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.

Aïssata Lam

Director-General, Investment Promotion Agency of Mauritania, Mauritania

Aïssata Lam is the Director General of the Investment Promotion Agency of Mauritania (APIM), the Governmental entity in charge of National and Foreign Direct Investments, as well as the business climate of the country. She was appointed in April 2021.

Through the Agency, Ms. Lam promotes and implements the vision of Mauritania, led by H.E President Mohamed Cheikh Ould Ghazouani, for a sustainable and more inclusive development driven by stronger productive sectors.

Ms. Lam is passionate about youth and women economic empowerment matters on the continent, pertaining to access to finance for start-ups & SMES and enabling the ecosystem for women entrepreneurs. She is the co-founder of the Youth Chamber of Commerce of Mauritania, an organization created with the mission to bridge the gap for young Mauritanian Professionals and Entrepreneurs, mainly through the i-Lab, an Innovation Lab and Venture Fund - launched in partnership with the National Bank of Mauritania.

She sits on the monitoring committee of the Covid-19 $290M fund established in 2020 by the Mauritanian President. Ms Lam is also a member of the advisory councils of the G7 Gender Equality Council, established by French President Emmanuel Macron, and the Middle East Institute. She is also an ambassador for the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative led by the African Development Bank.

Tshering Lama

Executive Chairperson and Co-Founder, Idea Studio Nepal, Nepal

Tshering graduated from Northumbria University, UK with BSc (HONS) Health Development Studies, Masters of Public Health, and a Ph.D. in Telemedicine. He was awarded with the first ever Lord Glenamara International Scholarship in recognition of his efforts in improving public health and the environment through volunteering.

In 2006, Tshering won the International Student of the Year 2006 in the UK. This award was honoured by the university establishing the ‘Tshering Lama Northumbria University Scholarships’, which provide 20 scholarships a year for Nepalese students.

In 2010, Tshering returned to Nepal to found Childreach Nepal (www.childreachnp.org) – an independent, locally registered charity that works in partnership with local communities to improve children’s access to healthcare, education, and child rights and protection.

Tshering is a strong believer in bringing the right people together to find new and innovative ways of changing the lives of young people. One of the best demonstrations of this is his key role in co-creating the Idea Studio Nepal. Launched 2014, as a joint initiative with UNICEF Nepal, the Idea Studio has created a platform for Nepalese people with enterprising ideas to change society by providing them with mentoring at Kathmandu University, investment to turn promising ideas viable businesses and giving them national exposure by telling their journey through one of Nepal’s first reality TV shows.

Today, Idea Studio Nepal is legally registered not-for-profit company in Nepal and successfully completed its 2nd Season. Currently, Tshering is leading as the Chairperson and co-founder of Idea Studio Nepal and giving much of his time in developing a complete ecosystem of entrepreneurship ecosystem in Nepal to ignite social change.

Tamás Landesz

Director, Administration and Finance, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), France

Dr Tamás Landesz is Director, Administration and Finance at the World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) based in Lyon. Prior, Landesz held senior management functions in international organizations and advised governments, including the Office of the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, European Defence Agency, and United Nations system organizations. He has been posted in complex post-conflict hot spots across four continents. Landesz started his career as a management consultant, providing strategic advise to companies expanding to Eastern Europe, during the transition from centrally planned to market economies. He is a Member of Prof. Michael Porter`s Harvard Business School network, lecturing on the microeconomics of competitiveness. Landesz holds a PhD from Paris, an MPA from Harvard University, an MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and an MBA from Vienna. His research interest focuses on the future of leadership, and his PhD dissertation dealt with Authentic Leadership and Machiavellianism in Young Global Leaders.

Lily Lapenna

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, GLEOW Group, USA

Founder and CEO of @GLEOW Group a consulting and coaching agency for FTSE 100 companies, local governments, startups and non profits. As part of this it is my privilege to work as an executive coach, the part of my job that lights me up each day.
I am the founder & Chair of MyBnk. From 2007 to 2016, I was CEO of MyBnk, which supports young people to become financially resilient and work-ready. After having successfully campaigned to include financial education into the UK school curriculum, we now advise the UK government on financial inclusion. I am passionate about education and lecture in Business and Social Impact at Occidental University in Los Angeles, USA. I am an Industry Advisor at SAID Business School, University of Oxford, UK and an Advisory Board member for Copper Banking.
I am grateful to The World Economic Forum for honoring me as a Young Global Leader and to Ashoka and Aspen (Italia) thank you for making me a fellow. In 2017 Queen Elizabeth II honored me with an MBE in recognition of the work MyBnk do in financial services and entrepreneurship. Every award is shared with all the amazing people I have been lucky enough to work with, from the bright and brilliant team at MyBnk to the students at Oxford and Occidental, to my coaching and consulting clients who are not afraid to reimagine their impact and leadership. It is a joy to work with you.

