Global 100 Inspirational Leaders - 2023

Volodymyr Zelensky was elected as the President of Ukraine in 2019. His leadership during the Russian invasion of Ukraine won him global praise. President Zelensky became the face of Ukrainian resistance, and his entertainment background and media-savvy personality gave Ukraine a weapon like no other. In the information war, the winner was unquestionably Zelensky. In a move that was lauded worldwide, when the United States offered to evacuate him from the combat zone, Zelensky reportedly said, “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.” In response, the western countries flooded Ukraine with surface-to-air missile systems and antitank weapons. The sanctions regime imposed against Russia was among the most severe in history, and the Russian economy reeled as a result. Currently, President Zelensky is still holding out against the Russian invasion of his country and hopes to emerge victorious.

Elon Reeve Musk is a leading technology entrepreneur, business magnate, and investor. He is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer of SpaceX; the Angel Investor, CEO, and Product Architect of Tesla, Inc.; the Founder of The Boring Company; Co-Founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; President of the Musk Foundation; and Owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc. He recently acquired the social media platform in 2022 and is planning to reimagine the site for a better customer experience that will allow all its users the right to free speech. He has also greatly aided the Ukrainian army in their war against Russia by donating roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units to the Ukrainian government in 2022 to help their military connect its drones to attack the Russian forces.

Charles Philip Arthur George is the King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and, at age 73, has become the oldest person to accede to the British throne following the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, on September 8th, 2022. During his time as the Prince of Wales, Charles undertook official duties on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II. He founded the youth charity the Prince’s Trust in 1976, sponsors the Prince’s Charities, and is a Patron, President, or a member of over 400 other charities and organizations. An environmentalist, Charles supports organic farming and action to prevent climate change during his time as the manager of the Duchy of Cornwall estates, earning him awards and recognition from environmental groups. He has advocated for the conservation of historic buildings and the importance of architecture in society.

Gautam Shantilal Adani is an Indian billionaire tycoon. He is the Chairman and Founder of Adani Group, an Ahmedabad-based multinational conglomerate involved in port development and operations in India. His once regional business has now spanned across airports, private ports, solar and thermal power, and consumer goods. Adani Group is now a national behemoth in the world’s sixth-largest economy, competing with Warren Buffet to become the 5th richest person worldwide. He briefly became the second richest person in the world in September 2022 with a net worth of $156.3 billion. Adani is also the President of the organization’s philanthropic arm, the Adani Foundation, which his wife, Priti Adani, primarily leads. To commemorate the occasion of World Health Day in 2022, the foundation delivered 0.4 million treatments annually across India to underprivileged communities in a bid to make healthcare services accessible to the rural population.

Jeff Bezos founded the e-commerce behemoth Amazon in 1994 out of his garage. He stepped down as CEO to become executive chairman in July 2021. Bezos now owns a bit less than 10% of the company. In addition, he also owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin, an aerospace company developing rockets. Blue Origin has had 22 successful consecutive missions, including three successful escape tests, showing the crew escape system can activate safely in any phase of flight, leading the path for Bezos to Space Leadership. He briefly flew to space in one in July 2021. In 2022, Bezos also donated more than $400 million worth of stock to nonprofits and intends to donate most of his wealth to charity within the course of his lifetime.

Christine Lagarde is a French lawyer and politician who was the first woman to serve as France’s Finance Minister (2007–11), as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF; 2011–19), and as President of the European Central Bank (2019– current). She currently oversees the European Central Bank—a role previously dominated by male academic economists. In 2022, with inflation at a record high in the eurozone, Lagarde faced one of her most demanding challenges: stabilizing price rises amid a war in the Frankfurt-based central bank’s backyard. Yet, she rose victorious and has done well to stabilize the economy and manage rising inflation rates in the European continent.

