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 Rogers

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Apeel, USA

James Rogers, is preoccupied with tipping civilization into an era that will allow us to regard the ‘plastic age’ the same way we regard the ‘stone age’. After receiving his PhD from UCSB in Materials, James founded Apeel with two graduate school friends. Apeel uses materials found in nature to create an invisible ‘peel’ on the outside of fruits and vegetables that allows them to live 2-3x longer. James’ time building Apeel led him to think of technology as a catalyst for system change. He is obsessed with expanding our concept of community beyond the people that we can keep track of on our own mental ledger.

Idan Roll

Member of the Knesset, The Israeli Knesset, Israel

Idan Roll is the Deputy Foreign Minister of the State of Israel. The main issues in his portfolio are Public Diplomacy, Innovation as means to connect people, and reaching out to the Jewish Diaspora. He joined the Yesh Atid party in 2018 and became a Member of the Knesset in 2019. DFM Roll founded the High-Tech Caucus at the Knesset to promote the Israeli tech and startup ecosystem. Throughout the Covid-19 crisis, he announced legislation to support small businesses, reduce bureaucracy, and decrease unemployment. DFM Roll holds a B.A. in law and an M.A. in Public Law from Tel-Aviv University. As a lawyer, he worked in law firms specializing in high-tech mergers and acquisitions. DFM Roll is a Major (res.) at the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and served in technology units in the Intelligence Corps. Deputy Minister Roll founded the "Pride Front," a movement dedicated to increasing the LGBTQ community's representation in Israel's political arena. He is married and has two children.

Michele Romanow

Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Clearco, Canada

Michele Romanow is a serial entrepreneur who started six companies before her 35th birthday. A “Dragon” on CBC’s hit show Dragons’ Den (Canada’s Shark Tank), Michele is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Clearco (formerly Clearbanc). Clearco has invested more than $5B+ into 10000+ companies making them the biggest ecommerce investor in the world. She previously co-founded SnapSaves, acquired by American tech giant Groupon, and Buytopia.ca, which acquired ten competitors, including Shop.ca and WagJag.

A prolific investor, Michele was recently named Fortune’s 40 under 40, a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women, Canada’s Angel Investor of the Year and winner of RBC’s Women of Influence, Innovation Award.

Michele co-founded the Canadian Entrepreneurship Initiative with Richard Branson to encourage more women entrepreneurs. Michele has worked driving new digital solutions to many of the world’s leading brands, including P&G, Netflix, Starbucks, and Cirque du Soleil. In addition, she’s advised Fortune 100s and governments on innovation, AI, blockchain and the new economy.

During her Civil Engineering undergrad at Queen’s University, Michele founded The Tea Room, the first zero-consumer-waste coffee shop. At Queen’s, she was given the Queen’s Tricolour — the highest honor awarded by the university — and, after completing her Queen’s MBA, she founded Evandale Caviar, a vertically integrated commercial fishery.

Michele is a director for Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN), BBTV and Queen’s School of Business. Previously she was a director for Freshii, Whistler Blackcomb, SHAD International and League of Innovators.

Veronica Ruiz del Vizo

Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Working on Solutions, USA

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of WOS. Veronica Ruiz del Vizo has led the communication strategist of global brands, advised Venezuelan foundations, celebrities and democratic organizations on digital strategy. She is also the Co-Founder and Director of Bootcamp Vero, Team Remoto, Amarillo and Dar Learning reaching more than 20,000 online students around the world only during the first year of the pandemic.

Kaitlyn Sadtler

Investigator; Chief of Section, Immunoengineering, National Institutes of Health, USA

Kaitlyn Sadtler is a scientist and Chief of the Section on Immuno-Engineering at the National Institutes of Health. She began her lab at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Chemical Engineering working on the molecular mechanisms of immune activation in the foreign body response with Dr Robert Langer (founder of Moderna). There, she was awarded a competitive NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship for her work on immunology and tissue engineering. She completed her PhD at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where she showed a critical role for Th2-T cells in biomaterial-mediated muscle regeneration. Her research has been published in journals such as Science, Nature Methods, Nature Communications and Science Translational Medicine. She was recognized as a 2018 TED Fellow and delivered a TED talk that was listed as one of the top-viewed talks of 2018. Sadtler was selected for the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 List in Science and received the 2021 Outstanding Recent Graduate Award from Johns Hopkins University. Since starting her laboratory at the NIH, she has lent her lab's expertise to the fight against COVID-19, launching the NIH Serologic Survey, detecting 16.8 million undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections in the US via remote blood sampling and antibody testing. This work continues as the team works to map the spread of the pandemic in the US from 2020 through 2021.

Sara Saeed

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Sehat Kahani, Pakistan

Sara Saeed Khurram is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sehat Kahani, an all-female health provider network working to create quality, cost-effective, ICT-enabled health care solutions for communities in Pakistan. Saeed Khurram has won numerous honours for her work, including the 2019 Rolex Awards for Enterprise (Associate Laureate), TIAW Award, CRDF Global Award, Ashoka Changemakers, ISIF Asia, The Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Award, 2016 UNICEF Global Goal Campaigner Award and 2017 Arpatech Young Entrepreneurs Award. She is also a Cartier Awards finalist and the first frontier Innovator from Pakistan. Saeed Khurram is also a 2016 Acumen Fellow, TedX speaker, Cherie Blair Foundation alumnus and Amplify Fund grantee. She completed her medical degree from Dow University of Health Sciences in Pakistan and MPH from the Aga Khan University of Health Sciences.

