New Class

We are delighted to welcome nearly 100 new Young Global Leaders to our community of outstanding people addressing the world's most pressing problems. From courageous journalists uncovering the most critical political and human rights issues of our time to savvy entrepreneurs transforming the way we work with technology, this year's class is packed with brilliant minds and passionate leaders from business, civil society, academia, and government. Discover the new class:

19 YGLs in North America

Daniel Arrigg Koh

Deputy Cabinet Secretary, The White House, USA

Daniel Arrigg Koh is a public servant dedicated to positive social change.

He currently serves as the White House Deputy Cabinet Secretary, where he helps guide the affairs related to the Cabinet of United States President Joseph R. Biden. Immediately prior, Dan served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Department of Labor, a $14 billion, 17,000 employee organization dedicated to improving the lives of America's 150 million workers. He helped lead the development of the Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard that protects millions of healthcare workers around the country from COVID-19.

Before his service in the Biden-Harris administration, Dan served as Chief Operating Officer of HqO, a technology company focused on changing the way we interact with physical space. In this capacity, he helped grow the company from 30 employees to over 150 across multiple financing rounds, leading to a $500 million valuation.

In 2019, Dan was elected to the Town of Andover Select Board where he served as Vice Chair. Previously, he was a candidate for the Massachusetts Third District of the United States Congress, where he ran a true grassroots campaign with thousands of volunteers knocking hundreds of thousands of doors, coming within 0.2% of the Democratic primary nomination after a district-wide recount.

From 2014-2017, Dan served as Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, guiding his agenda for the city, its 18,000 employees, $3 billion budget, and 700,000 residents. In this role, he pioneered “CityScore,” an award-winning performance management system for improving city services.

Dan previously worked as Chief of Staff to Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post and Advisor to Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston. He has served additional roles at Booz Allen Hamilton, Spencer Stuart, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Major League Baseball, and the New England Patriots. He began his career as an intern for the late Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

He has been named to the “30 under 30” list by Forbes Magazine and the “40 under 40” list by the Boston Business Journal. In 2016, he received an honorable mention from The Boston Globe for “Bostonian of the Year.” A native of Andover, Massachusetts, Dan holds a B.A from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he was President of his section. Dan is an avid runner, having completed 62 marathons across the U.S. and Canada.

Moritz Baier-Lentz

Partner and Head of Gaming & Interactive Media, Lightspeed Venture Partners, USA

Moritz Baier-Lentz is a Partner and the Head of Gaming at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a globally leading venture capital firm with over $29 billion in capital under management and more than 500 investments across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Moritz loves to partner with exceptional entrepreneurs and has served as an investor, board member, and advisor to founders who led the creation of games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Wild Rift, Apex Legends, Overwatch, Valorant, StarCraft II, and Warcraft III.

Previously, Moritz was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, where he founded and led the firm's global gaming practice, and a #1 ranked professional video gamer among 13 million players of Blizzard's Diablo II. He was recognized among the ‘30 Under 30’ (Forbes), ‘40 Under 40’ (Capital), 'Young Leaders' (Atlantik-Brücke), and 'Young Global Leaders' (World Economic Forum). Moritz holds an M.B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University, where he graduated with distinction (Arjay Miller Scholar).

In his personal time, Moritz is an avid Ironman and ultramarathon athlete, including the 250 km Marathon des Sables and the World Marathon Challenge (7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days).

Stefany Bello

Senior Vice President of Digital Partnerships, Retail & Commerce, Mastercard, USA

Stefany Bello is a Head of Digital Partnerships and Strategic Alliances in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) at Mastercard. In her role, she is responsible for executing Mastercard's digital strategy with digital giants, marketplaces, streaming services, e-commerce software enablers, social media platforms, gig platforms, ride-sharing, fast fashion, gaming, crypto, and innovative startups. Stefany is responsible for expanding Mastercard's digital footprint, managing relationships with key players, and driving innovation and transformational efforts across digital payments in LAC. Before this role, Stefany led partner engagements with Operating Systems and Social Network players globally and with a broader Product team, launching proximity and remote wallet solutions leveraging the Mastercards tokenization platform. Stefany joined Mastercard in 2009 and has played a key role in driving Mastercard preference, product strategy, co-brand engagements, value-added services, and data insights. Stefany also holds a patent for the Mastercard Aid network, an end-to-end, non-financial service designed to streamline aid distribution even in the absence of telecommunications infrastructure. Stefany holds a B.A. in International Business Management with a double concentration in finance and Latin American Studies from Manhattanville College in N.Y. Additionally, she is fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian and proficient in French.