Larry Page co-founded Google with fellow Stanford peer Sergey Brin in 1998. Together they invented Google’s PageRank algorithm, which powers the search engine. He is known for his philanthropy and has donated thousands of Google shares to charity; Page has continuously funded non-profits for numerous causes. In 2018, he donated a portion of his Google earnings to the Carl Victor Page Memorial Foundation, a charity organization named after his father. In 2014, he gave away $25 million through the same foundation and Google to aid against Ebola. Larry Page is one of the few billionaires who constantly uses his money to invest in technology and causes close to him. The former Google CEO is currently investing in start-ups developing Flying Cars, which will be the future of transportation, according to the billionaire.

Satya Nadella is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft. Before being named CEO in February 2014, Nadella held leadership roles in enterprise and consumer businesses. Joining Microsoft in 1992, he quickly became known as a leader who could span a breadth of technologies and businesses to transform some of Microsoft’s most extensive product offerings. In 2022, he aims to support inclusive economic growth, and in order to do that, he feels that they must ensure that the growth they drive must reach every person, organization, community, and country. Nadella aims to achieve this goal by increasing access to digital skills and helping people prepare better and connect to jobs. Microsoft has committed to equipping 10 million people from underserved communities with skills for employment in the digital economy by 2025.

Pope Francis is the Pope and the spiritual leader of more than one-sixth of the world’s population. He is an ardent advocate for sustainability and has raised climate change concerns. In 2022, the Vatican placed its flagship sustainability push, the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, in May, hoping that a week highlighting the multiyear initiative will inspire more Catholics and church institutions to sign up. Each day of the week was centered on one of the seven thematic goals – response to the cry of the earth; response to the cry of the poor; ecological economics; adoption of simple lifestyles; ecological education; ecological spirituality; community engagement and participatory action. Pope Francis is also the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church to support ‘civil union’ laws for same-sex couples. Speaking in a film documentary, the Pope called for the creation of such laws. He said, “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God.”

Mukesh Ambani is the Managing Director, Chairman, and the most significant shareholder of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), a Fortune Global 500 company and India’s most valuable company by market value. Reliance sparked a telecom price war with the launch of the 4G phone and broadband service Jio in 2016. Today, it has more than 410 million subscribers and has launched 5G services in four metro cities of India: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata; and plans to launch it in every town by December 2023. He also donates to various causes in the country, including his donation of Rs 250 million to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) along with his son Anant to provide relief to the people reeling under the devastating floods in Assam in June 2022 that claimed 180 lives.

Rishi Sunak is the United Kingdom’s first Prime Minister of color and the first Hindu in office, both milestones in Britain’s evolution as a multicultural and multi-faith society. Sunak started his journey in British politics when he was elected to the House of Commons for Richmond in North Yorkshire at the 2015 general election. He supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum on EU membership and was appointed to Theresa May’s second government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government in the 2018 reshuffle. Sunak then replaced Sajid Javid as Chancellor of the Exchequer after Javid’s resignation in the February 2020 cabinet reshuffle. As Chancellor, Sunak was prominent in the government’s financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact, including the Coronavirus Job Retention and Eat Out to Help Out schemes. After Truss’s resignation amid a government crisis, Sunak was elected unopposed as Leader of the Conservative Party on October 24th, 2022.

Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple and serves on its Board of Directors. Before being named CEO in August 2011, Tim was Apple’s Chief Operating Officer and was responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and played a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace. According to a Business Insider report published on November 3rd, 2022, Apple accounts for the same market valuation as  Alphabet ($1.126 trillion), Amazon ($940 billion), and Meta ($240 billion) put together, which is worth $2.307 trillion. Under Tim’s remarkable leadership, Apple defied the trend of declining valuations of tech companies and inspired trust among consumers in the brand.

