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.

Gwenaelle Avice-Huet

Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer, Schneider Electric, USA

Gwenaelle Avice Huet joined Schneider Electric in March 2021 as Senior Vice-President in charge of Corporate Strategy. She worked for the past 11 years at ENGIE in various positions, her last one being Executive Vice President of ENGIE in charge of the Global Renewables Business Line, and President and CEO, ENGIE North America. Gwenaëlle began her career with the French government joining various ministerial offices as an advisor to the Secretary of State for European Affairs, and later to the Minister of Energy. She holds a Bachelors degree from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de cachan, an agrégation in Chemical Physics, and an Engineer Degree at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees

Ronit Avni

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Localized, USA

Ronit Avni is a tech and media entrepreneur and Peabody award-winning producer. She is founder and CEO of Localized, a career tech platform that connects university students and fresh graduates with industry experts to guide them and employers to hire them. Ronit was twice named a “New Power Woman in Tech” by DCA Live.
Previously, Ronit founded and led the media organization Just Vision, which creates documentary films, news analysis and public education campaigns in the Middle East and North America. She has won dozens of media prizes globally, including the Puma Creative Impact Award, and her team’s work was featured in nearly every major news outlet and viewed by tens of millions of people on TV, online and in influential settings from TED to the United Nations.

Named a Young Global Leader through the World Economic Forum in 2009 and a 2018 Halcyon Fellow, Ronit sits on the jury of the MacArthur Foundation’s 100 & Change Competition and the Global Teacher Prize.

Ronit began her career at WITNESS.org, which advises activists and technology companies on the ethical and strategic uses of video and digital technology for social impact. She co-edited the book, “Video for Change - A Guide for Advocacy and Activism” with WITNESS and now sits on the WITNESS Advisory Council.

Ronit has been recognized with a variety of honors, including the King Hussein Leadership Prize, Search for Common Ground’s Common Ground Award, the Circles of Change Award, Auburn Seminary’s Lives of Commitment Award and the Trailblazer Award from the National Council for Research on Women.

Asli Ay

Chief Investment Officer, Lioness Capital, USA

Asli Ay is CIO of Lioness Capital, a policy and political event-driven hedge fund based in New York, focusing on developed and large emerging economies, with a US bias. Lioness runs a discretionary thematic portfolio, where each theme is expressed in liquid exchange-traded instruments that include equities (single stocks, ETFs, and equity indices), fixed income, futures, commodities and currencies. Risk management is a core component of the
investment process and is managed at position, theme and portfolio levels. Asli is the former Managing Partner of US Policy Metrics, a policy advisory and research firm for hedge funds. This follows her experience for almost a decade at UBS as Senior Client Relationship Director in the CEO's office, covering the largest client and/or transactions globally, where she developed a rare blend of policy expertise, an ability to analyze complex business problems, and a range of global economic policy and regulatory issues. Asli began her career at Schlumberger International, working in Egypt, India, Venezuela and Trinidad &Tobago. She later worked for Procter & Gamble as a Brand Manager running a flagship brand with US$ 100 million-plus revenue at the age of 25. Ay has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University in Turkey. She holds various financial licenses in the United Kingdom and in United States and is a Chartered Alternative Investments Analyst.

Nick Ayers

Managing Partner, Ayers Neugebauer & Co., USA

Nick Ayers is one of America’s leading public policy and business strategists. He has forged a successful career in business and served at the highest levels of the United States government. Most recently, Nick served in the White House as Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the Vice President. While at the White House, Nick helped shape the administration’s most important and high-profile initiatives, from space policy to tax policy to foreign policy, including the U.S. posture toward China and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Nick recently partnered with Insight Venture Partners to acquire Veeam Software, where he now serves as a member of Veeam’s board of directors. Previously he helped build one of the Nation’s most successful media and digital buying firms.

Time Magazine named Nick one of the “40 most influential people in politics under the age of 40” and The Wall Street Journal called him a “political prodigy.” In 2019, the World Economic Summit nominated Nick to join the forum as a Young Global Leader. He received a Bachelor of Political Science degree from Kennesaw State University. Nick is the proud husband to Jamie and father of ten-year-old triplets, Charles, Mary Floyd, and Talton.

Zubaida Bai

President and Chief Executive Officer, Grameen Foundation, USA

Zubaida Bai is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC.

