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.

Geoff Davis
Impact investor, CEO & Entrepreneur.

Eric Dayton
An apparel, hospitality, and real estate entrepreneur, Eric Dayton started a movement to reimagine the identity of America's north as one of adventure, creativity and the embrace of cold winters. His company is on a mission to keep the north cold by donating 110% of its own carbon impact to organizations leading the fight against climate change. Prior to founding Askov Finlayson, he was a member of Arctic Transect 2004, a six-month, 2,000 mile dogsled expedition focused on climate research and education.

Alberto de Belaunde
Alberto de Belaunde (he/him) is the Program Adviser - Global Advocacy at OutRight. He is a lawyer with a master's degree in environmental management and postgraduate studies in public policy. He was the second openly gay congressman in the history of Peru. In 2019, he was awarded the Victory Institute Tammy Baldwin Breakthrough Award for his work on behalf of the LGBT+ community. In 2021 he was part of the Yale World Fellowship. He has published two books, one of them about openly LGBTQ+ authorities in Latin America.

Alfa Demmellash
Born and raised in Ethiopia, Alfa now lives in New Jersey with her husband and two little boys. She is also the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Rising Tide Capital, a non-profit organization that provides underserved entrepreneurs with the resources needed to grow successful businesses. Over the past 15 years, the organization has run hundreds of Community Business Academies, which provide intensive business management training coupled with year-round coaching and mentorship to over 1,000 entrepreneurs annually. Corporate, foundation and governmental funders underwrite the cost of tuition for all participants. By building successful businesses, these entrepreneurs meet their families’ basic needs, create opportunities for social mobility and help transform their local communities into thriving economies.
Alfa is also the co-founder of Future Tide Partners, which equips cross-sector leaders to shift capital, policy and culture to respond to a new world of work in service to a flourishing future economy. She was named Young Global Leader in 2015 and has appeared in leading media outlets, such as CNN, the Suze Orman show, O the Oprah Magazine, Essence Magazine, Bloomberg, Inc Magazine, BusinessWeek and Entrepreneur Magazine. Recipient of honours and awards, including: recognized by President Barack Obama; named a CNN Hero; named one of the Most Powerful Women Changing the World, Forbes.

Matias De Tezanos
In the year 2000 founded Hoteles.com, one of the leading hotel reservation sites targeting Spanish speaking users around the world, now owned and operated by Expedia. In 2003 he co-founded and led as CEO ClickDiario Network, at the time, the #1 Internet advertising network in Latin America, acquired by FOX International Channels (Newscorp) in 2006. From 2008 to 2011, de Tezanos led BrokersWeb as CEO, an online insurance marketplace in the United States, which became the 20th fastest growing company in the US in the INC 500 ranking of 2011.
Matias de Tezanos was Honored Young Global Leader by the WEF in 2009 and named one of the top 10 Hispanic entrepreneurs by INC Magazine during 2011 and 2012.
In 2012, founded PeopleFund, a private holding company that invests in tech-startups around the world, including several top INC 500 ranked companies like Healthcare.com, AutoWeb.com (merged with Nasdaq: ABTL), DiamondFoundry, Orionis Biosciences, GetAround, Bluekite (Acquired by Nasdaq: Xoom), among 30+ other companies and social impact projects like KingoEnergy.

Leslie Dewan
BSc in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, MIT; 2013, PhD in Nuclear Engineering, MIT, with a research focus on computational nuclear materials. Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Transatomic Power, a nuclear reactor design company developing sustainable, fuel-efficient power plants. Member, MIT Corporation, MIT’s board of trustees. Named; a TIME Magazine 30 People Under 30 Changing the World; MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35; National Geographic Emerging Explorer.

