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.

Ola Doudin

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, BitOasis, United Arab Emirates

Ola Doudin is the co-founder & CEO of BitOasis, the first and largest regional digital asset platform in the Middle East. She has an engineering background and has worked in tech and security advisory in Ernst & Young in London and engineering research prior to her move back to the region where she got involved in tech entrepreneurship and later started BitOasis. Most recently, Forbes Middle East featured Ola among the ‘Top 10 Women Behind Middle Eastern Tech Brands 2021’.

Esra Eczacıbaşı Coşkun

Member of the Board of Directors and Group Digital Transformation Coordinator, Eczacıbaşı Holding, Türkiye

Esra Eczacibasi Coskun is a Board Member and Digital Transformation Coordinator at Eczacibasi Holding, a diversified industrial conglomerate based in Turkey. The Eczacibasi Group plays a pioneering role in both Turkish industry and society through major initiatives in education, culture and the arts, sports, public policy and scientific research. Esra leads the Group’s digital transformation as well as the design and implementation of sustainability policies across different industries and geographies. The digital transformation projects she has spearheaded have received international recognition and awards from institutions such as Fast Company, IDC, RFID Journal and SAP. A strong advocate for equal opportunity, she is a mentor and advisor to young women who want to pursue a career in technology. She gives regular talks on gender biases, inclusivity in the workplace as well as the future that awaits us in the digital age. Esra is also a member of the Board of Directors at the Istanbul Modern, Turkey's first museum of modern and contemporary art. With a passion for the arts and desire to support culture and arts in Turkey, she established the Genc (Young) Modern, Turkey’s first arts membership program for a young audience. As an affiliate of Istanbul Modern, Genc Modern’s mission is to increase the visibility of talented Turkish artists at the start of their careers and create opportunities for them in the contemporary art world. Esra holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BA in Economics and Art History from Harvard University. She previously worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Margot Edelman

General Manager, Edelman, USA

Margot Edelman is the third generation in her family business, Edelman PR, and leads the New York office for the company. In her role as General Manager, she advises tech giants and industry disruptors alike on how to build trust and reputation.

Sofia Elizondo

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Brightseed, USA

Sofia Elizondo is a biotech entrepreneur. She is co-founder and COO of Brightseed, an AI company that discovers bioactive molecules for health based in San Francisco. Brightseed makes proactive, precision health a reality by using pioneering advancements in machine learning to identify bioactive molecules in nature. Brightseed has commercialized novel bioactives in gut health and has a pipeline with nutritional and therapeutic applications across a dozen health areas. It been selected as a Technology Pioneer by the WEF and awarded distinctions by Forbes, Nutritional Outlook, R&D World, Rabobank, FastCompany, Nutra Ingredients and Nutritional Business Journal.

Sofia has helped build multimillion-dollar companies and brands in the consumer goods, pharmaceutical, and technology industries. Before Brightseed, Sofia led the commercialization of plant-based protein products, including the novel mung bean protein isolate. She began her career at the Boston Consulting Group and was also a founding member of the BCG Henderson Institute; the consulting firm's think tank on the future of business innovation. She also served as a Special Advisor to the United Nations supporting their work with the private sector. Her decades of leadership now enable Brightseed's mission to illuminate nature to restore human health.

Sofia's accolades include Top 40 Under 40, San Francisco Business Times; WEF Young Global Leader; 100 Women of Influence, Entrepreneur Magazine; EXTRAORDINARY leaders in Health, Newsweek; Top 100 Female Founders, Inc. Magazine; Women in AI Award, VentureBeat. She has spoken at conferences ranging from nutrition industry with the American Nutrition Association to artificial intelligence and global affairs with the Milken Global Institute and JP Morgan Tech Revolution. Sofia holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Ilwad Elman

Chief Operating Officer, Elman Peace Centre, Somalia

Ilwad Elman is a social entrepreneur at the forefront of the Somali peace process.

•Chief Operating Officer at the Elman Peace Center.