Hilal Ahmed Lashuel

Associate Professor of Life Sciences, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

1994, BSc in Chemistry, City Univ., NY; 1999, PhD, Texas A&M Univ. and Scripps Research Institute. Formerly: Research Fellow, Picower Institute for Medical Research, NY; 2001-04, Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital; 2005, Asst Professor, Neurosciences, Brain Mind Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Currently: Assoc. Professor of Life Sciences; Director, Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Neuroproteomics, Brain Mind Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Lecturer. Author of +80 research publications; holds three patents. Academic Editor, PLoS ONE. Assoc. Editor, Frontiers of Molecular Neuroscience and ChemBiochem. Adviser to universities on biomedical research and higher education. Founding Member and Secretary-General, Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World.

Hilal Ahmed Lashuel was born in Taiz, Republic of Yemen. He received his BSc degree in chemistry from the City University of New York in 1994 and completed his doctoral studies in biological chemistry at Texas A&M University and the Scripps Research Institute in 2000. In 2001, he moved to Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women's Hospital as a research fellow and was later promoted to Instructor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. In 2005, Lashuel moved Switzerland to join the Brain Mind Institute at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, where he is now Associate Professor of Life Sciences and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular and Chemical Biology of Neurodegeneration. His research has resulted in the identification of potential therapeutic targets and new hypotheses concerning the mechanisms of pathogenesis in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and related disorders. Lashuel is a co-founder and Secretary-General of the Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World (SASTA).

Corinna E. Lathan

Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, AnthroTronix Inc., USA

PhD in Neuroscience and MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1999, Co-Founder, Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer, AnthroTronix, a biomedical engineering research and development company and leader in digital healthcare technology. Independent Director, PTC. Member of the Board: Engineering World Health; KID-Museum Maker Space. Technology Pioneer, Young Global Leader, and Co-Chair, Global Futures Council on Human Enhancement, World Economic Forum. Work on advanced human-technology interfaces for robotics and mobile technology platforms has been featured in Forbes, Time and the New Yorker magazines. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business.

Farhan Latif

President, El-Hibri Foundation, USA

A philanthropic leader, social entrepreneur and cross sector mobilizer on minority inclusion. His work is inspired by democratic values and universal norms shared by faith traditions and his leadership has challenged global extremism and ideologically motivated hate. He is the President of the El-Hibri Foundation, focused on cross sector approaches to foster inclusion across religious and political divides. His work focuses on investing in Muslim leaders in partnership with allies to build capacity and resilience.

Prior to joining the Foundation, he led the think tank Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, where his work included advising White House officials, Homeland Security and other agencies on issues around national security, enhancing religious pluralism and equity. He spent over a decade in higher education focused on inclusion of underrepresented, low-income, and first-generation students. As a social entrepreneur, he founded Strategic Inspirations, a social impact consulting firm. Farhan serves as an advisory member on the Council on Foundations Public Policy Committee and the Executive Committee of the MGP Fund that was launched at Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school).

As an interfaith leader, Mr. Latif worked with national and local civic organizations to promote religious understanding and inclusion. He is also a fellow of the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute. He serves as an advisory member on both the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council and the leadership committee of the ACCESS Campaign to Take on Hate, and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Authors Genieve Abdo and Akbar Ahmad have chronicled Farhan’s journey in combating extremism and working towards inclusion in their books Mecca and Mainstreet: Muslim Life in America After 9/11 and Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam. Farhan has appeared on numerous media outlets, including ABC, FOX, BBC, LA Times, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Voice of America, Gulf Times and USA Today.

Mr. Latif received an MA from Harvard University, where he completed a specialized interdisciplinary program on Social Entrepreneurship, Philanthropy and Education through graduate coursework at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School and Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds a degree in Business Management and Marketing, and completed graduate work in nonprofit management at the University of Michigan Dearborn.

Cina Lawson

Minister of Digital Economy and Transformation, Ministry of Posts, Digital Economy and Technological Innovation of Togo, Togo

Cina Lawson is Minister of Digital Economy and Transformation of Togo. Drawing from her over 15 years of experience and expertise in telecommunications policy and regulation, she is leading Togo through a profound transition to an inclusive digital economy. Lawson began her career at the World Bank in Washington, DC where she worked on telecom restructuring projects in developing countries focusing on regulatory reforms. She went on to become a Manager of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at the Orange Group in New York City, and later at Alcatel-Lucent in Paris. Her initiatives as minister have included diversifying private participation in the telecoms sector, spearheading regulatory reforms for data protection and electronic transactions, setting up an innovation hub as well as pushing for the deployment of high-speed fibre broadband to link key institutions, including all public universities in the country. In 2012, Forbes magazine ranked her among the 20 most powerful young women in Africa and in 2019, Lawson became the first African woman political figure to receive the Harvard Alumni Public Service Award. She is a fervent advocate of innovative solutions to Africa’s developmental challenges and sits on the advisory board of the Digital Identity, Trade and Economy Initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. She is a graduate of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Sciences Po Paris.

