New Class
Marking 20 years of responsible leadership, we proudly welcome over 80 exceptional individuals into our community of outstanding leaders. This year's cohort, ranging from tech moguls to former athletes, brings together brilliant minds and passionate leaders from business, civil society, academia, government, and beyond. These responsible leaders will undertake a transformative 3-year journey, addressing global challenges and driving positive change. Join us in celebrating the new class:
16 YGLs in North America
Wemimo Abbey
Wemimo Abbey grew up in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria. Struggling to secure a loan without a credit score, his mother borrowed money from a predatory lender at an exorbitant 400% interest rate. These challenges inspired Abbey and his Co-Founder, Samir, to launch Esusu. Esusu’s platform empowers renters to build credit through rent payments, offers property management analytics and provides rental assistance for financial stability. Recently valued at $1 billion in a $130 million Series B fundraising round. Abbey currently serves on the SEC Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee and Fannie Mae Affordable Housing Advisory Council, is a Commissioner and Executive Member on the Board of The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and is Co-Chair of The Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA) Director Circle. Before Esusu, Abbey founded Clean Water for Everyone, delivering affordable clean water access to over 250,000 people in six countries. He also founded a data analytics company, which was acquired in 2014. In his early career, Abbey was a mergers and acquisitions consultant at PwC, working on deals valued at over $50 billion, and gaining experience with Accenture and Goldman Sachs. He was named to the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, TIME100 NEXT List in 2023 and awarded EY Entrepreneur of the Year nationally. In 2021 and 2022, Goldman Sachs recognized him as one of the “100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs”. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota with a BSc in Business Management and earned an MPA from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Fadel Adib
Fadel Adib, a Lebanese-American professor at MIT and Founder/CEO of Cartesian Systems, has made significant contributions to technology and research. As Founding Director of the MIT Signal Kinetics Lab, he has pioneered advances in sensing technology that have revolutionized the ability to understand the world, in ocean monitoring, medicine, human-computer interaction and robotics. His research has led to the creation of multiple start-ups, including Cartesian Systems, which focuses on mapping the physical world on an unprecedented scale. Adib has 80 peer-reviewed papers and patents to his name. He was named one of the world's top innovators aged under 35 by Technology Review in 2014 and recognized as an ACM SIGMOBILE Rockstar in 2023. His research has been featured worldwide and he has presented his work to notable figures such as President Barack Obama at the White House.
He holds a Bachelor's degree from the American University of Beirut and a PhD from MIT.
Roshan Ahmad
Roshan Ahmad heads JPMorgan’s Global Sovereign Advisory Group offering strategic and broad-based expertise to governments, focusing on sovereign ratings, public debt and fiscal policy optimization, market communication, multilateral discussions and environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations. Her team has advised more than 35 sovereigns across developed and emerging markets, together covering over 25% of global GDP across Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Ahmad has been at JPMorgan for over 15 years and is passionate about promoting women's representation in finance. She is actively involved in diversity and inclusiveness initiatives. She serves as a sub-committee member for JPMorgan's Women on the Move initiative, and is a board member of NMIC, a non-profit based in New York City catering to immigrant under-served communities. She also serves on the Board of JPMorgan Pakistan.
Refik Anadol
Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and Lecturer in UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. Anadol’s site-specific data paintings and sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, collective experiences, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of AI. Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Art Basel, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Ars Electronica, Istanbul Modern, and ZKM | Center for Art and New Media. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award. Refik is also a 2024 Young Global Leader
Anadol’s global projects have received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, iF Gold Award, D&AD Pencil Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts Award, SEGD Global Design Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award. His site-specific audio/visual performances have been featured at iconic landmarks, museums and festivals worldwide, such as the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Pompidou Centre, Pinakothek der Moderne, EMMA Museum, Art Basel, Haus der elektronischen, Kunsthalle Praha, Palazzo Strozzi, Casa Batlló, National Gallery of Victoria, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Hammer Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Artechouse, the Portland Building, Daejeon Museum of Art, Florence Biennale, Art Basel, OFFF Festival, International Digital Arts Biennial Montreal, Ars Electronica Festival , l’Usine|Genève, Arc De Triomf, Zollverein | SANAA’s School of Design Building, Santralistanbul Museum of Contemporary Arts, Outdoor Vision Festival, Istanbul Design Biennial, Sydney City Art, and Lichtrouten, among others.
Anadol has a Master of Fine Arts degree from UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts.
Alicia Chong Rodriguez
Alicia Chong Rodriguez is Founder and CEO of Bloomer Tech, a company that addresses healthcare disparities in cardiovascular care for women through personalized medicine using Bloomer Tech-augmented garments. She has received awards such as the MIT Legatum Fellowship and the Biennial MIT Graduate Women of Excellence. Chong Rodriguez has presented a TED Talk, "A Smart Bra for Better Heart Health". She is recognized as a TED Fellow, Medtech Boston 40 Under 40 Healthcare Innovator, and one of the top 100 Female Founders in the US by Inc. Magazine. She is Founder of MenTe (Mujeres en Tecnología). She led the first Association for Computing Machinery Women group in Latin America at Tec de Monterrey and launched the National Network of Women in Technology in Costa Rica. She has held engineering positions at HP and Teradyne.