Alejo Czerwonko

Chief Investment Officer, Emerging Markets, Americas, UBS AG, USA

Alejo is Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer Emerging Markets Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management, based in New York. In this capacity, Alejo leads a team of analysts focusing on emerging economies, influencing the allocation of billions of dollars of the firm's assets under management. As a member of two management forums at UBS, he helps set the strategic direction of the business. Alejo is also a professor at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, where he teaches on capital markets in developing economies. Outside of business and academia, Alejo helps shape the policy debate impacting emerging markets through his involvement with leading global think tanks. He has been named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Wilson Center's Latin America Program and a Millennium Leadership Fellow by the Atlantic Council. He frequently appears on Bloomberg Television, CNBC, and CNN, and regularly contributes to financial publications including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal. Alejo earned a PhD in economics from Columbia University. He also holds degrees in economics and finance from Tilburg University and Universidad del CEMA.

Roopa Dhatt

Executive Director, Women in Global Health, USA

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

Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Bridgewater Associates, USA

Porter joined Bridgewater in 2009 and is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer. He partners with the CEO 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 our co-CIOs to evolve our portfolio construction process, evaluate and manage investment risks, and design investment strategies for clients. His work has included evolving our risk controls and event risk strategy, researching how to best combine beta and alpha, and systemizing our portfolio construction and trade generation logic. He is a member of the firm's Commercial and Business Strategy Committee, co-chair of the Operating Committee, and a Partner. Porter is also a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Abdigani Diriye

Head of Machine Learning, Atacana Group Inc, USA

Dr. Abdigani Diriye is a technology leader and entrepreneur who is having an impact in the AI and Fintech fields. Dr. Abdigani is Head of Machine Learning at Atacana Group Inc. and has held positions in industry and academia at Amazon, IBM Research, Microsoft Research, and Carnegie Mellon University where he led the development and deployment of machine learning-based systems and voice technologies to millions of people in the Middle East and Africa. Dr. Abdigani has commercialized various technologies and published over 50 papers and patents and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from University College London and an Executive MBA from INSEAD.

In acknowledgement to his contribution to innovation, Dr. Abdigani is a recipient of a TED Fellowship, Next Einstein Forum Fellowship, and NSF Fellowship and has been selected by MIT Technology Review, Quartz, and Institut Choiseul as one of the leading innovators and global leaders. Dr. Abdigani contributes to the research community and sits on the program committee of several Special Interest Groups and conferences including SIGIR, CHIIR, RecSys, and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Sofia Elizondo

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Brightseed, USA

Sofia Elizondo is a biotech entrepreneur. She is co-founder and COO of Brightseed, an AI company that discovers bioactive molecules for health based in San Francisco. Brightseed makes proactive, precision health a reality by using pioneering advancements in machine learning to identify bioactive molecules in nature. Brightseed has commercialized novel bioactives in gut health and has a pipeline with nutritional and therapeutic applications across a dozen health areas. It been selected as a Technology Pioneer by the WEF and awarded distinctions by Forbes, Nutritional Outlook, R&D World, Rabobank, FastCompany, Nutra Ingredients and Nutritional Business Journal.

Sofia has helped build multimillion-dollar companies and brands in the consumer goods, pharmaceutical, and technology industries. Before Brightseed, Sofia led the commercialization of plant-based protein products, including the novel mung bean protein isolate. She began her career at the Boston Consulting Group and was also a founding member of the BCG Henderson Institute; the consulting firm's think tank on the future of business innovation. She also served as a Special Advisor to the United Nations supporting their work with the private sector. Her decades of leadership now enable Brightseed's mission to illuminate nature to restore human health.

