Global 100 Inspirational Leaders - 2022

Jacinda Ardern was elected as the Prime Minister of New Zealand in 2017 at the age of 37 and became the youngest Prime Minister of the country in more than 150 years. Ardern is the youngest female head of government in the world. She became the MP for the Auckland electorate, Mt Albert, in early 2017 and the Leader of the Labour Party in August 2017. In addition to Prime Minister, she also holds the roles of Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Minister for National Security and Intelligence, and Minister for Child Poverty Reduction. In 2018, Prime Minister Arden gave birth to her first child and became the first Leader of a country in 30 years to give birth while in office. She has revolutionized politics in New Zealand and continues to lead with empathy and strategic decisions, especially during the pandemic.

Bill Gates is a renowned Business Leader, Technologist, and Philanthropist. He dropped out of college to start his company, Microsoft, with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Bill Gates turned his fortune from Microsoft into a diversified portfolio; his focus has shifted to zero-carbon energy investing and philanthropy. Today, Gates co-chairs the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with his former wife Melinda Gates, where he works to give his wealth back to society. Even after the divorce, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates have stayed true to their cause and made the largest single donation of 2021 with a $15 billion gift to their private foundation, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s ranking of 2021’s largest donations.

Mary Barra is the first woman to lead one of the big three automakers in the U.S., General Motors. She has done many notable acts during her career, including investing billions in electric vehicles, self-driving cars and a ride-share service called Maven. During the pandemic in 2020, she shifted G.M. ‘s production lines to make critically-needed ventilators to help Ventec Life System. Barra has the highest compensation of a Detroit Big Three automaker leader. G.M. has consistently scored highly in gender equity reports; in 2018, it was one of only two global businesses with no gender pay gap.

Elon Musk co-founded and leads Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company. Musk is also the CEO of Neuralink, a company developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect computers to the human brain. He has also launched The Boring Company, which combines affordable, fast tunnelling technology with an all-electric public transportation system to alleviate soul-crushing urban congestion and enable high-speed, long-distance travel. The Boring Company built a 1.15-mile R&D tunnel in Hawthorne and is constructing Vegas Loop, a public transportation system at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Previously, Musk co-founded and sold PayPal, the world’s leading Internet payment system, and Zip2, one of the first internet maps and directions services. Musk’s SpaceX completed 31 successful launches by December 2021. Musk is also an ardent supporter of sustainability and his non-profit organization, the Musk Foundation funds the XPrize competition with an award of $100 million that will be given to entrepreneurs who come up with the best technologies to capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and lock it away permanently.

Jeff Bezos is an American Technology Entrepreneur and Founder of the e-commerce giant Amazon.com. He founded Amazon.com, an online book store, and introduced features including customer reviews, one-click shopping, and e-mail order verification. Bezos expanded it to include various other items, including clothes, toys, jewellery, watches, CDs, electronics and shoes. He has constantly improved his website and has introduced enhanced facilities for his customers. He is also the Founder of Blue Origin, an aerospace company currently developing new technology to offer space travel to customers. In April 2020, Bezos donated $100 million to Feed America, a nonprofit that operates food banks and food pantries across the country while the country was grappling with the pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci is an acclaimed American Immunologist. He is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the President’s Chief Medical Advisor. He became the face of reason during the COVID-19 pandemic, warning Americans to take measures to stop the spread of the deadly virus. Owing to his prominent role in the United States response to numerous global pandemics, most notably HIV/AIDS and COVID-19, Dr. Fauci has become the subject of tributes and interpretations across various media, including television, literature, merchandising, and internet memes. In the spring of 2020 amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, bakeries across the United States began selling pastries, particularly doughnuts, with Fauci’s face on them to pay tribute to his work in the public health sector.

Richard Branson is an English Business Mastermind, Philanthropist and Founder of the famous Virgin Group. He is a serial entrepreneur that has turned all the low points of his life into lessons that have helped him rise to perfection and master the art of business. Ever since he was a small boy, Branson always had the entrepreneurial drive in him. He always had a good eye for spotting opportunities and turning them into profitable businesses which he still does to this day. His company, Virgin Galactic has also completed two successful launches into space over the past year. The organization also gave away two free tickets for space trips in the Omaze Sweepstakes. The money from sweepstakes applicants was given to Space for Humanity, a nonprofit seeking to make space more accessible for citizen astronauts of diverse racial, economic, and disciplinary backgrounds.

Sheryl Kara Sandberg is a notable American Business Executive, Billionaire and Philanthropist. Sandberg is the Chief Operating Officer at Meta and second-in-command at a $60 billion company with a product that a billion people use. Her entrepreneurial work has fueled the growth of the company and hence, as a result, Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. She has also established the Sheryl Sandberg foundation known as Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation which aims to build a more equal and resilient world. With the help of two key initiatives LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org, they bring people together to support each other.

Mukesh Ambani is the Chairman, Managing Director, and the largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), a Fortune Global 500 company and India’s most valuable company by market value. The income from various subsidiary companies of this parent company has made the man, the richest in the country and Asia as well as of April 2020. In 2021, Ambani donated Rs 557 crore and also pivoted his manufacturing at RIL’s Jamnagar oil refineries to produce over 700 tonnes of medical-grade oxygen per day which was supplied free of cost to states badly affected by COVID-19 that also amounted to 11% of India’s total production to aid the country during its oxygen shortage.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected as the WHO Director-General for a five-year term by the WHO Member States at the Seventieth World Health Assembly in May 2017. He became the first WHO Director-General elected from among multiple candidates by the World Health Assembly. Dr. Ghebreyesus was the first person from the WHO African Region to head the leading public health agency. Dr. Ghebreyesus has also received multiple national and institutional recognitions, including becoming the first non-American to be awarded the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award in 2011 in recognition of his contributions to public health; 2020 Human Rights Award of the Spanish Law Bar (Consejo General de la Abogacía Español); one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2020; the African of the Year Award for 2020 of the African Leadership Magazine; and Global Health Leader Award presented by Amref Health Africa in 2021.

Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft; he replaced billionaire Steve Ballmer in 2014. Before that, he was Microsoft EVP of the cloud and enterprise group. Nadella has steered the company away from a failing mobile strategy and focused on innovative segments such as augmented reality and cloud computing. He has completely transformed the brand by inculcating a new work culture centred on delivering a growth mindset, to be customer-obsessed, diverse and inclusive. He devoted much of his first year listening to employees at every level in the organization anonymously, individually, or in focus groups that have tremendously helped the company grow. Microsoft had also raised over $3 million from its employees with a matching grant from the company for the COVID-19 relief to provide 25000 oxygen concentration devices to healthcare facilities in India.