Bai is a social entrepreneur and women's health advocate with more than 18 years in the social impact space. She is the founder of ayzh®, a social enterprise that designs vital healthcare products to improve the health and happiness of women and girls across their reproductive lives. Prior to joining Grameen Foundation, she was the managing director of social ventures at CARE International.

Bai has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Maternal Health Champion by Ashoka, a TED Fellow/ Speaker, and named United Nations SDG 3 Pioneer by the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). She is a Visiting Social Innovator with Harvard University’s Social Innovation Change Initiative (SICI) and a member of the Governing Body at SEMA (Shaping Equitable Market Access) for Reproductive Health.

She holds a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Colorado State University. She was also conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by Claremont Graduate University in 2018 for her ability to work at the intersection of various sectors seamlessly, and to energetically bring her unique insights and fresh perspective to the table.

Moritz Baier-Lentz

Partner and Head of Gaming, Lightspeed Venture Partners, USA

Moritz has recently been appointed as a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Prior, Moritz was a top-ranked vice president at Goldman Sachs, where he founded and led the global gaming practice, managed over 100 professionals, and advised corporations and unicorns on M&A and IPOs. His executed deal volume in excess of $300 billion features the largest technology and gaming transactions in history. In high school, Moritz was a professional gamer, ranked #1 among over 12 million players. Previously, he worked in strategy roles at IBM, McKinsey, and The White House, having had the honor to help Fortune 500 CEOs and political leaders. Moritz holds an M.B.A. and M.A. in Education from Stanford and studied at Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge. He was recognized among the 30 Under 30 and 40 Under 40. A first-generation high school graduate, Moritz is deeply involved in creating equal opportunities and launched an industry-wide diversity initiative impacting over 100 companies. Having experienced severe depression in his family, Moritz raised over $150,000 to support promising research through extraordinary races, incl. a 251 km Sahara ultramarathon and the World Marathon Challenge: 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days.

Priyanka Bakaya

Commercialization Advisor, US Department of Energy, USA

Priyanka Bakaya is an entrepreneurial environmental leader. She has been recognized on the Fortune 40 Under 40: Ones to Watch List, the Forbes 30 under 30 List, Conscious Company's Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs List, and is a Laureate of Cartier Women's Initiative Award for North America for her leadership in environmental entrepreneurship. She is a graduate of Stanford and MIT.

Angela Baker

Chief Sustainability Officer, Qualcomm, USA

Angela Baker is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Qualcomm where she oversees all corporate responsibility and ESG programming. This includes the company's climate strategy and net-zero emissions by 2040 goal as well as several other ESG 2025 targets. She also manages all social impact programs, including Wireless Reach, a strategic initiative that brings wireless technology to under-served communities globally. Wireless Reach invests in projects that foster entrepreneurship, aid in public safety, enhance the delivery of health care, enrich teaching and learning and improve environmental sustainability. To date, Wireless Reach has partnered with hundreds of organizations on programs in over 40 countries and has reached over 20 million beneficiaries. The team also includes strategic corporate giving around Science, Technology, Engineering and Math programs.

Previously, she served as an advisor to Secretary Hillary Clinton in the Office of Innovation at the United States Department of State, where she worked on foreign policy goals connected to the 21st Century Statecraft agenda through bilateral and multilateral engagement with strategic partners on technology and development issues. Specifically, she was part of a team that designed and implemented “Techcamp” – an ongoing program that connects civil society across the globe with new and emerging technology resources to solve real world challenges and build digital capacity - in over 30 countries.

Prior to working in the Obama Administration, Baker worked for an international advocacy firm in Seattle, WA, where she helped to create nongovernmental organizations focused on helping those in need.

Baker has worked in several countries spanning five continents. She has a Master’s Degree in International Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and sits on the board of Running Start, an organization that works to bring more young women to politics and leadership roles. She serves on the Advisory Committee on Public Issues for the Ad Council, working on the some of society's most pressing social issues. She has also been named to the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society 2016 Rising Talents Program.

Miranda A. Ballentine

CEO, Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance, USA

BSc (Hons) in Neuro-Psychology, Colorado State University; MBA, George Washington University. Former: Vice-President, Investor Analysis and Chief Operating Officer, David Gardiner & Associates; Director, Sustainability, Global Renewable Energy and Sustainable Facilities, Walmart Stores, developing strategies to reach goal to be supplied by 100% renewable energy. Then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Installations, Environment, and Energy), a 4-star civilian equivalent position; integral member of the Air Force’s top executive team; responsible for the oversight, formulation, and execution of plans, policies, programmes and budgets for: 170 Air Force installations; a $9 billion annual energy budget; a $4.5 billion annual construction budget; environmental conservation, restoration & compliance programmes for nine million acres of land, 200 miles of coast line, 600,000 acres of forestland, and 270,000 acres of wetlands; safety and occupational health for 660,000 employees; and programme execution by 50,000 engineers around the world. September 2017, joined the Rocky Mountain Institute; currently, Managing Director, Business Renewables Center, driving innovation in advanced energy to improve national security, drive economic gains, and solve climate challenges. RMI's BRC serves over 200 members, who have collectively completed over 8,000 renewable energy deals. Public speaker.