Tristan Lecomte

Chief Executive Officer, Pur Projet, France

Tristan Lecomte is the Founder of Pur Projet, specialized in developing agroforestry insetting projects including offsetting the socio-environmental footprint of a product or company within its own supply chain and core business via agroforestry and agro-ecological practices. Tristan is the author of various books and the director of several films on sustainability. Tristan is also the Co-Founder of the International Platform for Insetting, a multi-stakeholders platform of companies and NGOs engaged in the promotion of Insetting via a certification standard and a blockchain registry.

Andrew Lee

Member of the Board of Directors, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, USA

Board of Directors: Harvard Honoring Nations Program, US Lacrosse, The Tewaaraton Foundation, Chickasaw Nation Community Development Endeavor. Co-author, The State of the Native Nations. Held variety of executive roles at Aetna Inc. (2005-15), including Chief of Staff to President/CEO and head of Public Policy. Formerly executive director of Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School (1998-2005). Peace and Social Justice Program at Ford Foundation (1996-98). AB from Hamilton College; MPP from Harvard Kennedy School. Expertise: indigenous affairs, economic development, health care, philanthropy.

Ellana Lee

Senior Vice-President and Managing Editor, Asia-Pacific; Global Head, Features, CNN International, Hong Kong SAR, China

Ellana Lee is Senior Vice President & Managing Editor, Asia Pacific, for CNN International, and Global Head of Features Content, based in the network’s Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong.
Lee is the network’s most senior executive outside of the United States. As head of the Asia Pacific region and its editorial output, she manages CNN's award-winning on-air news programming produced there, including the correspondents and newsgathering teams across eight operations, from Kabul to Seoul.
As Global Head of Features content across CNN International television and CNN Digital, she is responsible for the partnership between CNN’s international editorial and commercial teams, helping to drive the network’s business outside the United States.
CNN’s features group is an integrated, cross-platform, award-winning creative team, producing more than 1000 hours of premium original programming every year. This encompasses long-form series, documentaries and specials for TV, digital and social platforms across eight production hubs in Hong Kong, London, Abu Dhabi, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Johannesburg and Miami.
Under Lee’s management, CNN has received a variety of prestigious awards, including five award wins at the Asian Academy Creative Awards in 2018. The Royal Television Society (RTS) awarded CNN the coveted Best News Coverage International prize in 2013 for its reporting of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and this and other reporting from the region played a key role in CNN International winning the RTS News Channel of the Year in 2013 and 2012. Lee has also received numerous personal accolades, including ContentAsia’s ‘Asia Media Woman of the Year’ in 2018 for her commitment to the news media industry.
Lee was also an integral part of CNN’s coverage of the historic Inter-Korean and the Trump-Kim summits in 2019 and 2018. She has traveled to North Korea several times and in mid-2017 spearheaded an exclusive report called Secret State: Inside North Korea. The 60-minute documentary followed CNN cameras inside the secretive nation and was awarded Best Documentary Program at the Asian Academy Creative Awards in 2018.
In recognition of her leadership position, Lee was named a 'Young Global Leader' by the World Economic Forum and now sits on the board of the Young Global Leaders Foundation. She is an Asia 21 fellow, as awarded by the Asia Society, and is a graduate of Harvard's 'Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century' Executive Program. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and The Nature Conservancy’s Asia Pacific Council, and sits on the advisory board of The Murrow Centre at Tuft University.
Lee has had a longstanding and accomplished career at CNN, beginning in New York as a producer to help launch the program 'In The Money'. She subsequently worked as a business producer and a senior planning producer, coordinating major events out of the Asia Pacific region.
She holds a Master's degree in Broadcast Journalism from New York University and an undergraduate degree in History and International Relations from Georgetown University.

James R. Lee

Chairman and Managing Partner, Lee & Partners, Denmark

Graduate, US Army and Navy Academy; Fellow, Wharton School. Founder, Lee & Partners. Trade & Investment Adviser, Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Chairman: Six Days of Peace, Israel/Palestine; Samsung Design & Innovation, Denmark; Accura Law Firm Asia Advisory, Denmark. Member, Board: Wharton CEO Global Advisory; Wharton Future of Advertising; Wharton MENA; Mercy Corps Asia Advisory. Exec. Adviser: KPMG M3 Global China Practice; Li & Fung; Zodiac Aerospace; Prizeo.com, US/UK. Affiliated with: Danish Foreign Policy Soc.; Pres. William Jefferson Clinton Fndn; Millennium Network. Founding Curator, Copenhagen Chapter, Global Shapers Community.