Vilas Dhar
Vilas Dhar is President and Trustee of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a $1.5B 21st century philanthropy advancing artificial intelligence and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. Under his leadership, the Foundation bridges technological innovation and social impact with a commitment to justice and equity (see www.mcgovern.org). Vilas is an entrepreneur, technologist, and human rights advocate with a lifelong commitment to creating more robust, human-centered social institutions. Fusing his experience as a lawyer, an investor, and a philanthropist, he has dedicated his professional pursuits to exploring solutions for some of the world’s largest challenges like child labor, refugee crises, and data privacy and sovereignty.
A leading voice on equity in a tech-enabled world, Vilas champions a new social compact for the digital age that prioritizes individuals and communities in the development of new products, inspires economic and social opportunity, and empowers the most vulnerable. He is especially passionate about building public awareness about the potential opportunities and impacts of emergent technology on social infrastructure, corporate responsibility, and human behavior.
Vilas’ work has been published in the Harvard Business Review, Nature, The Independent, USA Today, Forbes, and Project Syndicate, addressing data for good, the role of philanthropy in AI, and how CEOs, policymakers, and civil society leaders can guide their organizations through the AI revolution.
Vilas serves on the Advisory Council at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), the Board of Directors at AccessLex, as Expert Contributor to OECD.AI, Co-Chair of the Global AI Action Alliance at the World Economic Forum, Advisor to MIT SOLVE, Director of the Network of Engaged International Donors, and as a Trustee of the Christensen Fund. He has been named a Young Global Leader and Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and has previously served as a Senior Fellow of the Berggruen Institute, the Gleitsman Fellow on Social Change at Harvard University, a Practitioner Resident on Artificial Intelligence at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Illinois.
Vilas holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law, a Master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and dual Bachelor's degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Illinois. His ongoing doctoral work at the University of Birmingham drives novel approaches to economic and policy infrastructure for a data enabled society to support and empower vulnerable populations.

Roopa Dhatt
Dr. Roopa Dhatt is a passionate advocate for gender equality in global health and a leading voice in the movement to correct the gender imbalance in global health leadership. She is also a practicing Internal Medicine physician in Washington, D.C. Dr. Dhatt is particularly committed to addressing issues of power, privilege, and intersectionality that keep many women from global health leadership roles and to opening up spaces for the voices of these women to be heard. Determined to build a movement to transform women’s leadership opportunities in health, Dr. Dhatt co-founded Women in Global Health in 2015. Today, Women in Global Health has 47 chapters, 100,000 supporters in more than 100 countries, and continues to grow. Dr. Dhatt, the Executive Director, the global team, and its network of chapters drive change by mobilizing a diverse group of emerging women health leaders, advocating for governments and global health leaders to meet commitments made, and holding those leaders to account. Dr. Dhatt has worked in global health for nearly 15 years, collaborating with 120+ countries. She holds numerous advisory and board roles. She advises global health institutions on matters of the health workforce, gender equity, and universal health coverage. Dr. Dhatt was recognized in the Gender Equality Top 100, the most influential people in global policy. She was on the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. She is a former W7 Germany Advisor and a current W7 Japan Advisor on advocating feminist agendas to the G7 governments (2023), a member of the Global Council on SDG3, a member of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Scientific Advisory Board, and is a member of the Virchow Prize Committee. She was invited as a public delegate to the historic U.S. Delegation to the United Nations 65th Commission of Status of Women Meeting in March 2021, which was led by Vice President Kamala Harris. She has published in the Lancet, British Medical Journal (BMJ), Devex, and Forbes and has been interviewed in National Geographic, Nature, NPR, EuroNews, and numerous other channels.

Porter Diehl
Porter joined Bridgewater in 2009 and is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer. He partners with the co-CEOs to set and drive the strategic goals and oversee the day-to-day management of the firm. Previously, Porter was Lead of Portfolio Analytics, working closely with the co-CIOs to evolve the portfolio construction process, evaluate and manage investment risks, and design investment strategies for clients. His work has included evolving the risk controls and event risk strategy, researching how to best combine beta and alpha, and systemizing the portfolio construction and trade generation logic. Porter is also a member of the firms Executive Committee, Commercial and Business Strategy Committee, and a Partner.