Sofia's accolades include Top 40 Under 40, San Francisco Business Times; WEF Young Global Leader; 100 Women of Influence, Entrepreneur Magazine; EXTRAORDINARY leaders in Health, Newsweek; Top 100 Female Founders, Inc. Magazine; Women in AI Award, VentureBeat. She has spoken at conferences ranging from nutrition industry with the American Nutrition Association to artificial intelligence and global affairs with the Milken Global Institute and JP Morgan Tech Revolution. Sofia holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jonathan Fantini Porter

Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Partnership for Central America, USA

Jonathan Fantini Porter is a government official and executive in the private and social sectors. He currently serves as CEO of the public-private Partnership for Central America and previously held leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The White House, U.S. Congress, and McKinsey & Company.

Under his tenure, the Partnership raised $4.2 billion in foreign direct investment, procurement, and lending in 18 months for projects in the region and delivered programs to 5 million individuals across environmental, social, and governance programs to address the economic roots of migration in frontier and emerging markets. The Partnership has been cited by the President of Microsoft, Administrator of USAID Samantha Power, and the President of the World Bank as a case study on how to mobilize private sector investments for public-private economic development partnerships.

Jonathan previously served as an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company; advisor on national security and private sector engagement to the Presidential transition of Joe Biden; a White House advisor on transnational security during the Presidency of Barack Obama; as a senior congressional aide in the U.S. Congress; and Chief of Staff in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where he oversaw management operations of a $6 billion homeland security budget supporting 22,000 personnel in 48 countries.

He was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and has served on advisory bodies to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, World Economic Forum, Amnesty International, and as a consulting fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Jonathan is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Georgetown University and was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship. He speaks Spanish, French, and German.

Marissa Giustina

Research Scientist and Quantum Electronics Engineer, Google, USA

Marissa Giustina is a staff research scientist and quantum electronics engineer. She developed and deployed superconducting device packaging that enabled Google’s unprecedentedly capable “quantum supreme” Sycamore processor. As head of device packaging and co-author of the team’s roadmap, Giustina is responsible for both research and engineering developments in the device integration that lies at the heart of the quantum computing hardware system. Giustina studied engineering at Dartmouth College with a focus on electrical and materials engineering, moving to foundational research in experimental quantum physics at Uni of Vienna. For her PhD (advised by quantum pioneer Anton Zeilinger), she designed and built a 60-meter-long precision apparatus, leading a local team and collaborating with senior scientists at five institutions to settle a 50-year outstanding challenge in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Giustina joined Google in 2016. As Google Quantum AI’s first female scientist, she helped grow the team to ~150 members. She is a highly sought-after speaker: as Senior Technical Spokesperson for Policy Engagements, she represents Google to prominent global academic, government, and media audiences. She prioritizes meeting students, especially from underrepresented backgrounds, undertaking one-on-one mentorships. Giustina featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40, and Future 50. She served on US National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee as its youngest member (2020-22)

Smriti Kirubanandan

Growth and Strategic Partnership Executive, HLTH Forward, USA

Smriti has a strong background in robotics and public health and currently serves as a Director, Healthcare at TATA Consultancy Services, where she focuses on driving significant transformations within the healthcare ecosystem, concentrating on customer experience, Intelligent automation, digital analytics, and insights, and is determined to make healthcare more accessible and affordable. She is also the Head of Strategic Marketing for Healthcare and Lifesciences, North America, where she drives brand development, thought leadership, and market research. Smriti serves on the Board of the World Food Bank and as a Vice Chair for the American College of Healthcare Executives, Southern California.

An empathetic and innovative strategic policy advisor has helped organizations globally to build the capacity to empower people to engage in wellness programs and is responsible for educating small farmers in Africa to lift them out of poverty to improve food & nutrition insecurity, impacting 2 million people per year. In 2022, Smriti was appointed to serve the Los Angeles County food equity round table as a Nutrition & Policy Advisor to design and strategize programs to address food insecurity by educating and improving access and affordability to nutritious food. Smriti is also the founder of HLTH Forward Podcast- a space that hosts healthcare leaders, policymakers, and artists such as Bryan Adams,Dr. Joneigh Khaldun of CVS Health, and many others to discuss the challenges in the system and what we could do collectively to move healthcare forward.