Sara Blakely is the CEO and Founder of SPANX, an American intimate apparel company. She has revolutionized the industry with just $5,000 and a ‘lucky’ red backpack and turned it into a global brand known for inventing more innovative, comfortable solutions. Blakely was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as the youngest self-made female billionaire and was included in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world. Blakely has invested millions of dollars in elevating women, and in 2013, she signed the Giving Pledge, promising to donate half her wealth to philanthropic causes. She is also an ardent believer in rewarding her hardworking employees who continue to make the brand a success. In 2021, to celebrate her company’s $1.2 billion deal with Blackstone, Blakely gave each employee two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 to spend wherever those tickets would take them.

Dr. John Nkengasong currently heads the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) located in Ethiopia, specializing in the technical branch of the African Union. He has helped steer Africa’s 54 nations into an alliance with measures such as closing country borders early, instituting national curfews and masking mandates that helped weather the COVID crisis successfully. Dr. Nkengasong has trained and empowered young African scientists to serve during the pandemic and has managed to save a million lives. His valuable work has led to improved testing, better provision of COVID-19 tools—including vaccines—and a more transparent approach to sharing COVID-19 data by all African countries.

Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix, revolutionized the entertainment sector. He is also a very active educational philanthropist. He donated one million dollars to Beacon Education Network to create new charter schools. Hastings is also a member of a political network of Businessmen and Executives called Technology Network. To help individuals in the entertainment sector who lost their jobs during the pandemic, Netflix set up a $100m fund to support them during this time of crisis. The company also offered $15m to not-for-profits that offered emergency relief to out-of-work cast and crew members in countries where they have major productions.

Sundar Pichai is an Indian-American business executive and is the CEO of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google. Pichai was selected to become the next CEO of Google on August 10, 2015, after previously being appointed Product Chief by CEO Larry Page. On October 24, 2015, he stepped into the new position at the completion of the formation of Alphabet Inc., the new holding company for the Google company family. He was appointed to the Alphabet Board of Directors in 2017. Pichai was included in Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in `2016 and 2020. Due to him, the tech giant and its employees also came forward to provide an assistance of Rs 135 crores to Give India as well as UNICEF to be used for medical supplies, grants that would help in spreading of critical information, and for organisations that would support high-risk communities to help India tackle its deadly second wave in 2021.

Scott Harrison is the Founder of the non-profit organization charity: water. Turning his full attention to the global water crisis and the world’s 785 million people without clean water to drink, Harrison has created public installations and innovative online fundraising platforms to spread international awareness of the issue. Harrison has been recognized on Fortune magazine’s 40 Under 40, Forbes’ Impact 30, and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business. He is also the author of the New York Times Bestselling book Thirst. In 2021, Harrison established the Bitcoin Water Trust that is aimed at bringing drinkable water to places that have no access to it currently. Charity: water will utilize Gemini’s cryptocurrency wallet to accept donations of bitcoin along with holding said donations until the agreed-upon time. Additionally, Co-Founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have pledged to match the first 50 BTC donated to The Bitcoin Water Trust. The pair, along with the project they co-founded, are keen on ending the global water crisis.

Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code is a celebrated advocate, working towards closing the gender gap in technology and changing the image of what a computer programmer looks like and does. She is the author of the International Bestseller Brave, Not Perfect, which has inspired many and was born out of her famous TEDx talk. During the early days of the pandemic, witnessing the exhaustion of many of the moms on her team, Saujani was inspired to address the broader challenges women in the workforce faced. Last year, women earned 84 per cent of what men do, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report. In July 2021, census data show nearly a million fewer mothers were working than in July 2020. On December 7, 2020, Saujani wrote an op-ed for The Hill asking for paid family leave, affordable child care, and pay-equity policies. The following month, the mother of two took out a full-page ad in The New York Times, addressed to Joe Biden from 50 prominent women, urging him to adopt what she called the Marshall Plan for Moms, named after America’s 1948 initiative to help rebuild Europe after World War II. She has set up the organization Marshall Plan for Moms that seeks to empower women and give them the support they need so they can — eventually — get back to work.

When COVID-19 took China by a wave in early 2020, private-sector tech companies played a pivotal role in softening the blow. As the pandemic surged, frightened patients moved away from in-person medical care and turned to Ping An Good Doctor, the company’s telehealth app. Ping An’s spinoff free online consultation service received 1.11 billion visits at the pandemic’s peak, serving as a vital first line of defence. Their HealthKonnect division was also one of the first companies to offer widespread COVID testing in China. Tan’s digital strategy also helped Chinese consumers in arenas outside of healthcare: By 2021, their smart-city arm had helped more than 150 municipalities in China digitize government services to help citizens minimize in-person interactions.

MacKenzie Scott is a philanthropist, author and the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, to whom she was married for 25 years. They divorced in mid-2019 and she received 25% of his Amazon stake. In May 2019, shortly after she announced the terms of the divorce on Twitter, she signed the Giving Pledge, promising to give away at least half of her wealth over the course of her lifetime. In 2020 she announced just over $5.8 billion in gifts to some 500 nonprofits; in June 2021, Scott said she gave another $2.74 billion to 286 groups. Scott employs a ‘no strings attached’ style of giving, wherein the nonprofits to which she donates have full control over how to best deploy the new funds.

Brian Joseph Chesky is an American Billionaire Businessman and Industrial Designer. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Airbnb. Chesky was named one of Time’s ‘100 Most Influential People of 2015.’ He is known for his perseverance to get things done and his exemplary leadership skills that allow everyone to be creative and showcase their ideas and talents. He is also well-known for his philanthropic work, in 2021, during the Afghan crisis, he stepped forward to help the refugees of the country by providing temporary housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees worldwide, funded by his organization Airbnb and other donors.

Whitney Wolfe Herd is well-known for her bold decisions and stance, and it has been reflected in her business ideas as well. She started the dating app Bumble, where women get to make the first move over conventional male-dominated dating culture. The 31-year-old also recently became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire when she took Bumble public in February 2021. Herd is a strong advocate for mental health and to support her burnt-out employees, her organization Bumble gave all their employees a paid, fully offline one-week vacation in June 2021. A move that was applauded by employees worldwide and even followed by companies such as Hootsuite.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has been recognized as one of the Top Ten Business Thinkers in the World and the top-rated executive coach at the Thinkers50 ceremony in London since 2011. Published in 2015, his book Triggers is a Wall Street Journal and New York Times #1 Bestseller! He’s also the author of New York Times bestseller and #1 Wall Street Journal Business Book ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’, winner of the Harold Longman Award as Best Business Book of the Year. During the pandemic, Dr. Goldsmith who is always on the road due to his coaching spent more time at home contemplating and came to the realisation that after forty years of coaching the top CEOs, he wanted to start empowering everyone that he could. With this goal in mind, he established his Knowledge Philanthropy program that lets people adapt his endless library of resources, which he has made free, to their own culture and institution that has already impacted billions of people across the world.