Chong Rodriguez holds degrees in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from MIT.
Rebecca Darwent
Rebecca Darwent is an internationally recognized expert in philanthropy and community-led initiatives. Her viral TED Talk, “How to fund real change in your community”, has had over 1 million views, inspiring positive social impact through collaborative approaches. With a diverse background spanning philanthropic advising, consulting and global partnerships, Darwent brings a wealth of knowledge and practical experience to all endeavours. She has led multimillion-dollar investments in equity, health and education and is currently Senior Advisor to Philanthropy Together, focusing on raising awareness and funding for collaborative funds, specifically those that are community-led. As Co-Founder of the Foundation for Black Communities (FFBC), Darwent spearheaded fundraising, community engagement and advocacy that resulted in a historic $200 million capital transfer to FFBC by the Canadian government. Under her leadership, an additional $25 million was raised for FFBC from private, public and corporate foundation partners. Darwent has served as Director of Global Partnerships at Singularity University, overseeing tech and education programmes across five continents. She also worked as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of Children and Youth Services, who was additionally responsible for the Anti-Racism Directorate in the Ontario provincial government. She is a dedicated volunteer, currently serving on the Board of Directors of the FFBC, Forward Global Canada and Laidlaw Foundation. She has been recognized as a Women Leaders for the World Fellow and honoured as a Canadian Millennium Laureate.
Camille François
Camille François, a Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, is a globally recognized authority on digital safety and responsible innovation. For over a decade, she has been a sought after-advisor to top technology companies, leading nonprofits, and governments. Her public interest missions have included investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election on behalf of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, leading the French government’s 2022 inquiry into the economic opportunities and societal challenges of the metaverse, and being appointed in 2023 by President Emmanuel Macron to lead a national consultative assembly addressing the interplay between information, democracy, and society.
As a technology executive, she most recently served as the Senior Director for Trust & Safety at Niantic, an augmented reality company, where she established and led its trust and safety function. Prior to this, François was Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika, where she led the company’s product development, investigative work, and R&D efforts into uncovering and attributing information operations and organized online harms.
Her recent research focuses on advancing open-source AI with an emphasis on pluralism, transparency, and ethical innovation. At Columbia University, she heads a program on public interest AI, teaching the next generation of leaders about trust and safety in digital technologies. Recognized as a TIME 100 NEXT and MIT Technology Review 35 Under 35 honoree, François has consistently shaped the future of safer, more trustworthy digital systems.
Omayra Issa
Omayra Issa is an award-winning News Anchor at Canada's CPAC. Highly skilled in television, radio, digital and investigative journalism, she is one of the best-known journalists working in Canada today. As a leader in journalism, her work has received several awards, including a national Radio Television Digital News Association Award, which recognizes the best in Canadian journalism, and a Digital Publishing Award. Her work leading national conversations on diversity and inclusion has been recognized across Canada. Highly sought-after as a moderator, she has facilitated hundreds of high-level panel discussions in French and English in Canada and worldwide, including at the African Union. Issa is fluent in five languages.
Ahmad Joudeh
Ahmed Joudeh is a dancer, choreographer, and author. He was born and raised in Yarmouk, a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Damascus (Syria) as a stateless refugee. In 2016, he moved to Amsterdam with the help of the Dutch National Ballet and since 2017, he has been internationally active as an artist and human rights activist and in 2021, he obtained Dutch nationality. He is the Artistic Director of Dance or Die Foundation and serves as a high-profile supporter for The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and is an International Friend for SOS Children’s Villages International. Ahmad is also a 2024 Young Global Leader.
Julia Luscombe
Julia Luscombe is Vice-President of Strategic Planning and Portfolio Management at Feeding America, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending hunger in partnership with a nationwide network. She plays a key role in developing strategies to drive measurable results for individuals experiencing food insecurity and implements systems to monitor progress and enhance organizational effectiveness.
An Aspen Institute Food Leaders Fellow, Luscombe is a passionate advocate for a more equitable and sustainable food system. She brings a deep commitment to community-led change and global, cross-sector experiences to her work, including researching community economic development as a Fulbright Grantee in Ecuador.
Previously she worked as a strategy consultant at Monitor Deloitte, specializing in customer experience and data/analytics transformation programmes.
She holds a BA/BSc from the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Hector D Mujica
Hector Mujica leads economic opportunity and inclusive technology efforts at Google.org – Google’s philanthropy – across the Americas. Within his role, he looks after a $100 million+ investment portfolio that supports interventions which aim to provide pathways to digital economy jobs for individuals with multiple barriers to employment, as well as ensuring that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence benefit people across society equitably. Mujica also serves on Google’s Latino Leadership Council, where he helps to steward Google’s social impact ventures with the Latino community. He has spent the past decade advancing social justice through philanthropy and public policy. Before Google, Mujica’s experience ranged from investment banking at Oppenheimer & Co., constituent casework at the Office of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and foreign investment at the Economic Section of the United States Embassy in Tokyo.
