are. Her work at Zeroth Labs involves blending disciplines from anthropology, data science, strategic foresight, network science, agent-based modelling and others in order to bring clarity to complexity.
Besides a previous corporate life in private equity, Bernise also founded a youth development nonprofit Syinc, from which alums have gone on to become Forbes 30Under30 and Ashoka Fellow awardees. In international policy, she co-created processes for the development of civil society policy positions at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and UNFCCC. Bernise is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and Fellow at the National University of Singapore teaching complexity science and systems thinking.
Nikolina Angelkova
2003, Master's and Diploma (Hons) in Law, University of National and World Economy, Sofia; 2010, graduate, Harvard Business School, Boston; finance management; certificates in regional policy and management of the European Union structural funds and European policy. Formerly: lawyer; CEO, international companies in the real estate and infrastructure sectors; at the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria, the European Commission and the European Parliament; Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works; Adviser to the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works; Member of the Managing Board, National Road Infrastructure Agency; Adviser to the President of the Republic, in charge of European regional cooperation, transport and environment, as well as other international and European issues. Former Co-Chair and Founder, Bulgarian-Romanian Committee for inland waterway transport and connectivity of the common BG-RO Danube region. Chairwoman, non-profit foundation Friends of Sport, dealing with the integration of disabled children through sport. 2014, Minister of Transport, Information Technologies and Communication. In 2019 became political coordinator for Sofia district in our PP Gerb, responsible for all the political and election campaigns.in May 2018 was awarded by the Italian President with Stella d’Italia medal-the highest award for foreigners. Minister of tourism 2014-2020; Member of Parliament (2017 - 2022)
Irina Anghel-Enescu
Advisor Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. Entrepreneurship and VC expert Said Business School, University of Oxford University. Former Managing Director, South Eastern European Private Equity and VC Association and member of the Representative Committee, European Venture Capital Association (InvestEurope). Former Chair Romanian Innovation Ecosystem Commission. Spent a year at Harvard Kennedy School focusing on the role of smart money for kick-starting and/or strengthening entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world. Eisenhower Fellow (2008). Mason Fellow, Harvard (2010). Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum (2014), Distinguished Fellow Award Eisenhower Fellowships 2023.
Eleni Antoniadou
Dr Eleni Antoniadou is an experienced technology leader in Healthcare and Life Sciences and a legal technical advisor.
As a scientist, Dr Antoniadou has conducted research in the fields of regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, radiobiology and artificial intelligence in the USA and Europe.
She has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the WEF, a Global Leader by the Tallberg Foundation, a Cartier Laureate for the US, a 30under30 by Forbes USA and a European Young Leader by Friends of Europe among others. She has been awarded prestigious fellowships and scholarships based on academic merit such as the Fulbright Scholarship, the National Science Foundation EBICS traineeship, and the BRC-NIHR scholarship to name a few.
Dr Antoniadou holds a PhD in Regenerative Medicine (UCL), an MSc in Bioengineering (UIUC), an MSc in Nanotechnology(UCL), an LLB in Law (UoL), a BSc in Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics(UoT). She has completed executive studies in Sustainability (Stanford), in Intellectual Property Law (SUSS), and in Smart City Design (NTU). She is certified as an expert in Machine Learning and in Solutions Architecting at a professional level.
Akudo Anyanwu
Dr. Akudo Anyanwu is an award-winning global health expert, public health innovator and social entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in the field of international development. She is an Associate Dean at Johns Hopkins University and the Founder of Friends Africa, a pan-African organization that fights AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by mobilizing African businesses, governments and NGOs. She has also served on the boards of Roll Back Malaria, the Global Health Council and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Anyanwu's pioneering work on the Gift from Africa Campaign has been recognized by the Rockefeller Foundation as a top 100 next century innovation. She has also been recognized as Tufts University's Distinguished Service Award (21015), a Harvard School of Public Health Innovator of the Year (2013), an Ogunte Social Leader of the Year (2013) and Stevie Innovator and Social Entrepreneur of the Year (2012). Anyanwu holds a MD in Medicine from Tufts University, an MSc in Public Health from Harvard University and a BSc in Molecular Biology from Lehigh University.