Eric Yuan is the Founder and CEO of the Zoom app. Under Yuan’s commendable leadership, Zoom was one of the highest-performing tech IPOs of 2019. As part of his organization’s COVID-19 response, Zoom had suspended its 40-minute time limit on free accounts for K–12 schools while working with more than 100,000 schools and districts worldwide to deliver online education. Yuan also launched the company’s philanthropic arm, Zoom Cares, with initial donations to organizations working on the response to the pandemic, including the San Jose Digital Inclusion Fund, the CDC Foundation, and the World Health Organization.

Rosalind G. Brewer has led more than 450,000 colleagues as the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance and a member of the WBA Board of Directors. She works towards innovating alongside evolving the healthcare industry and positively impacting people worldwide. Under her supervision, the organization has successfully vaccinated vulnerable citizens in the US. Walgreens together with PayPal and Uber also launched their Vaccine Access Fund that allowed customers to donate to vaccine access efforts to help connect people without transportation to COVID-19 vaccination sites, particularly those in impoverished communities

Winfrey is an influential talk show host, author, philanthropist, actress and media personality. She has played a pivotal role in shaping cultural trends and promoting various liberal causes. Through her talk shows and books, she has focused on many issues facing American women. She has been an important role model for black American women, breaking down many invisible barriers. Throughout the years, she has donated to various causes including providing education to the youth, providing food and shelter to orphanages, leadership and women empowerment programmes amongst others. In 2020, Winfrey made a $13 million commitment to COVID-19 relief efforts, focusing on food insecurity and those most impacted by the pandemic in her ‘home cities,’ including Chicago, Milwaukee, Nashville, Baltimore and Kosciusko, Mississippi.

Jeff Weiner is the Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, where he continues to help LinkedIn realize its vision of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Weiner will also continue to mentor and coach the leadership team, advise on key strategic initiatives, and help to represent the company externally. In addition to his ongoing work at LinkedIn, Weiner is focused on investing, coaching, and philanthropic work. Weiner also started the Compassion Project, a first-of-its-kind national initiative to provide compassion education to lower and upper elementary school students across the US. His goal is to ensure that every primary school student in the US understands what compassion is and how to demonstrate it in their lives thereby making the world a kinder place.

Tobias Lütke is CEO and Co-Founder of Shopify, the marquee shopping cart system of the e-commerce industry. During the pandemic, the company saw sales rising exponentially as the company offered small businesses the right tools to set up their business online without any added expenses. It has revolutionized the online marketplace for startups and small businesses. The philanthropic organization, Thistledown that was originally established by Lütke and his wife to focus on technological solutions for decarbonization has also pivoted their strategy to help in the fight against COVID-19. Thistledown has funded academic research projects and ways to improve the domestic supply chain for personal protective equipment (PPE). The foundation has already contributed $5 million to Fast Grants, a science-funding organization, as well as $1 million to Conquer COVID-19, a grassroots incubator that is facilitating access to PPE.

Shiza Shahid is an activist, entrepreneur, investor, technologist and world-renowned impact leader. She is the founding CEO of the Malala Fund with Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. She is also the Co-Founder of the direct-to-consumer kitchenware company, Our Place. She has deeply inculcated her values in the brand by making it carbon-neutral and donating to causes like the Immigrant Defenders Network, providing legal representation to immigrants at risk of deportation, as well as the Equal Justice Initiative. The organization has also donated over 250,000 meals to Feeding America to help fight hunger and source 80% of their products from women-owned collectives and factories.

Sanna Marin is the Prime Minister of Finland and has been a member of the Parliament of Finland since 2015. After Antti Rinne left his post as Prime Minister, the Social Democratic Party of Finland selected Marin as their new candidate for the position of Prime Minister on December 8, 2019. Marin is currently the world’s youngest serving Prime Minister, Finland’s youngest-ever Prime Minister and Finland’s 3rd female Prime Minister. Her government has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2035. If successful, Finland would be one of the first countries in the world to achieve net-zero emissions. Marin has also worked towards equality by introducing the government’s Equality Programme that includes policies to encourage parents to share responsibilities equally, close the gender pay gap, decrease domestic violence, and improve educational outcomes for children from poorer backgrounds and immigrant families.

José Andrés is one of the most influential proponents of Spanish gastronomy in the U.S. He is also the Founder of World Central Kitchen, a non-profit organization (NPO) that has dramatically helped serve a billion people across the globe. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization provided more than 300,000 meals per day to people in need throughout the country U.S. In addition, they also directed their focus on developing a rescue plan for the badly hit restaurant industry. In collaboration with a group of lawmakers, Andrés helped craft a bill designed to simultaneously feed people and save restaurants. The FEMA Empowering Essential Deliveries (FEED) Act is legally authorized by the federal government to pay 100 per cent of the cost for state and local governments to collaborate with restaurants to serve food to those in need, as well as support farmers and businesses fighting for survival during the pandemic.

She is the Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter. Garza is a renowned US civil rights activist and editorial writer on health issues, student rights, campaigns against police brutality, rights for domestic workers, racism, and violence against gender non-conforming people of colour. She has directed special projects at the National Domestic Workers Alliance. A study conducted by the Social Science Research Network found that municipalities where Black Lives Matter protests have been held experienced as much as a 20 per cent decrease in killings by police, resulting in an estimated 300 fewer deaths nationwide. By leading the movement against racial equality, Garza is driving a revolution that could benefit half of the US population.

Uğur Şahin is the CEO and Co-Founder of German biotech firm BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to produce the first coronavirus vaccine approved in the US. Şahin led BioNTech to start on a vaccine for COVID-19 in early 2020 and partnered with Pfizer in March 2020. Şahin, born in Turkey and grew up in Germany, owns about 17% of BioNTech, which went public on the Nasdaq in 2019. In 2001 Şahin and his wife, Özlem Türeci, an immunologist, cofounded Ganymed Pharmaceuticals; Astellas Pharma acquired Ganymed in 2016 for $460 million. Şahin and his wife Türeci cofounded BioNTech in 2008, backed by German billionaire brothers Thomas and Andreas Struengmann.

He is one of the leading inspirational speakers in the world and a renowned leadership guru. Fascinated by the leaders who impact the world, companies and politicians with the capacity to inspire, Sinek discovered common patterns in how they think, act and communicate. Based on his findings, he wrote Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action to explore his idea of the Golden Circle. His newest work explores the “circles of safety,” and how to enhance the feelings of trust and confidence in making bold decisions. It is also the subject of his latest book, ‘Leaders Eat Last.’

Chris Anderson is the curator of the TED Conference and has developed it into a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas that will help the masses grow and evolve. ‘TED’ is a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas from experts in their fields, primarily through the medium of ‘TEDx Talks’ — short talks that are offered free online to a global audience. Anderson has also published a book titled TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking which offers tips and advice for public speaking. The book became a New York Times bestseller. In 2018, he unveiled a major upgrade to the TED Prize, titled ‘The Audacious Project’ that seeks to raise significant funding for bold philanthropic projects.