Mary Barra is the first woman to lead one of the big three automakers in the United States since she assumed the role of CEO at General Motors in 2014. Under her leadership, the company has consistently scored highly in gender equity reports; in 2018, it was one of only two global businesses with no gender pay gap. Barra is very hopeful about the future of electric transport and has invested billions in electric vehicles, self-driving cars, and a ride-share service called Maven. In 2022, she pledged GM’s commitment to go all-electric for their light-duty fleet by 2035, an ambitious commitment that she plans to deliver and reduce the company’s carbon emissions for a sustainable future.

President Biden nominated Judge Jackson on February 25th, 2022, to become the 116th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and the first Black woman to ever sit on the Court. Her dedication to fighting for human and civil rights and her deep commitment to equal justice make her qualified to lead this position and rule with integrity and honor. Due to her impeccable leadership, she has received numerous awards throughout her career. In 2021, Columbia University’s Law School awarded her its Constance Baker Motley Award for empowering women of color and demonstrating a ‘legacy of giving back to the community.’ In her acceptance speech, Judge Jackson said that “the responsibility” of being a judge is “doing the work necessary to protect the rule of law and to promote equality and justice for all.”

Andy Jassy is the President and CEO of Amazon.com and serves on the Board of Directors. After assuming the role of CEO, in just a year, Jassy has tried to pivot the company from incurring losses during the upcoming recessions. He has delved deep into logistics and other parts of the business that his predecessor left to deputies. He cut costs by admitting that Amazon was overbuilt and oversaw tumultuous leadership changes while striking a conciliatory tone with employees while maintaining Amazon’s long-held and often aggressive opposition to unions. Jassy was also the man behind the launch of Amazon Web Services(AWS) in 2006 and turned it into the dominant force in cloud infrastructure. In Amazon’s earnings report, the company said AWS revenue increased 28% to $12.7 billion. AWS has reshaped how companies buy technology by simplifying computing services into component pieces and offering them for rent over the internet.

Richard Branson is a businessman, philanthropist, and founder of the famous Virgin Group. He is a serial entrepreneur who has turned all his life’s low points into lessons that have helped him rise to perfection and master the art of business. In recent years, Richard Branson’s focus has shifted to more innovative forms of entrepreneurship now that he has established himself as a self-made billionaire. In 2022, some of his most ambitious projects were a high-speed train line in the United Kingdom and a $25 million plan to stop global warming and aid in space travel tours to mark his leadership in this upcoming industry.

Daniel H. Schulman is the President and CEO of PayPal, formerly serving as group president of enterprise growth at American Express. Schulman was responsible for American Express’ global strategy to expand alternative mobile and online payment services, form new partnerships, and build revenue streams beyond the traditional card and travel businesses. As the CEO of payments appl, in 2022, in support of Ukraine, Dan launched a campaign that enabled customers to donate to support international relief charities focused on providing both humanitarian aid within Ukraine as well as refugee support. These charities included the International Rescue Committee (IRC), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Direct Relief, and Save the Children. In addition, they have launched an employee-focused campaign supporting the leading non-profit relief organizations listed above. All donations made by employees through this effort were amplified by a company match.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under President Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009. His government has advocated against climate change and hopes to reduce emissions dramatically. In August 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law, a domestic spending bill born out of continued negotiations on the Build Back Better Act that fulfilled some of its initial provisions. The bill included significant federal investment in domestic clean energy production, combatting climate change, and healthcare. It aims to reduce US carbon emissions by 40% from peak 2005 levels by 2030, including a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies and empowered Medicare to begin negotiating lower prescription drug costs for the first time.

Brian Chesky is an American businessman and the Co-Founder and CEO of the peer-to-peer lodging service Airbnb. 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 while revolutionizing the future of work. In 2022, Airbnb’s shift to a remote work model has received high praise since its unveiling on April 28th, with one critic calling it “the best hybrid work plan” to be announced yet. Under its new policy, salaries for US and Canadian employees will be determined by a single pay tier for a given role instead of location-based tiers. In addition, Airbnb’s more than 6,000 employees can work from over 170 countries for up to three months to a year.”