•The Elman Peace Centre is a women lead peace building organization founded and based in Somalia. Our dynamic force comprises visionary thought leaders, fearless activists, and trailblazing social- entrepreneurs. Our young and diverse team adopts a start-up like approach to resolving the seemingly intractable conflicts and social justice issues in our community. We're bridge builders, forming potent alliances with civil society organizations and initiating public-private partnerships that fuel the greater, common good.

Amal Enan

Chief Investment Officer, American University in Cairo, Egypt

Amal Enan is the Chief Investment Officer at the American University in Cairo and Partner at 500 Global. She places her expertise to invest at the forefront of technology and global sustainability across asset classes. With a commitment to intergenerational equity and inclusion, Enan applies herself as a catalyst for allocating capital to invest in growth and climate sustainability.

Kow Abaka Essuman

Legal Counsel to the President, Office of the President of Ghana, Ghana

Kow Essuman is an international lawyer in every sense, who specializes in corporate and commercial litigation and arbitration. He is currently serving as counsel at the office of the President of Ghana. He is licensed to practice law in England & Wales (2008), New York (2010) and Ghana (2011). He holds a Master of Laws degree with Honors in International Mergers and Acquisitions and Financial Institutions from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (2009). He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from BPP Law School, London (2008) and is a member of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. He obtained a Bachelor of Laws from University of Westminster, London (2007) and was previously a Global Shaper at the Accra Hub.

Richard Ettl

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, SkyCell, Switzerland

Richard is the CEO and Co-founder of SkyCell; SkyCell delivers a system-critical service to secure the distribution of medicine and vaccines worldwide to doctors, patients, and pharma companies while reducing the CO2 footprint of the shipments by 50%. Before SkyCell, he helped to build up the Institute for Value-Based Entrepreneurship "IVE Institute" in Switzerland, which provided more than 3500 students with business plan creation classes and leadership insights from top CEOs free of charge. He co-led the Alumni Organization for more than ten years. Richard holds a Bachelor of Arts in Management from Université de Fribourg. Richard is married and lives in the Zurich area with his two daughters. His hobbies include skiing, sailing, and coaching startups pro bono.

Agustina Fainguersch

Managing Director for Latin America, Meta, Argentina

Agustina is the Regional Director for Spanish-speaking South America and Miami for Meta (formerly known as Facebook). Before her arrival to the company, Fainguersch was CEO and Funding Partner of Wolox, an Argentine digital transformation company that provides technological solutions for companies in the process of digital innovation, which was later acquired by Accenture. She then served in Accenture as Managing Director until the end of January 2022. Today she’s also a professor at the Executive MBA of Universidad de San Andres.

She is an Engineer and has a Master's Degree in Software from Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA), and has extensive experience in projects with high technological impact. In 2016, she won a scholarship to be part of the Global Solutions Program at Singularity University and the Launchpad at SU Labs at NASA, Silicon Valley. In 2017 she was recognized by MIT among the 35 innovators under 35. In 2018 she received the Argentine Digital Innovation Profile Award. Her project Muzi received recognition as an innovative project with social impact by the Argentine Creative Circle and the Sadosky Award for innovation; and in 2019 she was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur.
In 2019 she was recognized as the “Nearshore Executive of the Year” by Nearshore Americas, in
2020 she was selected as “EY Entrepreneur of the Year” and in 2021 and 2022 and 2023 she was selected as one of the top 100 most influential CEOs in Argentina by the HORSE ranking. In 2022 she was also selected President of the Engineering Week of CAI, Argentine Engineer Center.

Jonathan Fantini Porter

Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Partnership for Central America, USA

Jonathan Fantini Porter is a government official and executive in the private and social sectors. He currently serves as CEO of the public-private Partnership for Central America and previously held leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The White House, U.S. Congress, and McKinsey & Company.

Under his tenure, the Partnership raised $4.2 billion in foreign direct investment, procurement, and lending in 18 months for projects in the region and delivered programs to 5 million individuals across environmental, social, and governance programs to address the economic roots of migration in frontier and emerging markets. The Partnership has been cited by the President of Microsoft, Administrator of USAID Samantha Power, and the President of the World Bank as a case study on how to mobilize private sector investments for public-private economic development partnerships.