Leena Nair is a British Indian Business Executive who is Chanel’s first female and youngest-ever CEO. She previously served as the Chief Human Resource Officer of Unilever and member of the Unilever Leadership Executive. She was responsible for the human capital of Unilever, which operated across multiple regulatory and labour environments spread over 190 countries. Under Nair’s leadership, Unilever was named the #1 FMCG graduate employer of choice in 54 countries. She also headed the Diversity and Inclusion agenda for the organization and ensured that its workforce was diverse and inclusive. Nair is an advocate for human-centred workplaces and compassionate leadership.

Ma Huateng, popularly known as ‘Pony Ma’, is one of the world’s wealthiest people. He is the Founder of China-based internet and entertainment giant Tencent, best known for the WeChat messaging app and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). Time magazine named him as one of the world’s most influential people. In 2015, Forbes credited him as one of the world’s most powerful people, while Fortune ranked him as among the top businessmen of the year in 2017. He was also named one of the ‘Most Powerful People In The World’ by the CEOWORLD magazine in 2018.

Parag Agrawal is an IITian from India who recently became the youngest CEO of Twitter on November 29th, 2021. He is an Indian-American who was appointed on the post after the resignation of Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter. Agrawal is known as one of the leading engineers of the Twitter group, who worked with the TAG group of Twitter responsible for the company’s new products and technologies. In 2019, Agrawal held the responsibility of Twitter’s decentralized social media project titled Bluesky by Jack Dorsey.

Cynthia Marshall has broken down barriers and made waves her entire life while battling through various challenges. Marshall is the first Black woman to lead an NBA team, currently serving as the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks. During her time with the Dallas Mavericks, Marshall has transformed a previously toxic and misogynistic culture into an inclusive environment where everyone can speak up and have a voice.

Blake Mycoskie is an American entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist. He is the Founder of TOMS and the man responsible for the brand’s unique One for One model. The model uses business to improve lives and is created to promote corporate responsibility and conscious consumerism. At TOMS, the brand provides a new pair of shoes to a person in need for every pair of shoes sold.

Amin H. Nasser is the CEO and President of Saudi Aramco, the world’s leading integrated chemicals and energy enterprise and the largest provider of crude oil to markets worldwide. He is also a member of the company’s Board of Directors. In addition to his corporate responsibilities in the organization, Nasser is a member of the Board of Directors of the Dhahran Techno Valley Company; the International Advisory Board of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals; the Board of Trustees of the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Presidential CEO Advisory Board; the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council (IBC) and the JP Morgan International Council.

Bob Chapek is the CEO of The Walt Disney Company, one of the world’s most extensive entertainment and media companies and home to some of the most respected and beloved brands around the globe, including Star Wars, Disney, Pixar, Marvel, ESPN and National Geographic. Chapek took on the role of CEO on February 25, 2020, and reports to the Company’s Executive Chairman, Robert A. Iger, and the Board of Directors. Chapek’s three decades at Disney have been marked by growth and transformation in every aspect. A visionary leader, he has used creativity and cutting-edge technology to drive expansion and improve the guest consumer experience. He has also developed and successfully implemented groundbreaking business models and identified new revenue streams to achieve business objectives and sustain long-term growth.

Prof. Jaewan Bahk has served as the Minister of Finance and Strategy from 2011 to 2013 and Minister of Labor and Employment from 2010 to 2011 in Korea. He has also worked as Senior Secretary to the President for National Agenda, Vision and Strategy from 2008 to 2010 and as Senior Secretary to the President for Political Affairs in 2008. Currently, he is the President of the Social Sciences Research Institute at Sungkyunkwan University and the Dean of the Graduate School of Governance. In addition, he is also in charge of the presidency of Hansun Foundation for Peace & Prosperity of the Korean Peninsula, a private think-tank.

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is an Indian steel magnate based in the United Kingdom. He is the Executive Chairman of ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaking company, as well as Chairman of stainless steel manufacturer Aperam. Mittal owns 38% of ArcelorMittal and holds a 20% stake in EFL Championship side Queens Park Rangers. Mittal is a philanthropist and a member of numerous boards and trusts. He has held a seat on the board of Goldman Sachs since 2008.

Dr. Alexander Osterwalder is one of the world’s leading innovation experts, a best-selling author, entrepreneur and in-demand speaker whose work has changed how companies do business and how new ventures get started. He was ranked No. 4 on the Thinkers50 list of the most influential management thinkers worldwide and is known for simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. Osterwalder invented the Value Proposition Canvas, Business Model Canvas and Business Portfolio Map – practical tools trusted by million leaders from global companies.

Jan Koum is a Ukrainian-born Internet Entrepreneur who co-founded the mobile messaging application WhatsApp with Brian Acton. Facebook Inc. acquired the top-rated mobile application in 2014 for a whopping US$19 billion. A billionaire today, he is listed amongst the wealthiest Americans, who was once so impoverished that he had to live off food stamps just a few years ago. But with his resilience and grit, he has made his mark on the world.

Harnaam Kaur is a British Anti-Bullying Activist, Life Coach, and Motivational Speaker. She currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the youngest woman to grow a full-length beard. For years she was bullied, intimidated with death threats and even stabbed with pens by her classmates during school for her unusual appearance. Now she has won the internet with over 100,000 Instagram followers and has emerged as the poster girl for positive body image, self-love and acceptance. She has delivered a Ted Talk, contributed to government discussions on body image and even fronted several body-positive campaigns.

John Baldoni is a globally recognized Leadership Educator, certified Master Corporate Executive Coach, and Author of 15 books that have been translated into ten languages. His thought leadership is reflected in his writing and his choice of media: columns, videos and books. Baldoni is also the host of LinkedIn Live’s GRACE under pressure interview series, a platform that has enabled him to interview 100+ global business, academic and thought leaders and doers. His books include Grace Notes: Leading in an Upside-Down World, GRACE: A Leader’s Guide to a Better Us, MOXIE: The Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership, Lead with Purpose, Lead Your Boss and The Leader’s Pocket Guide.

Matt Mullenweg is the Co-Founder of WordPress, the most popular publishing platform on the web, and the CEO and Founder of Automattic, the Parent Company of WooCommerce, WordPress.com, and Jetpack. He also runs Audrey Capital, a research and investment company. Mullenweg has been recognized for his leadership and success by Bloomberg Businessweek, TechCrunch, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Fortune, and Wired.

Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier is a French geneticist, biochemist and microbiologist, recognized for her groundbreaking work in RNA-mediated regulation, particularly concerning the CRISPR/Cas9 system. Dr. Charpentier has laid the foundation for developing a novel, highly versatile and specific genome engineering technology that is revolutionizing life sciences research. She is the Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Honorary Professor at Alexander von Humboldt Professor, Humboldt University, Germany and Visiting Professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden, Umeå University, Sweden. Charpentier has received prestigious international awards and distinctions and is an elected member of national and international academies.