Gregory Robinson is the former Program Director of the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), which clicked spectacular images of space for the first time in 2022. His focus is on development efficiency, management processes, contractor performance, and mission success. Formerly the Deputy Associate Administrator for programs at NASA Science Mission Directorate, he ensured high performance during the development and operations of 114 science flight projects. Robinson held the position of Deputy Director of NASA’s John Glenn Research Center, consisting of 3,200 employees, where the scope spans research and technology, aeronautics, science spaceflight, and human spaceflight. He served as NASA’s Deputy Chief Engineer for several years, leading engineering, program, and project management strategy, policy, implementation rigor, and performance management. He was intricately engaged with the last 21 shuttle launches post-Columbia Shuttle accident and numerous satellite developments and launches.

Sundar Pichai is the Chief Executive Officer of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google. Under his leadership, Google has focused on developing products and services powered by the latest advances in AI that offer help in big and small moments. It has invested in new opportunities such as Google Cloud and YouTube and has continued to be a leader in advanced technologies, including machine learning and quantum computing. In 2022, the company donated 30,000 Pixel phones for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees arriving in the US. The company has also contributed $1 million each in grant funding and search advertisements. This donation is a part of Pichai’s participation in the Welcome.US CEO Council. He posted on Twitter, “Tools like Google Translate help refugees communicate with their new communities. Today, we donate 30,000 Pixel phones to Welcome.US CEO Council so more Ukrainian and Afghan newcomers can feel at home in the US.”

Ursula von der Leyen has been President of the European Commission since 2019. As the head of the European Union’s executive, she has defined six headline ambitions for Europe for her mandate: a European Green Deal, a Europe fit for the digital age, an economy that works for people, a stronger Europe in the world, promoting the European way of life, and a new push for European democracy. Before joining the Commission, Von der Leyen held several federal ministerial portfolios in Germany, including Defence Minister, Minister for labor and social affairs, and Family Minister. She also expressed support for the war-hit country of Ukraine and pushed for giving them EU status, which was granted on June 23rd, 2022.

Laurence D. Fink is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock. He and seven partners founded BlackRock in 1988, and under his leadership, the firm has grown into a global leader in investment and technology solutions. Fink is very vocal about companies taking action on climate change. In an open letter in 2022, he said, “The transition will transform every company and every industry to a net-zero world. The question is, will you lead, or will you be led?”. To further this cause, BlackRock has partnered with Temasek in 2022 to establish Decarbonization Partners, a USD $600M partnership that will invest in companies providing solutions that reduce carbon emissions and accelerate the transition to a net zero economy.

Narendra Damodardas Modi is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and the current and longest-serving Prime Minister of India from outside the Indian National Congress. In the 2014 and 2019 Parliamentary elections, Mr Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to record wins, securing an absolute majority on both occasions. The last time a political party secured such an absolute majority was in the elections of 1984. He previously served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. As a Prime Minister, Modi has received consistently high approval ratings; at the end of his first year in office, he received an overall approval rating of 87% in a Pew Research poll, with 68% of people rating him “very favorably” and 93% approving of his government.

Known as the ‘Oracle of Omaha,’ Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors of all time, with a net worth of over $100 billion as of November 2022, making him the world’s sixth-wealthiest person. He is currently the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, an American multinational conglomerate. He is noted for his adherence to value investing and his frugality despite his immense wealth. In 2022, Buffett splashed into his reserves, buying at an aggressive pace that’s generally not seen from the Oracle of Omaha. Activision Blizzard ATVI, Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY, and HP Inc. HPQ were all new additions by Buffett in 2022. Of the three, ATVI is the most exciting play from Buffett, and his OXY purchase reflects a further focus on the energy boom.

