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.

Brian Kaufmann

Head, Private Equity; Portfolio Manager; Member of the Management Committee, Viking Global Investors, USA

Mr. Kaufmann is the Head of Private Equity and a Portfolio Manager for Viking Global Investors, LP, a global investment firm that manages over $40 billion. He is also a member of the firm's Management Committee. From 2010 to 2016, Mr. Kaufmann was a public equity Portfolio Manager and Investment Analyst responsible for investment ideas in the healthcare and life sciences sector. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Kaufmann was an Associate at TA Associates, where he was responsible for originating, researching and executing private equity investments in the healthcare and business services sectors. From 2003 to 2005, he was an Investment Banking Analyst in Merrill Lynch's Mergers and Acquisitions Group. Mr. Kaufmann is a graduate of Harvard Business School, where he received an MBA and was a Baker Scholar, and of Cornell University, where he received a B.S. in applied economics and business management, magna cum laude. In 2021, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Tunde Kehinde

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Lidya Holdings, Inc, Nigeria

Tunde Kehinde is the co-founder of Lidya: a digital fintech lender with operations in Africa and Europe, which allows SMEs in fast-growing economies to access financing and build a credit score within 24 hours. Tunde is a seasoned entrepreneur and was the co-founder of Jumia Nigeria, Africa’s first unicorn (publicly listed on the NYSE) and Africa Courier Express, an eCommerce delivery company. Tunde has prior experience as a business development executive with Diageo in London and as an investment banking professional with Wachovia Securities in North Carolina and New York City. Tunde holds a degree in Finance with honours from Howard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Conrod Kelly

Managing Director, MSD, USA

Conrod Kelly is an award-winning marketer and industry leader, as well as a published author and sought-after speaker. Conrod’s tenure at Merck includes commercial leadership of the Diabetes, Anesthesia, Surgery, and Alzheimer’s Franchises. He is currently serving as Merck’s first Executive Director of Health Equity, leveraging data, digital solutions, partnerships, and policy frameworks to improve health outcomes and driving sustainable business and societal value. Prior to joining Merck, Conrod held roles at Johnson & Johnson in diabetes and GlaxoSmithKline in vaccines. In 2020, Conrod was recognized by Medical Marketing & Media’s inaugural 40 Under 40 in Healthcare. His work on the film A Touch of Sugar was a finalist for 33 industry awards and winner of 15. He also received the United Nations SDG Media Award and Top Black in Healthcare Award from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Conrod serves on the SDOH Taskforce and the Global Futures Council at the World Economic Forum. He received his MBA and BS from Florida A & M University and has continued his executive education at The Wharton School at UPenn and Duke University.

Ibram X Kendi

Director, Center for Antiracist Research, Boston University, USA

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is a National Book Award-winning author of fifteen books for adults and children, including nine New York Times bestsellers—five of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor.

Dr. Kendi is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest author to win that award. He also authored the international bestseller, How to Be an Antiracist, which was described in the New York Times as “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” Dr. Kendi’s other bestsellers include How to Raise an Antiracist; Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, co-edited with Keisha Blain; How to Be a (Young) Antiracist, co-authored with Nic Stone; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds; and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant.

Bogolo Joy Kenewendo

Regionalization & Just Transition Director; Special Adviser, UN Climate change High Level Champions, Botswana

Bogolo Joy Kenewendo's career spans trade & investment, finance & development, and public policy. She is the Regionalisation Director, and Special Advisor to the UN Climate Change High Level Champions.
Kenewendo served as a Specially Elected Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry in Botswana. She serves in various corporate and philanthropic boards including as Chairperson of Bank Gaborone, Non-Executive Director of the Africa Free Trade Area adjustment Fund Corporation and the Africa Center for Economic Transformation.
She also advises governments and international institutions on trade and economic development policy.

Kenewendo has served the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, Advisory group on the gender architecture of the UN and group on Financing for Development.
She is also a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Trade Advisory Group, Global Future Council on Global Public Goods in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and a WEF Young Global Leader. She is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Center for Global Development.

She is frequently named among Africa's Most Influential People by various publications. In 2022 she was named among Prestigious Time magazine’s TIME100 Next Honorees highlighting 100 emerging leaders from around the world who are shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership.

Niki Kerameus

Niki K. Kerameus started her career as a lawyer on major litigations, such as Enron and the AOL-Time Warner. While in Government, she has served on committees dealing with e-goverment, constitutional reform, education and youth.

Maryam Khansari

Managing Director, Herison Construction Company, France

Maryam Khansari, born in 1984 in Tehran, serves as the Managing Director of Herison Company, one of Iran's foremost construction firms with a rich history spanning over sixty years. The company has been instrumental in a variety of infrastructure projects, including industrial sites, power stations, refineries, sports complexes, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, roads, and bridges.
Additionally, Maryam holds a pivotal role as a board member and International Relations Manager at the Syndicate of Construction Companies of Iran, the oldest syndication in the country. She plays a key part in advocating for the private sector's rights in engineering and construction.
Maryam is also a Global Member of the Trilateral Commission, reflecting her engagement and influence in international affairs.
Committed to a sustainable future, Maryam aspires to integrate eco-friendly practices within the construction industry, fostering environmental stewardship.
She is also an advocate for gender diversity, actively supporting the empowerment of women in business leadership.