Smriti has shared her thought leadership by speaking at The Adama Carolla show, SXSW, HLTH, and other national forums. She is a health news contributor at Medcity News and is featured on Washington Post, ABC News, Huffington Post, Times of India, The Hindu, VegNews, Medium, and Yahoo News.

Smriti holds her Bachelor of Science in Robotics, Master in Engineering Management from the University of Southern California, and Masters in Public Health from the University of California,Los Angeles, Certified Raw Vegan Chef and Nutritionist, and is currently in Fellowship with the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Shinjini Kundu

Physician-Scientist, Johns Hopkins Hospital, USA

Shinjini Kundu, MD, Ph.D., is a physician and medical researcher at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is well-known for her work in diagnosing diseases from medical images at a pre-emergent stage where the images do not show human-identifiable abnormalities. By making previously imperceptible patterns recognizable using artificial intelligence, Shinjini's work has been truly transformational. Before her clinical appointment in radiology at Johns Hopkins, she received a PhD in artificial intelligence from Carnegie-Mellon concurrently with an MD from the University of Pittsburgh. Earlier, she obtained her BS and MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University. She is a prolific researcher with publications in top journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature Medicine. Her work has had a regional, national, and international impact. She has given TEDx talks and has been a featured speaker at the World Business Dialogue in Germany. She has also been named to the Forbes 30 under 30 and MIT Technology Review 35 under 35 lists. Shinjini contributed to the emerging digital health policies of the American Medical Association, digital privacy policies at the Observer Research Foundation, and the AI for good forum at the United Nations. Her work stands to accelerate new precision medical diagnostic technologies capable of detecting diseases earlier, with greater accuracy and suggestions for tailored treatments.

Li Chen

President, Gotion Americas, Gotion Inc., USA

Chen Li has taken roles in Gotion High-Tech since 2014, including Director of Silicon Valley R&D Center, CEO of Gotion US, Director of Global R&D Centers, VP of Engineering R&D Institute, and now SVP and President of Gotion Global. Before Gotion, he worked with think tanks Bridging Nations Foundation and Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC. He holds a BS from Purdue University and MPA from Columbia University.

Lee Redden

Entrepreneur and Co-Founder, Hands On Robotics, USA

Lee is a visionary technologist and remarkable people leader. His technical genius, loving, positive nature, and intense curiosity propelled him to successfully build a revolutionary company in the agriculture space, Blue River Technologies. They are building robots with cameras that detect every plant and spray just the weeds. Lee has been passionate about bringing this technology to market and its significant impact on improving agriculture on a global scale. Because of the technical decisions Lee helped make early on, this technology can scale across the earth, and it's impressive that he's attained market dominance in this innovative multidisciplinary area seeing this cause through for so long (10+ years). Lee is an active leader in the Forbes 30 under 30 community leading international travel, hosting dinner events, and accelerating this group's mission. Lees has been an active mentor to startups, working with several in the technology and cancer detection space. His philanthropic efforts include advising and donating to a non-profit called Marci, an organization that combats child sex trafficking, and co-founding the non-profit Hands-On Robotics that is developing dog robots for education purposes. Lee has been a speaker at multiple technology and educational conferences, led John Deers' internal training in machine learning of 5,000 employees and over 100 engineers, and has made curriculum recommendations changes to over ten universities in the US.

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.