Daniella Ballou-Aares

Chief Executive Officer, Leadership Now Project, USA

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Leadership Now Project, an organization of business professionals committed to renewing American democracy. Former Partner and current Adviser, Dalberg; was member of the founding team that grew the firm from a start-up to the leading global group of social impact businesses with 25 offices across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Until 2017, served in the Obama Administration for five years as Senior Adviser for Development to Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry; focused on modernizing the US government’s approach to frontier markets by boosting private capital and infrastructure investments; was instrumental in securing a 193-country agreement on the Sustainable Development Goals. Young Global Leader and member of its Advisory Council, World Economic Forum. Member, Council on Foreign Relations. Former Consultant, Bain & Company; advised financial services, private equity, telecom, healthcare and consumer product firms in the US, UK and South Africa. BSc in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, Cornell University; MBA, Harvard Business School; MPA, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

H.R.H. Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud

Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States, Embassy of Saudi Arabia, USA

Her Royal Highness Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud was appointed Ambassador to the
United States on February 23, 2019, by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman
bin Abdulaziz. She is the first woman in the country’s history to serve in the role of Ambassador.
She presented her credentials to President Donald Trump on July 8, 2019.
In Saudi Arabia, Princess Reema focused on private sector initiatives and the empowerment of
women in the Kingdom. From 2007 until 2015, Princess Reema was the Chief Executive Officer
of Alfa International Company Limited - Harvey Nichols Riyadh, a multi-brand luxury retail
company, during which she commissioned a study on Obstacles for Women in the Workplace,
which set the tone for female inclusion in retail and resulted in opening the first workplace
nursery. In 2013, she founded Alf Khair, a social enterprise aimed at elevating the professional
capital of Saudi women through a curriculum developed to enable financial self-sufficiency.
In 2016, Princess Reema left the private sector to begin a career of public service as Vice
President of Women’s Affairs at the Saudi General Sports Authority where she developed
policies and programs that benefited women and children throughout Saudi Arabia. After a
successful year, she was promoted to Deputy of Development and Planning in January 2018. In
October 2018, she was also appointed President of the Mass Participation Federation, making
her the first woman to lead a multi-sports federation in the Kingdom, a role that she occupied
until her appointment as Saudi Ambassador to the United States.
As part of her philanthropic work, Princess Reema became a founding member of the Zahra
Breast Cancer Awareness Association in 2007, which set a Guinness World Record by forming
the World’s Largest Human Awareness Ribbon at Princess Noura University in Riyadh in 2015.
She received a Bachelor of Arts in Museum Studies from George Washington University and an
honorary doctorate from Marymount University.
Princess Reema has served as a member of the World Bank’s advisory council for the Women
Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative since 2017. She has been a member of the Saudi Arabian
Olympic Committee since 2017-2019 and a member of the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) Women in Sports Commission since 2018. She is also a member of the IOC Brisbane
2032 Coordination Commission.
Princess Reema also serves as the Head of the Executive Committee for the Fashion
Commission at the Ministry of Culture, and as an Honorary Chairman of the Saudi Special
Olympics. Princess Reema is a member of the Voting Council for the RBG Awards. She also
serves as a Board Member for Panthera’s Conservation Council and the Future Investment
Initiative.

Rye Barcott

Co-Founder and CEO, With Honor, USA

Rye Barcott is CEO of With Honor, a cross-partisan organization he co-founded with David Gergen and other veterans to elect a next-generation veterans in the U.S. and create a more effective and less polarized government. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and co-founded Carolina for Kibera, a non-governmental organization that invests in talented youth in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. After the Marines, he worked for the former CEO of Duke Energy, then co-founded and led Double Time Capital, a clean energy investment firm. He earned his MPA and MBA from Harvard, where he was a Center for Public Leadership Social Enterprise Fellow. He was a YGL class of 2011 and is a TED Fellow.