Shreevar Kheruka

Managing Director, Borosil Ltd., India

Shreevar Kheruka has overseen a decade of substantial revenue, profitability and market capitalisation growth as Managing Director of Borosil Ltd. He has overseen Borosil's shift from an inward looking organisation to a customer focused employee driven one. During this period, Borosil has successfully integrated two acquisitions and has also diversified its product portfolio from glass to include a wide range of materials including steel, electronic appliances, pharmaceutical packaging and high end laboratory equipment. Shreevar graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004 with a dual degree in Economics and International Relations. He has also done the Owner President Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Young President's Organization (YPO) as well as the Entrepreneur's Organization (EO). He enjoys traveling, skiing and playing tennis. He has three children and lives in Mumbai with his wife, Priyanka, who is also a University of Pennsylvania graduate.

Smriti Kirubanandan

Growth and Strategic Partnership Executive, HLTH Forward, USA

Smriti has a strong background in robotics and public health and currently serves as a Director, Healthcare at TATA Consultancy Services, where she focuses on driving significant transformations within the healthcare ecosystem, concentrating on customer experience, Intelligent automation, digital analytics, and insights, and is determined to make healthcare more accessible and affordable. She is also the Head of Strategic Marketing for Healthcare and Lifesciences, North America, where she drives brand development, thought leadership, and market research. Smriti serves on the Board of the World Food Bank and as a Vice Chair for the American College of Healthcare Executives, Southern California.

An empathetic and innovative strategic policy advisor has helped organizations globally to build the capacity to empower people to engage in wellness programs and is responsible for educating small farmers in Africa to lift them out of poverty to improve food & nutrition insecurity, impacting 2 million people per year. In 2022, Smriti was appointed to serve the Los Angeles County food equity round table as a Nutrition & Policy Advisor to design and strategize programs to address food insecurity by educating and improving access and affordability to nutritious food. Smriti is also the founder of HLTH Forward Podcast- a space that hosts healthcare leaders, policymakers, and artists such as Bryan Adams,Dr. Joneigh Khaldun of CVS Health, and many others to discuss the challenges in the system and what we could do collectively to move healthcare forward.

Smriti has shared her thought leadership by speaking at The Adama Carolla show, SXSW, HLTH, and other national forums. She is a health news contributor at Medcity News and is featured on Washington Post, ABC News, Huffington Post, Times of India, The Hindu, VegNews, Medium, and Yahoo News.

Smriti holds her Bachelor of Science in Robotics, Master in Engineering Management from the University of Southern California, and Masters in Public Health from the University of California,Los Angeles, Certified Raw Vegan Chef and Nutritionist, and is currently in Fellowship with the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Christer Kjos

Chief Executive Officer, Canica Holding, Switzerland

Christer Kjos is Chief Executive Officer at Canica International. As CEO, and family member, he has transformed Canica to become a modern family investment company with a strong emphasis on responsible leadership, sustainable investments and purpose. Kjos plays an active role in the development of the company's future strategy and has built trust throughout the organization with his professional leadership and solid values. His systematic approach to the sustainability agenda and the owner-family's willingness and ability to challenge current business models, has yielded strong results for the company and society at large.

Michael Kratsios

Managing Director, Scale AI, USA

Michael served as the 4th Chief Technology Officer of the United States at The White House. As President’s top technology advisor, Michael led the development and execution of the national technology policy agenda.

Michael previously served as Under Secretary of Defense. As the third highest ranking official at the Department of Defense, Michael managed the largest research and development budget for a single organization in the world, supervising all research, engineering, development, and prototyping at the Pentagon.

Michael is currently a Managing Director at Scale AI, leading corporate strategy and helping accelerate AI applications across industries.

Shinjini Kundu

Physician-Scientist, Johns Hopkins Hospital, USA

Shinjini Kundu, MD, Ph.D., is a physician and medical researcher at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is well-known for her work in diagnosing diseases from medical images at a pre-emergent stage where the images do not show human-identifiable abnormalities. By making previously imperceptible patterns recognizable using artificial intelligence, Shinjini's work has been truly transformational. Before her clinical appointment in radiology at Johns Hopkins, she received a PhD in artificial intelligence from Carnegie-Mellon concurrently with an MD from the University of Pittsburgh. Earlier, she obtained her BS and MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University. She is a prolific researcher with publications in top journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature Medicine. Her work has had a regional, national, and international impact. She has given TEDx talks and has been a featured speaker at the World Business Dialogue in Germany. She has also been named to the Forbes 30 under 30 and MIT Technology Review 35 under 35 lists. Shinjini contributed to the emerging digital health policies of the American Medical Association, digital privacy policies at the Observer Research Foundation, and the AI for good forum at the United Nations. Her work stands to accelerate new precision medical diagnostic technologies capable of detecting diseases earlier, with greater accuracy and suggestions for tailored treatments.