Alasdair Harris is the Founder of Blue Ventures and has worked in some of the most impoverished regions in the world. He has sought to demonstrate that effective marine conservation requires pragmatic, entrepreneurial and locally-led approaches to ocean protection. His work focuses on developing scalable solutions to tackle marine environmental challenges and help marine conservation, especially to aid coastal communities.

Michel Rojkind is the Founding Partner of Rojkind Arquitectos and according to Forbes Life a representative of a Mexican generation of architects transforming the country. His office was recognized by Architectural Record in 2005 as one of the best ten Design Vanguard firms. Rojkind has been a visiting professor at SCI-Arc in L.A., IACC in Barcelona and UPenn in Philadelphia. He has participated as a juror for several international awards and competitions and has lectured in many different countries. His lectures have been recognized globally: ‘Innovation’ from Architectural Record Magazine, 2011; TEDx, 2010 and 3rd Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction sustainable in 2010, World Architecture Festival (WAF) in 2013 and Design Indaba during 2014. In 2019 Rojkind was named the Senior Vice President of architecture at WeWork.

Nigussie is an Ethiopian Human Rights Lawyer who works towards women’s and girls’ rights and inclusive education. As a blind woman, she has helped change the narrative of disability in Ethiopia. She has been an active volunteer with more than 20 Ethiopian organizations, including the Ethiopian National Disability Action Network. She served as Chair of the Ethiopian National Association of the Blind Women’s Wing for 4 years. She is a Senior Inclusion Adviser for Light for the World, an organization that fights for the inclusion of the 15% – about 1 billion – of the world’s population who have some disability. She strives to create inclusive conditions for future generations by connecting national realities with international frameworks.

Greta Thunberg is a Climate Activist hailing from Sweden. She has raised the attention of people worldwide to the risks of Climate Change by giving intensive speeches to leaders of different nations. Thunberg has given speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the European Parliament as well as in front of the legislatures of Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In September 2019 her appearance at a UN climate event in New York City which she traveled to on an emissions-free yacht drew particular attention to her cause and helped it gain momentum.

He is the CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC); under Wei’s leadership, TSMC’s profits rose 50% in 2020. The chipmaker scored new contracts from major clients, including a deal to manufacture Apple’s latest own-brand chips. TSMC’s importance as the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer has gained more prominence with the chip shortage. Wei, who has been CEO since 2018, after serving five years as Co-CEO with now Chairman Mark Liu has committed the company to draw from this situation. To increase production capacity, Wei has increased TSMC’s capital expenditures to $100 billion over the next three years averaging approximately double the amount the chipmaker spent in 2020.

He became the sixth Director of The Museum of Modern Art(MoMA) in 1995. Leading a staff of over 750, Lowry has continued the Museum’s legacy of enriching public life through exhibitions, educational programs, publications, and digital tools that challenge conventional ideas about modern and contemporary art and design and initiatives that bring MoMA’s renowned collection and research to audiences worldwide. He is a member of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s board of trustees, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the steering committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and a resident member of the American Philosophical Society. In 2004, the French government honoured Lowry with the title of Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Renzo Rosso is the President and mastermind behind Diesel, the Italian-based luxury fashion brand with over 200 privately owned stores in over 50 countries. Rosso established the brand name in 1978 while the part-owner of a small clothing manufacturing company, of which he became sole proprietor in 1985. By 2003, the brand’s worldwide revenue had crossed $760 million. While the brand’s primary product is denim, particularly jeans, it designs, manufactures, and markets trendy consumer products from underwear to sunglasses. Rosso’s motto is “Diesel is not my company, it’s my life.”

Jehiel Oliver is the CEO and the Founder of Hello Tractor; he is responsible for overall management and strategy. He has been honoured with numerous awards for his work in social entrepreneurship, including being recognized by Foreign Policy Magazine as a Top 100 Global Thinker for 2016. He was appointed under the Obama Administration to serve two years as a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, where he chaired the technology subcommittee.

Deepinder Goyal is the CEO and Founder of Zomato. Prior to starting Zomato, he worked as a management consultant with Bain and Company in New Delhi. It was at Bain that Goyal had the idea of an online restaurant information service after seeing the demand for menu cards among his colleagues. He left the organization in 2008 to start Zomato (then foodiebay) out of his apartment and has since overseen strategy and product development. Zomato, founded in 2008 and is India’s most extensive restaurant guide listing over more than 50,000 restaurants across more than 15 cities in the country, including Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Indore and Chandigarh. His organization, Zomato, was started by IIT Delhi alumni in July 2008 for Delhi NCR and has since expanded its services across the country and the globe, including international markets that are part of the Middle East and South-East Asia.

After becoming the CEO of Semler & Company (Semco) in 1980, Ricardo Semler began a long quest to create an organization that could function without him by studying and then implementing what could best be called ‘corporate democracy’, by allowing employees to design their own jobs, select their own supervisors, and define their pay levels. He then applied the same principles to education, banking and hospitality—all with impressive results. Semler is now promoting the idea of designing organizations, companies, schools and NGOs for wisdom. With a question as a starting point: If we were to start from scratch, would we create organization X the way we have done it?

Vandana Luthra is a successful Indian women entrepreneur and Founder of VLCC Health Care Ltd. The organization is a wellness and beauty conglomerate represented in Asia, the GCC and Africa. Due to her outstanding contribution to the world of business, she has won multiple awards, including the Padma Shri. In 2010, she was awarded the Women Entrepreneur Of The Year by The Enterprise Asia. Luthra also had the rare achievement of being featured in Fortune Magazine’s list of ’50 Most Powerful Women in Business in India’ five times in a row.

Prof. Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society. Prof. Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017.  She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organizational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her most recent book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley, 2019), offers a practical guide for organizations serious about success in the modern economy and has been translated into 15 languages.

Dr Ruth Gotian is the Chief Learning Officer and Assistant Professor of Education in Anesthesiology and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by the journal Nature and Columbia University as an expert in mentorship and leadership development. In 2021, she was selected as one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, dubbed the Oscars of management thinking, and by August, was shortlisted as the top eight emerging management thinkers in the world. She is also a semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. In addition to publishing in academic journals, she is a contributor to Forbes and Psychology Today where she writes about ‘optimizing success’. Her research is about the mindset and skillset of peak performers, including Nobel laureates, astronauts and Olympic champions. She has recently published her new book in January 2022, The Success Factor that is already listed as a best-seller.

Andrew Youn has lived in rural East Africa for more than 12 years and observed one of the world’s largest civilizations living in poverty: smallholder farmers. In 2006, he was inspired after meeting two farmers in Kenya working on similar plots of land. One family was going hungry, and one was thriving, harvesting four times as much food. He began asking questions. Based on his findings, he established One Acre Fund, a non-profit fighting extreme poverty in Africa. Today, his organization directly serves more than 1.3 million farm families in sub-Saharan Africa, providing them with quality farm products and the essential training to harvest more food and grow their way out of poverty.