Jonathan previously served as an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company; advisor on national security and private sector engagement to the Presidential transition of Joe Biden; a White House advisor on transnational security during the Presidency of Barack Obama; as a senior congressional aide in the U.S. Congress; and Chief of Staff in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where he oversaw management operations of a $6 billion homeland security budget supporting 22,000 personnel in 48 countries.

He was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and has served on advisory bodies to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, World Economic Forum, Amnesty International, and as a consulting fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Jonathan is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Georgetown University and was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship. He speaks Spanish, French, and German.

El Seed Faouzi

Artist and Founder, Atelier El Seed Artifacts and Artworks Trading LLC, United Arab Emirates

eL Seed uses Arabic calligraphy and a distinctive style to spread messages of peace, unity and to underline the commonalities of human existence. His artwork can be found all over the world and consistently aim at unifying communities and redressing stereotypes. Born in 1981 in Paris to Tunisian parents, he was disconnected from his Arabic roots, speaking only the Tunisian dialect of the language at home. In his teenage years in a kind of quest for his identity, he began to delve into his own heritage and learned to read and write standard Arabic.It was during this journey that he began to develop his artistic style of calligraphy, which would later bring him worldwide acclaim. He found that Arabic calligraphy was a way of building a link between his equally important French and Tunisian backgrounds and as he matured, eL Seed began to use that same calligraphy as a tool to build bridges all over the world. Whenever he works within a community, he spends a long time researching to find an appropriate quote to summarise the voice of the community he is working within and to underline his key principals of love, respect and tolerance. His work has been shown in exhibitions and in public places all over the world including most notably on the façade of L’Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, in the favelas of Rio di Janeiro, on the DMZ in between North and South Korea, in the slums of Cape Town and in the heart of Cairo’s garbage collectors neighbourhood. In 2017, he won the UNESCO Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture. He was named a Global Thinker in 2016 by Foreign Policy for his project ‘Perception’ in Cairo. In 2013, he collaborated with Louis Vuitton on their famous ‘Foulard d’Artiste’.

Fawaz Farooqui

Managing Director, Cruise Saudi, Saudi Arabia

Fawaz Farooqui is a public sector entrepreneur and innovator who led multiple transformations and established several entities and companies. He dedicated his career to improving the quality of life in Saudi Arabia and creating unforgettable experiences that are inspired by the culture and people of Saudi. He currently serves as the Chief Advisor to the Saudi Minister of Culture and sits on the board of several organizations such as Saudia Airlines, Cruise Saudi Corporation, AlUla Development Company and the Saudi Sports for All Federation. In addition, he is the interim CEO of Cruise Saudi, which he led to launch the cruise industry in Saudi and promote the Red Sea to global cruise lines. Previously, Fawaz was appointed as the first CEO of the country’s National Transformation Program (NTP) to lead the first revamp of the program to enhance execution and delivery, resulting in specialized programs, such as Quality of Life, which he helped establish and was a board member of. Before that, Fawaz served as an Advisor to the Minister of Economy and Planning, focusing mainly on recreation and quality of life portfolio of the country. He led the establishment team of the General Entertainment Authority and various other public and social programs focused on improving the quality of life of the citizens in Saudi. Before joining the government, Fawaz led key initiatives in King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) where he launched KAEC’s entrepreneurship program, as well as partnering with the global Messengers of Peace (MoP) initiative to initiate several programs in add KAEC on the global agenda of MoP initiative. Fawaz started his career with Saudi Aramco, where he led several transformations, starting from revamping field operations and establishing technology support in Aramco’s Satellite Communications to a complete turnaround and re-launch of the Corporate Telecom Network Operations Center. Fawaz has an MBA from Stanford University. He also earned a BSc in Computer Engineering and Computer Science, a BA in Political Science, and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. He has authored several technology articles including 3 technical papers that were published in global journals and were presented in different conferences worldwide.