Jensen Huang is a Taiwanese-American billionaire business magnate, electrical engineer, Co-Founder of Nvidia Corporation, and its President and CEO. Under Huang, Nvidia became a dominant force in computer gaming chips and has expanded to design chips for data centers and autonomous cars. The company’s invention of the GPU in 1999 made possible real-time programmable shading, which defined modern computer graphics, and later revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU deep learning ignited modern AI — the next era of computing — with the GPU acting as the brain of computers, robots, and self-driving cars that can perceive and understand the world. In 2022, to further boost innovation and research, Huang granted $30 million to Stanford University for an engineering center and $5 million to Oregon Health & Science University for cancer research labs.

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. He also mentors and coaches the leadership team and advises on critical strategic initiatives. In 2022, Linkedin achieved new milestones in inclusion by adding Dyslexic Thinking as a skill and normalizing career breaks by offering 13 options, including caregiving, health, and well-being. In addition to his ongoing work at LinkedIn, Jeff also focused on investing and coaching as a Founding Partner of Next Play Ventures, as well as Founding LP and investment committee member of Concrete Rose Capital. Additionally, as the Co-Founder of The Compassion Project, he is helping to ensure that compassion is taught and practiced in every primary school in theUS.

After being fired by Google in 2020, Timnit Gebru launched the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) in December 2021, which documents the effect of artificial intelligence on marginalized groups, with a particular focus on African immigrants in the United States. In 2022, she is one of the leading voices about both the limits and the possibilities of AI, warning us about what can go wrong when the power goes unchecked in the tech industry. Through her work with Black in AI, she has learned that the number one thing that needs to be done is to empower people from marginalized communities, which is why diversity, inclusion, and ethics are not at all separate. It’s essential to have a wider group of people worldwide determine where AI technology goes and what research questions should be pursued.

Benjamin Netanyahu is the Leader of the HaLikud party and was ousted from power in June 2021 after 12 long years of service as the Prime Minister. However, during the period of turmoil with optimism, Netanyahu defiantly promised: “We’ll be back!” His departure turned out to be brief, with Mr Netanyahu capsizing the new political landscape with a convincing election victory just over a year later. His dramatic comeback has sealed the belief among his supporters that ‘King Bibi’ is politically invincible. Israel’s longest-serving leader, Netanyahu, has won a record five elections to hold office six times – more than any other prime minister in the country’s 74-year history. Netanyahu’s unrivaled success owes much to the image he has cultivated as the person who can best keep Israel safe from hostile forces in the Middle East. In the 2022 parliamentary elections in Israel, his right-wing religious bloc secured 64 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.

Francis Kéré is an internationally renowned Burkinabè architect and the first African to win the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in early March 2022. He is recognized for his pioneering approach to design and sustainable modes of construction. His vocation to become an architect comes from a personal commitment to serving the community he grew up in and a belief in the transformative potential of beauty. In 2004, he designed the Gando Primary School in collaboration with the residents of his hometown while still a student at the Technical University of Berlin. He was awarded the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the construction, garnering critical acclaim from the outset of his career. In 2005 he founded his architectural practice, Kéré Architecture GmbH, as well as the Kéré Foundation e.V., a non-profit organization that pursues projects in Gando.

Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the International Energy Agency since 2015. Under his leadership, the IEA has moved to the forefront of global efforts to reach international climate goals while ensuring that the social and economic impacts of clean energy transitions are at the heart of policy-making and energy security is safeguarded. With new governments joining the IEA, under his tenure, the Agency’s share of global energy demand has risen from 40% to 75%. He chairs the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board. Dr Birol is the recipient of numerous state decorations, including the French Legion of Honour, the Japanese Emperor’s Order of the Rising Sun, the Order of the Polar Star from the King of Sweden, and the highest Presidential decorations from Austria, Germany, and Italy.

Marshall is a renowned thought leader, coach, speaker, and author or editor of 35 books, selling over two million copies and becoming bestsellers in 12 countries. Two of his books, Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, were recognized as among the top 100 books ever written in their field. His latest book, The Earned Life, reveals that the key to living unbound by regret – requires committing to a habit of earning and, crucially, connecting that habit to something greater than the isolated achievements of careerism. Due to his remarkable leadership, he has won numerous awards and accolades including Harvard Business Review and Best Practices Institute – World’s #1 Leadership Thinker, Global Gurus, INC, and Fast Company magazines – World’s #1 Executive Coach, Institute for Management Studies – Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, American Management Association, amongst others.