Tiq Milan speaks and writes about transgender rights, intersectional leadership and racial justice. He shares stories of his life and how his transgender experience has changed his views on race, masculinity and the gender binary. Milan was a journalist for over a decade; his work has been featured on Buzzfeed, MIC, NBC and CNN. He also serves as a Strategic Media Consultant, helping organizations and companies create detailed media campaigns that inform and engage diverse audiences in inclusive and authentic ways. Milan was also the Senior Media Strategist and National Spokesperson for GLAAD. He utilized the media to call attention to the needs of the LGBT community, particularly transgender people of colour.

Adrian Cheng is a renowned Hong Kong businessman and CEO and Executive Vice-Chairman of the Hong Kong-listed New World Development and Founder of the K11 brand. He is the son of Hong Kong property developer Henry Cheng and the grandson of billionaire Cheng Yu-tung. Adrian Cheng is the third-generation heir of one of China’s most influential business families and the mastermind behind Chow Tai Fook, one of the world’s most successful jewellery brands and a board member of Roberto Cavalli. The company boasts 1,500 outlets in Greater China, and a market capitalization double that of Tiffany & Co.

Akio Toyoda is the CEO & President of Toyota Motor Corporation. He is the grandson of the great Kiichiro Toyoda, the man behind establishing the automotive giant Toyota Motor. Toyoda has proved his worth as an able President by heading his company to peak through multiple severe crises like international recession, recalls and the notorious 2011 tsunami. As an avid auto racing fan and driver himself, Toyoda has promoted sports models like the Lexus IS-F and Lexus LF-A at auto races. In 2012, he was named Autocar’s Man of the Year.

Dr. Diane Hamilton is the Founder and CEO of Tonerra, a consulting and media-based business. She is a nationally syndicated radio host, keynote speaker, and the former MBA Program Chair at the Forbes School of Business. Dr. Hamilton has authored multiple books required in universities worldwide, including Cracking the Curiosity Code: The Key to Unlocking Human Potential and The Power of Perception: Eliminating Boundaries to Create Successful Global Leaders. She is the creator of the Curiosity Code Index® assessment, the first and only assessment that determines the factors that inhibit curiosity and the Perception Power Index, which determines the factors that impact the perception process. Thinkers50 Radar has also chosen her as one of the top minds in management and leadership.

Kevin Plank is an eminent American Entrepreneur, he is the Founder, Executive Chairman and Brand Chief of the famous sports apparel brand Under Armour. His company is the second-largest sportswear vendor in the whole of America, picking up sales of around 3.8 billion USD this year. With 25 years of outfitting athletes with the world’s most innovative performance apparel, footwear, and equipment, Plank now oversees a global company of more than 14,000 employees with a net worth of $9.45Billion. With a clearly defined purpose: We Empower Those Who Strive For More, Under Armour products are sold globally and are worn by athletes at all levels.

Dr. Oleg Konovalov is a Global Thought Leader, Author, Business Educator, Consultant, and C-Suite Coach with over 25 years of experience operating businesses and consulting Fortune 500 companies both in the UK and internationally. He has been named ‘the da Vinci of Visionary Leadership’ by many leading authorities of our time. Dr. Konovalov is named among the top eight global experts in leadership and shortlisted for the Distinguished Award in Leadership by Thinkers50. He is on Global Gurus Top 30 in Leadership, has been recognized as #1 Global Thought Leader on Culture by Thinkers 360, is #1 Global Leading Coach (Marshall Goldsmith Thinkers50) and has been named as one of the Top 10 Most Inspiring Global Thought Leaders. He is the author of The Vision Code (2021), LEADEROLOGY (2019), Corporate Superpower (2018), Organisational Anatomy (2016), and Hidden Russia (2014).

Ramanan is the Founder of Papi’s Pickles, a food social enterprise, providing fresh and tasty South Indian and Sri Lankan food, and pickles for events, pop-ups and street food markets. It is made by women chefs from these communities who relocated to the UK during and after the conflict in Sri Lanka. She is also the co-chair at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions. She is also part of the Advisory Board of EAT Foundation, a science-based global platform for food system transformation. Ramanan is also the Founder of ImpactVision, a company learning to tackle the $1 trillion food waste problem that was acquired by Apeel Sciences in February 2020.

Dr. Maja Zelihic is an Interim Dean, Fulbright Specialist, Full Professor, and a Department Chair of the Advanced Management Studies at the Forbes School of Business and Technology, University of Arizona Global Campus. She is currently serving her Fulbright tenure, having completed one project as a primary investigator, and another as a co-investigator. Dr. Zelihic is also a GLOBE research project Country-Co-Investigator, contributing to the unique large-scale study of cultural practices, leadership ideals, and interpersonal trust GLOBE conducted in 160 countries. She was also named one of the top 200 leaders to follow in 2021 by PeopleHum.

Tea Uglow leads a part of Google’s Creative Lab, specializing in working with artists, writers, cultural organizations, and producers on digital technology experiments at the boundaries of traditional cultural practice. Uglow is a commendable Inclusion and Diversity Leader leading the charge as an empowered Transgender Woman in the Corporate World. For nearly ten years, she worked at Google and started Google’s Creative Lab in Europe in 2012, building a Creative Lab for the Asia Pacific region in Sydney, Australia.

Ilwad Elman is the CEO at Elman Peace and Human Rights Center, where she oversees the organization’s human rights, gender justice, countering violent extremism, and peacebuilding efforts. She is the youngest advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ Peacebuilding Fund, an advocate for the Kofi Annan Foundation and former mentee of the late Kofi Annan, and expert advisor to the UN Youth, Peace and Security agenda and a global board member for UNICEF on the Generation Unlimited initiative. Ilwad received the Gleitsman International Activist Award from Harvard in 2015, 2016 Right the Wrongs Award from Oxfam America, and the 2017 BET Global Good Star Award, among other notable awards and recognitions.

Jason deCaires Taylor is an Environmentalist, Sculptor and Professional Underwater Photographer. He was the first of a new generation of artists to alter the concept of land art to a different medium: Marine Environment. His evolving sculptures support the lifecycle of the aquatic organisms as they are made from pH neutral cement, which shows Taylor’s concern goes beyond just the aesthetics of his artworks. He has opened the first underwater sculpture Museum globally and continues to share his art with the people.