Vivek Salgaocar

Managing Director and Founder, Prospect Innovation PTE LTD, Singapore

Vivek Salgaocar is an experienced operator, innovator, creator, and investor. He is founder of Prospect Innovation, a first-of-its-kind ecosystem supporting start-ups and innovators as they build, pilot and scale frontier technologies to address the biggest challenges facing the natural resource and mining industries in a sustainable and socially responsible way. He is Director at the Vimson Group, a family-owned conglomerate with interests in mineral resources, real estate and financial services. The group is also actively involved in philanthropic initiatives, particularly in healthcare and sports. Within the Minerals Division at the Vimson Group, Salgaocar oversees sales, marketing and trading, along with global business development and expansion. As Co-Head of the Vimson Group Family Office, he spearheaded the efforts to create and institutionalise a multi-asset, multi-strategy investment enterprise with global interests.

Vivek earned his MBA from Columbia Business School, and his BA summa cum laude, from Emory University. He was designated a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2020 and served on its Advisory Group. He is also a part of the Young Leaders Circle at the Milken Institute. Vivek is a Board Member, Chair of the Outreach Committee and Member of the Governance Committee of Magic Bus, whose mission to alleviate poverty by taking individuals from childhood to livelihood. The organisation currently has roughly 500,000 participants and successfully secured over 87,000 white-collar job placements in 2022.

He is a Board Member of the Global Family Enterprise Program at Columbia Business School, and a member of the Singapore Chapters of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), and Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). He serves as the Group’s representative to the Confederation of Indian Industries’ India Business Forum, Singapore Business Federation, and the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Eva Scherer

Independent, Germany

Eva Scherer is a leader in the Siemens finance community and a diversity advocate. She took over the regional Chief Financial Officer role at age 27 to set up the Middle East/Asia-Pacific headquarters for the Building Technologies division in Singapore. Secured various projects promoting energy efficiency and sustainability across the region, including the company's involvement in the Greener Government Buildings programme in Australia. After five years in Asia, transferred to Germany in 2017 to head the global finance and controlling function for the Mobility division and played an instrumental role in setting up Siemens Mobility as separately managed company within the Siemens Group. From 2020 to 2022 she led the Rail Infrastructure and Software businesses at Siemens Mobility as Chief Financial Officer with the mission of making sustainable transport easily and conveniently accessible to foster decarbonization and improve air quality. As of October 2022, she was appointed Head of Group Investor Relations at Siemens, and serves as interface between Siemens and the capital markets, while continuing to fight for reducing emissions and making air breathable for everyone as the Co-chair of the World Economic Forum‘s Alliance for Clean Air.

Anneliese Schulz

Chief Revenue Officer, Syncron AB, Singapore

Today Anneliese serves as Chief Revenue Officer for Syncron AB and member of the Group Management Team, one of the fastest growing SaaS companies headquarters in Sweden in their pursuit of enabling digital transformation for the manufacturing industry.

Anneliese has been previously acting as the youngest Regional President in Software AG’s history having lead their Asia Pacific and Japan business operations and having been a member of the Global Executive Leadership Team.

Her achievements externally working with customers and partners to transform their operations to the digital world as well as internally to transformation the Software AG operation in region led her to be recognised as “Business Leader of the Year” at the 2019 “Women in IT Asia” Awards, to be shortlisted as the "Transformation Leader of the Year" at the 2020 "Women in IT Asia" Awards and to be called out as part of the top 100 list of Women in Tech Listing in 2020. Anneliese is committed towards gender equality, multi-culturalism, and employee engagement. She has been leading her regional team on diversity and inclusion which she views as key innovation enabler and actively promotes in her work environment growth mindset principles and purpose-lead operations.

Aron Schwarzkopf

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Kushki, USA

Mr. Aron Schwarzkopf is a distinguished Ecuadorian-American serial entrepreneur with a remarkable track record in the fintech industry. He currently holds the position of Co-Founder and CEO at Kushki, a fintech company pioneering digital payment solutions across Latin America. Before his role at Kushki, he served as the Founder and CEO of Leaf, a financial technology company that was eventually acquired by Heartland Payment Systems (NYSE: GPN).

In recognition of his contributions to the global business landscape, Mr. Schwarzkopf was elected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He actively engages in mentorship roles at Techstars, New York, and MIT Angels, demonstrating his commitment to fostering the growth of emerging talent in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Raised in Quito, Ecuador, he currently resides in Miami, Florida, with his wife and daughters. Mr. Schwarzkopf's diverse educational journey includes stints at Singularity University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Babson College.

Kabir Sehgal

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Tiger Turn Productions, USA

Kabir Sehgal is a 15x Grammy Award Winning Artist/Producer/DJ.

He is the CEO of Tiger Turn, a multimedia company & record label that makes music and film.

He is also a New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 18 books such as “Coined” and “Carry On.” He is a CNBC, HBR, and Fortune contributor.

Sehgal is a US Navy veteran and reserve officer.

Previously, he was a vice president at J.P. Morgan and First Data.

He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the London School of Economics.

Shani Senbetta

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Kidame Mart, Ethiopia

Shani Senbetta is founder and CEO of the for-profit social enterprise Kidame Mart, Ethiopia's largest last-mile distribution network, empowering rural female micro-entrepreneurs to earn incomes by selling high impact goods door-to-door in their communities. Shani is also director of Zeleman Communications, Advertising and Production, the largest communications and advertising company in Ethiopia with over 140 full-time employees. Shani has a BA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, an MBA from Harvard University and was a Fulbright Scholar. She is passionate about addressing social problems with innovative private-sector solutions.