Varun Sivaram

Group Senior Vice-President, Strategy, Innovation, Portfolio, Partnerships and M&A, Ørsted, USA

Dr. Varun Sivaram is Senior Vice President and member of the Group Executive Team at Ørsted, a leading renewable energy company with the world’s largest offshore wind energy portfolio, where he leads strategy, innovation, portfolio and capital allocation, and partnerships and M&A. He previously served in the U.S. Biden-Harris administration as the managing director for clean energy and innovation for Secretary John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, where he spearheaded flagship U.S. initiatives such as the First Movers Coalition. He has also served as Chief Technology Officer of ReNew Power (NASDAQ:RNW), a multibillion-dollar renewable-energy firm that is India's largest; on the faculty of Columbia University and Georgetown University; as director of the energy program at the Council on Foreign Relations; and as senior energy advisor to the Los Angeles Mayor and New York Governor. TIME Magazine named him to its TIME 100 Next list of the next hundred most influential people in the world, and MIT Technology Review named him one of the top 35 innovators under 35. His books include "Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet," "Energizing America: A Roadmap to Launch a National Energy Innovation Mission," and "Digital Decarbonization: Promoting Digital Innovations to Advance Clean Energy Systems." His TED Talk on India's clean energy transition has been viewed more than 1.5 million times. A Rhodes and Truman Scholar, he holds a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from Oxford University and undergraduate degrees from Stanford University.

Shelley Stewart

Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company, USA

Shelley Stewart III is a Senior Partner within McKinseys Growth, Marketing and Sales Practice, where he works across the US, Europe and Asia with industrial and technology companies to help them scale their businesses in a global context. Shelley leads the firms research on inclusive economic growth in his role as leader for McKinseys Institute for Black Economic Mobility. In this capacity, he focuses on conducting research related to Black economic development and translates these insights into tools that corporations, philanthropists and governments can use to create meaningful impact for Black individuals and communities. Shelley is on the Board of Directors of the National Black MBA Association, a non-profit supporting 15,000 members with career placement and development. He is also on the Board of the Brooklyn Community Foundation, the first and only public foundation solely dedicated to Brooklyns charitable community. He is a member of the United Justice Coalition, a non-profit working across disciplines to raise awareness around social justice issues, emphasizing the need for criminal justice reform. Shelley has a BA in economics from Boston College, an MBA with a focus on finance from Columbia University, an MPA in political economy from Harvard and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of New Haven.

Lauren Tilstra

Executive Director; Chief Executive Officer, Communications; Chief of Staff, Verizon Communications, USA

Lauren Tilstra is a seasoned leadership communications advisor who’s spent her career launching and counseling Fortune 50 c-suite executives across technology and media. She currently serves as Chief of Staff and Executive Director of Strategic Communications to the Chairman and CEO of Verizon. She’s the first in the firm’s 22-year history to serve in both roles simultaneously.

Tilstra is a passionate advocate for digital inclusion and in 2020 she joined Verizon’s Chairman and CEO, Hans Vestberg and Chief Strategy Officer, Rima Qureshi in forming the EDISON Alliance with Professor Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum. In this role, she leads communications for the Alliance and is working daily to connect 1B lives to the promise of the digital world. She also serves on the Board of grassroots organization, Friends for Global Change and Is a founding member of the National Executive Communication Council. Tilstra is a PRWeek 40 under 40 and was named Penn State University’s College of Communications Outstanding Alumni of 2022.

Maureen Trantham

Senior Vice-President; Head, Strategy and Social Impact and Philanthropy Operations, Sesame Workshop, USA

Maureen Tranthams diverse background spans media, education policy and business strategy. She currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Global Social Impact & Philanthropy Operations and a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Sesame Workshop. In her role, Maureen is responsible for the overall planning and coordination of strategic and financial results across Sesames global, philanthropically funded social impact efforts including the organizations work supporting displaced children in crisis contexts and children from marginalized communities in the U.S. She also oversees the organizations Compliance and Risk Management capabilities, working closely with teams to navigate the challenges of reaching children in conflict zones. A former international journalist with experience in Thailand and China, she has also led a Washington state education policy and advocacy nonprofit, as well as worked as a management consultant supporting global media and technology companies on a variety of strategic, operations and organizational issues. A committed mentor, particularly to early career professionals, she frequently coaches individuals hoping to transition sectors and contribute to social impact. Maureen holds a BA in Journalism and the Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington and an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business. She also serves as an active Term Member on the Council on Foreign Relations.