Dr. Amel Karboul is known for her work to inspire a new generation of responsible leaders, teams and organizations to create breakthroughs in their thinking, transform themselves, and work towards a just and sustainable future. She is the Founder and CEO of The Education Outcomes Fund (EOF), which helps significantly improve learning and employment outcomes by tying funding to measurable results. Together with the Education Commission, she has played a leading role in a major global initiative engaging world leaders, policymakers, and researchers. Dr. Karboul has also built The Maghreb Economic Forum (MEF). She also co-led the establishment of the first democratic society in the Arab nation, began the economic reform and created and deployed effective pioneering digital media engagement between government and citizens on a limited budget as a cabinet minister.

Shameran Abed is the Senior Director at BRAC’s Ultra-poor Graduation program, which has helped more than two million households in Bangladesh ‘graduate’ from the acute forms of poverty and social deprivation. The program’s impact in Bangladesh has inspired BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) to scale the Graduation approach through integration in existing government social protection programs in countries with the most significant potential for impact. By scaling Graduation through government integration, BRAC UPGI aims to help 21 million more people out of extreme poverty. In addition, Abed leads BRAC’s microfinance program, which serves more than seven million clients in seven countries in Asia and Africa.

Shani Dhanda is a 3’10 world-renowned disability specialist, diagnosed with osteogenesis imperfecta. She is listed as one of the UK’s most influential disabled people. As a practitioner and keynote speaker for inclusion across business, government, non-profit and broader society, Dhanda helps organizations break barriers and integrate inclusion into their business frameworks. Dhanda also founded and leads Diversability, Asian Woman Festival and Asian Disability Network. All three disruptive platforms are unite78.d by the common purpose of empowering underrepresented communities.

Elise Roy is a deaf human-centred designer, former lawyer, and motivational speaker who works in the vanguard of the disruptive innovation movement. She previously owned an Inclusive Design Firm whose clients included the National Science Foundation and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. She is currently the VP/ Principal Architect at Salesforce. Her TEDx talk, ‘When we Design for Disability, We All Benefit,’ had over 1 million views in less than three months after headlining TED.com.

Dr. Emily Leproust is the CEO and Co-Founder of Twist Bioscience, which drives new applications for DNA writing to address the global challenges of therapeutic development, public health, sustainability and food insecurity. Foreign Policy named her as one of the leading ‘Global Thinkers’ for fast-tracking the building blocks of life, and Fast Company highlighted her as one of the ‘Most Creative People in Business’ for synthesizing DNA faster than ever. She earned her PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Houston and her MSc in industrial chemistry from the Lyon School of Industrial Chemistry in France. Dr. Leproust has authored more than 30
peer-reviewed publications and numerous patents.

Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro is the Former President & CEO of the Global Fund for Women, she currently chairs the International Board of 18 colleges that make up the United World Colleges. During her time at the Global Fund for Women, Dr. Kanyoro has seen the organization allot nearly $150 million in grantmaking. Before joining the foundation, she was the Director for Population and Reproductive Health at David and Lucile Packard Foundation, handling a $30 million grantmaking portfolio. She has written and published extensively on matters affecting the lives of children and women. She was also a visiting scholar at Harvard; in 2015, Forbes named her one of 10 women ‘power brands’ working for gender equality.

Amit Sood is the Director at Google’s Cultural Institute. Sood and his team work on making art and culture accessible and engaging for everyone across the globe. They have partnered with over 1,000 archives, museums and other institutions from more than 70 countries to bring our shared heritage onto the web and connect them with people through new technologies. They have recently experimented with combining art with machine learning algorithms and other advanced technologies to create new ways to explore our cultures.

Audrey Choi is the CEO of Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing. She is also the Head and Managing Director of Morgan Stanley’s Global Sustainable Finance Group. She oversees the firm’s efforts to support resilient communities and promote global sustainability and economic opportunity through the capital markets. Choi is also a member of President Obama’s US Community Development Advisory Board and on the boards of several national nonprofits focused on impact investing, education and conservation. Choi is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.

Dr. Andrew Forrest is the Chairman of Fortescue Metals Group. In 2001, he co-founded Minderoo Foundation with his wife, Nicola. Ever since he has donated more than AU$2 billion to its core initiatives and more than 280 causes worldwide. Never backing down by the scale of a challenge, Dr. Forrest devotes his relentless energy to tackling some of the world’s most significant problems, including Indigenous disparity, modern slavery and cancer. In 2021, Fortescue announced its commitment to become zero-emissions by 2030 and created Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), a developer, financier, and operator of a global portfolio of renewable energy resources.

Lindsay is the Founder and CEO of Queer Kid Studios, a multimedia production company based in Portland, Maine, with queer-focused, intersectional all-ages media. She is an LGBTQ+ activist and digital creator, a true pioneer in queer and children’s media. Lindsay is also a Creative Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm, a TED Resident and was named a Rising Star by GLAAD, a Queero by them.us were a Webby Honoree. She secured grants from the Made in NYC Women’s Media Fund, the Awesome Project and VidCon’s Emerging Creator program for her breakthrough in queer media.

Angélica Dass is an Award-Winning Photographer whose art combines photography with sociological research and public participation in the defence of human rights globally. She is the creator of the internationally acclaimed Humanæ Project—a collection of portraits that reveal the diverse beauty of human colours. The initiative has travelled to more than 80 cities across six continents — from National Geographic to The World Economic Forum— to promote conversations that challenge how we think about skin colour and ethnic identity.

Prof. David Gruber is a marine biologist and ocean explorer who provides a wealth of new insights into a secret ‘language’ of the bright colours and sounds that help many marine creatures interact, communicate and avoid enemies. His interdisciplinary research builds bridges between marine biology, biophysics, climate science and animal communication while his inventions deploy groundbreaking technology to help humans view the underwater world from the perspective of those who call it home. Prof. Gruber also assembled the scientific team for Project CETI, a nonprofit organization and 2020 Audacious Project that has applied advanced machine learning and non-invasive robotics to listen to and translate the communication of whales.

Tara Winkler is the Co-Founder of the Cambodian Children’s Trust (CCT). Over the last 14 years, she has led CCT through several significant organizational milestones, including the transition from an orphanage to a family empowerment model called the Village Hive. Today, CCT is a grassroots, community-led organization focused on shifting power to local communities to achieve sustainable, systemic change. Her TED Talk ‘Why we need to end the era of orphanages’ has received over a million views. Winkler’s book ‘How (NOT) to Start an Orphanage’ was published by Allen & Unwin in 2006.

Sara Sanford is the Architect behind the GEN Certification, the first gold standard for gender equity in US businesses and the Founder of Gender Equity Now (GEN). Sanford is also a guest faculty member at the University of Washington’s School of Information. Her track record of implementing evidence-backed solutions includes launching an international nonprofit to support rural education, leading an initiative around women and wealth in the financial services industry and working with local foundations to foster cultural competence in Washington’s K-12 schools. She observed that systemic problems are difficult to change through individual actions. With these findings, she changed her focus on mechanics rather than mindsets and founded GEN.

