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.

Peter Würtenberger

Chief Executive Officer, upday, Axel Springer, Germany

Peter Würtenberger is Executive Vice President at Axel Springer (Europe’s leading digital publisher).
Previously Peter held positions as CEO of UPDAY for SAMSUNG, CMO of Axel Springer SE, responsible for growing print and digital advertising revenues, as CEO of the WELT Newspaper Group and as CEO of BILD.T-Online. Before Axel Springer he served in various management positions at Yahoo! and Bertelsmann.

Peter holds a degree in Business Management from Cologne University and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. From 2008 to 2012 he was an active member of the Group of Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland. In 2013 he spent 10 months on a digital research project in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, in order to support Axel Springer’s digital transformation. In his free time he enjoys music, contemporary arts and sports.

Werner Wutscher

Managing Director, St. Paul GmbH – New Venture Scouting, Austria

Werner Wutscher is a Member of the Board of resPACT, the Austrian Business Council for Sustainable Development. He also works as consultant and business angel in the start-up area. Wutscher scouts interesting start-ups around the world and serves as a facilitator for start-up ventures. As an angel investor he focuses on e-commerce and retail. He also serves as director on different boards in Austria, Mumbai and Amman. Werner was COO and CFO of Rewe International. Prior, he worked as Secretary-General of the Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management of Austria, and he served as a special adviser to the Minister for Agriculture and in a public company. Wutscher is Vice-President of the Ökosoziales Forum Europe and President of the National Park Hohe Tauern. He was awarded “Business Angel of 2012” and is Member of the Board of the Austrian Business Angel Association. Wutscher obtained a law degree from Karl-Franzens University in Graz and holds a Master's degree from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Yan E. Yanovskiy

Member of the Managing Board, IMAGINE, Monaco

Yan Yanovskiy is multilingual global executive and visionary leader with strong management skills and extensive international experience in private equity, strategic advisory, business development, investment banking and business consulting. Yan has more than 15 years experience in board memberships with both for profit and non-profit organizations across sectors and geographies from shipbuilding and coal mining to being a chairman of the board for the oldest delicatessen chain in the world Hediard with presence in 33 countries. Yan combines his unique experience as a business leader with his expertise in non-profit sector, being a true leader and a pioneer in making non-profit more professional and efficient, advocating for running a non-profit organization in the same way one would run a for profit one. Yan is often engaged as a strategic advisor to global companies, large family businesses and family offices on developing their philanthropic strategy, finding a fit between their business activities and impactful investments including sustainability of their non-profit initiatives, ESG, corporate governance, human capital.

Yan founded a multifamily office First Nation Société Bancaire to serve as gatekeeper of high net worth families’ wealth, businesses and legacy by coordinating investment management with tax and estate planning, strategic advisory, insurance planning, risk management, philanthropic activity and many other essential family office functions across the globe. Prior to that, Mr Yanovskiy was a Head of Investment Strategy and Member of the Board of one of the largest industrial groups in Eastern Europe OPK acting as a strategic leader of the organization. Yan also has many years of experience as a Head of Corporate Finance and Investment Banking with focus across industries and geographies with deals in metals and mining, mobile networks, FMCG, aviation, retail, construction in Easter Europe, North America, Africa and Asia Pacific.

In 2015 Mr. Yanovskiy co-fouded Friends foundation, a non profit organization that serves as an umbrella organization to other non-profit organizations, promoting philanthropy and helping the world in many different areas that are covered by the members of the participating nonprofit organizations. He currently serves as a member of the board for Friends foundation.

The World Economic Forum named Yan a Young Global Leader in 2011. He remains active in the YGL Board Service Initiative and as a member of the Forum’s Expert Network.

Patrick Youssef

Regional Director, Africa, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Switzerland

I joined the ICRC in 2005 and completed different field missions in Sudan, Chad, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Between 2010 & 2013, I was the deputy head of operations for the Near and Middle East covering Yemen, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the GCC. Prior to my current assignment as Regional Director for Africa, I headed the Red Cross delegation in Iraq and was the Head of Operations for North and West Africa

In addition to my field experience, I worked on specific topics related to the respect of International Humanitarian Law such as the treatment and judicial guarantees of persons deprived of freedom, the recruitment of children in armed forces and Transitional Justice.

Born in 1978, I hold a degree in law and a master’s degree in diplomacy and strategic negotiations from Paris Sud XI and an LLM in International Law in armed conflicts from Geneva University.

Niklas Zennström

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Atomico, United Kingdom

Dual degrees in Business and MSc Engineering Physics/Computer Science, Uppsala University, Sweden; final year of university at the University of Michigan. Experienced entrepreneur. Co-founded and managed globally successful technology companies including Skype, Kazaa, Joost and Joltid. From inception until Sept. 2007, Chief Executive Officer, Skype, which was sold to eBay for $3.1bn in 2005, the largest European venture capital exit to date. Subsequently, Skype was bought back by a consortium that included Niklas and was sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion cash in 2011. Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner, Atomico, created in 2006 to help entrepreneurs primarily outside Silicon Valley scale their businesses domestically and globally. It has so far invested in more than 50 companies on four continents. Works closely with a number of leaders of portfolio companies so that they benefit from own experience as an entrepreneur.