Mujica holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Business from Florida International University, a Professional Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Master of Public Affairs from the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. He also Co-Chairs the Latino Digital Success Task Force at the Aspen Institute and serves on the Board of Directors of Hispanics in Philanthropy, the Hispanic Federation, and several advisory boards, including Aspen Institute’s Latinos and Society, WorkingNation and Inicio Ventures.
Rahul Rekhi
Rahul is Counselor for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department, where he advises on a range of international financial and economic issues, including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, G7 and G20, trade and investment, sustainability, and international financial regulation.
Before joining the Biden administration, Rahul was a Managing Director at Lazard in New York where he advised businesses, investors, and governments on a range of financial and strategic matters, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, capital markets, and related issues. His transaction experience spanned the intersection of healthcare, technology, and consumer/retail as well as that of markets and public policy. Rahul founded and led the firm's special opportunities unit and advised on transactions representing over $200 billion in deal value.
Rahul also directed the Next Bretton Woods Group at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a global convening forum for rising leaders in economic and financial policy across the G20 economies. Previously, he served as a staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers at the Obama White House, a consultant for the World Bank, and an advisor to England’s Chief Medical Officer.
Rahul has been named a Truman Scholar, Forbes 30 under 30, Economic Club of New York Fellow, Atlantik-Brücke Young Leader, French-American Foundation Young Leader, BMW Foundation Responsible Leader, Council on Foreign Relations Corporate Leader, and one of Business Insider’s “top dealmakers in digital health,” and he has authored a range of articles, policy briefs, and book chapters on economic issues. He has also served on the board of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy and the Lazard Foundation, and was an outside economic advisor for the Biden-Harris presidential campaign.
Rahul received graduate degrees from Oxford and the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Rice University with degrees in engineering and economics.
Sophie Schmidt
Sophie Schmidt is the Founder and Publisher of Rest of World, a National Magazine Award winning non-profit journalism organization focused on the impact of technology outside the West. Since launching in 2020, Rest of World has published thousands of stories from over 100 countries, filling a critical information gap with rigorous and accessible tech journalism. Working with reporters and photographers to produce immersive storytelling, Rest of World reaches a global audience of several million readers. Schmidt began her career in the Middle East with Afghanistan’s Moby Media Group and subsequently worked in technology and politics in the UK, China, United Arab Emirates, South Africa and Myanmar. Before founding Rest of World in 2018, she held public policy and communications roles at Uber, in its San Francisco HQ and European offices.
Schmidt earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a BA in Islamic Studies from Princeton University.
Anna Schrimpf
Anna Schrimpf is Director of Innovation of J-PAL Global and a member of J-PAL's board. Headquartered at MIT, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research centre working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 900 researchers at universities worldwide, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. J-PAL identifies key policy insights emerging from this research and builds partnerships to inform high-level decision-making and adoption of evidence at scale. More than 600 million people have been reached by programmes and policies informed by evaluations led by J-PAL-affiliated researchers. As Director of Innovation, Schrimpf leads the conceptualization and launch of new areas of work for J-PAL worldwide. Until September 2023, Schrimpf was Executive Director of J-PAL Europe, J-PAL’s European regional office based at the Paris School of Economics. As Executive Director of J-PAL Europe, she provided strategic, technical and operational direction to J-PAL’s research, policy and capacity-building engagements spanning more than 20 countries. Schrimpf first joined J-PAL as a Post-Doctoral Associate in 2016 after completing a PhD in Political Science at Princeton University, where she was a Centennial Fellow, a Laurance S. Rockefeller Graduate Prize Fellow and a Prize Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Society of Fellows. She holds a BA in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) from the University of Oxford.
Wesley Spindler
Wesley Spindler is a catalyst for change, working with organizations around the world to reimagine the global economy into a circular, regenerative and equitable one. As Managing Director and member of the Global Sustainability Leadership Team at Accenture, she runs the firm’s global Circular Economy and Nature & Biodiversity agendas. Her focus in all her work is to drive genuine sustainability transformation – from strategy to delivery – with partners and companies across industries to achieve outcomes at the intersection of growth and sustainable innovation. She also acts as People Experience Lead for the entire Global Sustainability Group. She is a frequent public speaker, lead co-author of The Circular Economy Handbook (Palgrave, 2020), Program Director of The Circulars, Expert Advisor to the Earthshot Prize and a delegate to the World Economic Forum Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy. Finally, Wesley is active in her regional community, supporting critical environmental initiatives on the livelihoods and well-being of individuals and positive outcomes for nature.
Raylene Whitford
Raylene Whitford is a Cree-Métis iskewew (woman) from Treaty 6 territory in Canada. The first in her family to graduate from university, Whitford began her career as a chartered accountant with KPMG in London. She has held leadership roles in various organizations around the world, including in a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, delivering a $40 billion capital efficiency project for an integrated energy company in the Middle East, and working with Indigenous businesses in Ecuador. In 2019, Whitford returned to Canada specifically to advance Indigenous participation in the energy transition. She is a member of the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board and Chairman of TC Energy's Indigenous Advisory Council. She is also Founder of INDIGI-X, a global exchange connecting Indigenous leaders in Canada, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.