Roman Mars is the host and creator of 99% Invisible, a short radio show about design and architecture. With nearly 500 million downloads, the 99% Invisible podcast is one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Fast Company named him one of the 100 Most Creative People in 2013. He was a TED main stage speaker in 2015. It is currently the most popular TED Talk about design with over 6.5 million views. His crowdfunding campaigns have raised over $4 million and he’s the highest-funded journalist in Kickstarter history. He is also a co-founder of Radiotopia, a collective of ground-breaking independent podcasts. Most recently, he co-authored The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, a beautifully designed and illustrated New York Times best-selling book about the built world.

Tristan Harris is the Founder of the new Center for Humane Technology and was also Google’s Design Ethicist, who developed a framework for how technology should ‘ethically’ guide the thoughts and actions of people from screens. Harris has spent a decade understanding the invisible influences that affect human thinking. He has been called ‘the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience’ by The Atlantic magazine. His work has been featured on TED, ’60 Minutes,’ PBS NewsHour,’ Recode, HBO’s ‘RealTime with Bill Maher,’ ‘ The Atlantic, WIRED, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Economist and many more.

Yasmin Grigaliunas, CEO and Co-Founder of World’s Biggest Garage Sale (WBGS), is a circular economy pioneer in Australia, driving this industry forward by innovating, collaborating, connecting and mobilizing multiple stakeholders towards a shared vision while providing social good. In 2020, in the middle of the global pandemic, Grigaliunas and her team opened Australia’s first and only operational Circular Economy Precinct in Brisbane. To date, the organization has diverted over 4.3-million kgs of potential waste from landfills.

She is the Managing Director and Founder of Bits x Bites, China’s first food tech accelerator and VC fund that invests in entrepreneurs tackling global food problems. With a vision to shape the future of food, Bits x Bites is a big step towards inspiring China’s entrepreneurial community to brainstorm and find new ideas to tackle global issues. It also acts as a catalyst to give startups the confidence and connections to excel and make a meaningful and scalable impact. Bits x Bites has invested in companies that include a drinkable salad CPG startup, a silkworm-based snack food startup and a young company building weatherproof, cloud-connected farms to enable local food production by anyone anywhere.

Doreen Kessy is the COO of Ubongo in Africa, an educational platform that uses media to make it more engaging and interactive. The company provides educational material at high volume and scale and at a low cost to make it accessible for everybody. Almost 6.4 million households in 31 countries listen, watch, and learn from the company’s cartoons each week, improving math and even school readiness rates. In addition, the cartoons have also been shown to impact caregivers’ behaviour positively. In one of their cartoons, Akili and Me, children from the ages three to six join Akili in Lala Land, where they learn drawing, numbers, English and letters.

Dr. Marc Harrison is the CEO of a non-profit healthcare company, Civica Rx – he’s an influential and disruptive figure in healthcare, looking for innovative ways to make medication accessible for everyone. Under his watch, he wants to eliminate shortfalls and price hikes and prevent people from suffering at the hand of industry whims. He is also the President and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare and the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, a position he has held since December 2012. He also is a Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and a Professor of Bioengineering and of Neurobiology..

He is the Founder of FAIR, a spirit brand on a mission to support farmers in developing countries for the last decade. The organization ensures that all workers who grow the crops are paid a fair rate for their service. Koiransky believes that we can leverage capitalism in rich countries to support farming communities in places like Belize, Salvador, Bolivia, Uzbekistan, Malawi, Paraguay, and other countries worldwide to create thriving communities. Fairtrade standards promote the key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): clean water and sanitation, decent work conditions, no poverty, gender equality and economic growth and responsible consumption and production. FAIR is also on a journey to use no plastic by the end of 2022.

Shawn Achor has become one of the world’s leading experts on connecting happiness and success. His research on mindset made the cover of Harvard Business Review, his TED talk is one of the most popular of all time with over 13 million views, and millions have seen his lecture airing on PBS. Achor has lectured or worked with over a third of the Fortune 100 companies and the NFL, the NBA, the Pentagon, and the White House. Shawn is the author of the New York Times best-selling books The Happiness Advantage (2010) and Big Potential (2018). He has now lectured in more than 50 countries, speaking to CEOs in China, doctors in Dubai, schoolchildren in South Africa, and farmers in Zimbabwe. His Happiness Advantage training is one of the largest and most successful positive psychology corporate training programs globally.

Basima Abdulrahman is a renowned climate trailblazer and passionately works on green building projects in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. She is a World Economic Forum Foundation Board Member, Cultural Leader, and a sought-after speaker at Davos, UNESCO and various international events. She is appointed as Erbil Chapter Chairperson for The Iraq Britain Business Council Young Executives Network. She was selected to co-chair the 2019 WEF Annual Meeting in Davos. She was featured on TIME’s magazine, Inhabitat, Forbes, WEF Agenda, Real Leaders magazine, and other platforms for leading the green building mission in Iraq. Abdulrahman is an Accredited Professional by the U.S. Green Building Council.

She is the Founder & CEO of Aether Beauty, a clean vegan beauty company that harnesses the power of nature. Abbitt incorporated sustainability into the DNA of her company at the outset, and after a career working at a leading cosmetics manufacturer, she became intrigued with sustainability as it relates to every aspect of the beauty products industry. Being a global brand, Abbitt quickly learned that there are only 11 banned chemicals in colour cosmetics in the USA, while in the European Union, there are over 1300. Due to this, she learned to formulate colour cosmetics with an extensive chemical ban list and how to substitute for cleaner alternatives. Abbitt started to look at natural makeup formulations and found that none of the offerings could genuinely compete with conventional beauty companies. The space lacked choice of colour and trend and genuinely sustainable packaging. Plastic makeup componentry is a significant source of pollution globally. Abbitt has since changed that and worked to create an ethically-sustainable brand, not just in the formulation, but in everything that Āether Beauty makes.

Susan Cain is the author of the bestsellers Quiet Journal, Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages, is in its seventh year on the New York Times bestseller list and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company magazine, which also named Cain one of its Most Creative People in Business. LinkedIn named her the 6th Top Influencer in the world. Susan has partnered with Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant and Dan Pink to launch the Next Big Idea Book Club and they donate all their proceeds to children’s literacy programs. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 30 million times on TED.com and YouTube combined and was named by Bill Gates one of his all-time favourite talks.

Tom Szaky is the Founder and CEO of TerraCycle, a global leader in collecting and repurposing complex waste streams. Tom and his organization have received hundreds of social, environmental and business awards and recognition from various organizations, including the United Nations, Fortune Magazine, World Economic Forum, Schwab Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is also the author of four books, Revolution in a Bottle (2009), Outsmart Waste (2014), Make Garbage Great (2015) and The Future of Packaging (2018). Tom has created, produced and starred in TerraCycle’s reality show, ‘Human Resources’, which has aired on Pivot and is syndicated in more than 20 foreign markets on Amazon and iTunes.