Michael Drexler
Michael Drexler is the Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Director at Brightstar Capital Partners. He currently serves on the boards of America's Group and REMarkets, both Brightstar portfolio companies.
Prior to Brightstar, Michael was Managing Director and Global Head of Strategy and Business Transformation at J.P. Morgan Asset Management based in New York. He was a member of the division’s Operating Committee and worked with all business lines on strategic initiatives, including M&A, business efficiency, and decision making.
Previously, he worked for nearly a decade in a senior leadership role at the World Economic Forum as Member of the Executive Committee responsible for partnerships and content in the Alternative Investment industry and later the Forum’s content initiatives across the financial sector, infrastructure, and long-term investing. Michael also spent nearly a decade at Barclays Capital in London, as the Global Head of Strategy and Planning for the majority of his time there, following his role as a consultant at McKinsey & Co and a post-doctoral position at Stanford University.
Michael holds a doctorate in Mathematics from Oxford University and an M.Sc. in Engineering from the Technical University at Munich.

Darby Dunn
Joy Dunn is the Head of Operations at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a clean energy startup based in Boston, where she is responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations including manufacturing, construction and facilities, safety, and quality. CFS was spun out of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and works collaboratively with MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center to combine decades of government and academic research with the innovation and speed of the private sector. Supported by the world's leading investors, the CFS team is driven by the climate change crisis to develop the fastest path to commercial fusion energy. Before joining the CFS team in early 2019, Joy spent a decade at SpaceX developing and manufacturing the Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. She was heavily involved with the manufacturing of the Dragon 1 spacecraft and played an integral role in SpaceX's achievement of being the first private company to launch a spacecraft in orbit and also dock with the International Space Station. She managed the manufacturing engineering team responsible for substantially reducing overall spacecraft build hours and cost while overseeing Dragon's annual budget and construction of a high-tech production facility for the Crew Dragon vehicle. Joy also co-founded both the Women's Network and LGBTQ employee interest groups at SpaceX and she is actively involved in STEM outreach events, including sitting on the Board of Directors for Out For Undergrad, a non-profit that helps LGBTQ students reach their full potential. She was also named to Business Insider's list of the Most Powerful Female Engineers of 2017. Joy received her B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sophal Ear
Re-elected to the Crescenta Valley Town Council in November 2018 to a second 3-year term, encompassing more than 22,000 residents in unincorporated Los Angeles County, California, and currently serving as its Corresponding Secretary, Sophal Ear, PhD, is a tenured Associate Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College in Los Angeles where he lectures on political economy, security, development, and Asia. Previously, he taught how to rebuild countries after wars at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and international development at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He consulted for the World Bank, was Assistant Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme in East Timor, Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Advisor to Cambodia's first private equity fund Leopard Capital, and Audit Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. A TED Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, he sits on the Boards of Refugees International (Washington, DC), Partners for Development (Silver Spring, MD), International Public Management Network (Washington, DC), the Southeast Asia Development Program (Phnom Penh, Cambodia), and the Center for Khmer Studies (Siem Reap, Cambodia). He is the author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2013, http://amzn.to/UXhoWc) and co-author of The Hungry Dragon: How China’s Resources Quest is Reshaping the World (Routledge, 2013, http://amzn.to/WkxCEf). He wrote and narrated the award-winning documentary film "The End/Beginning: Cambodia" (47 minutes, 2011, news blurb http://youtu.be/QwsSDPRI25E) based on his 2009 TED Talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/sophal_ear_escaping_the_khmer_rouge) and has appeared in four other documentaries. He is an Executive Producer of In the Life of Music (92 minutes, 2018) and Some of My Best Friends Are Kimchi: A True Documentary (Coming soon!). A graduate of Princeton and Berkeley, he moved to the US from France as a Cambodian refugee at the age of 10.