Adena Friedman is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Nasdaq and is a member of the Board of Directors. She is credited with significantly shaping Nasdaq’s transformation into a leading global exchange and technology solutions company with operations across six continents. In January 2022, Friedman was also elected to the Board of Directors of FCLTGlobal, a nonprofit organization researching tools to encourage long-term investing. In 2022, Under Friedman’s leadership, Nasdaq made a $1 charitable donation to RespectAbility, a diverse, disability-led nonprofit that works to fight stigmas and advance policies and practices that empower people with disabilities to have a better future.

Javier Olivan is the Chief Operating Officer at Meta, replacing Sheryl Sandberg in July 2022. In his current role, he oversees the firm’s business teams and the infrastructure and central products for the company’s family of apps. He joined the company then called Facebook in 2007 and previously served as Meta’s chief growth officer. He has been instrumental in the explosive growth of the company. He oversaw its international moves; Olivan pushed Facebook’s expansion into countries such as India, Japan, Russia, Indonesia, and Brazil. Olivan also worked on the Internet. org, a Facebook effort to bring the internet to less developed countries in 2013. By 2015, due to his efforts, internet.org had connected over 500 million users, out of which 7 million were non-users of the internet.

Robert Iger made a surprise comeback as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company in November 2022 after less than a year of retiring. He previously assumed the role of Executive Chairman in February 2020, having served as Chief Executive Officer since 2005. Under Iger, Disney broadened its roster of intellectual properties, expanded its presence in international markets, and oversaw an increase in the company’s market capitalization from $48 billion to $257 billion. He led the significant acquisitions of Pixar for $7.4 billion, Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion, and the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox for $71.3 billion. Iger also expanded the company’s East Asia theme park presence by introducing Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Shanghai Disney Resort.

Dr Ala Stanford, MD, FAAP, FACS, is an experienced physician with an impeccable record of delivering patient care. In April 2022, President Biden appointed Dr Ala Stanford to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services Region 3 office, which covers all of Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. A pediatric surgeon by trade, Dr Stanford led the consortium in making house calls and operating COVID-19 testing sites during the peak of the pandemic. When the first COVID-19 vaccines arrived last year, the group ran vaccine clinics, including a 24-hour site at the Liacouras Center at Temple University.

Reshma Saujani is a leading activist and the Founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms. She has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women’s and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and, most recently, advocating for policies to support moms impacted by the pandemic. Reshma is also the author of the international bestseller Brave, Not Perfect, and her influential TED talk, “Teach girls, bravery not perfection,” has more than five million views globally. In 2022, during the mass shootings in the US that shocked the education community, Girls Who Code donated to the Robb School Memorial Fund to support the victims’ families.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Dmitry Muratov and other journalists co-founded the newspaper Novaya Gazeta serving as the Editor-In-Chief, which soon became a leading advocate for democracy and freedom of expression in Russia. Under Muratov’s leadership, Novaya Gazeta has criticized the Russian authorities for corruption, electoral fraud, and human rights violations. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, he has auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize medal for $103.5m (£84m). Muratov said all the money from the sale would help refugees from the war in Ukraine. The sale of the gold medal in New York will benefit Unicef’s humanitarian response to help Ukraine’s displaced children.

MacKenzie Scott is a philanthropist, author, and the ex-wife of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, to whom she was married for 25 years. As part of their 2019 divorce, she received a 25% stake in the online retailer. 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 2022, MacKenzie Scott gave $122.6 million to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the national youth-mentoring charity. She also donated $84.5 million to the Girl Scouts of the USA, the most significant donation from a single benefactor in the organization’s history. The money will go toward updating facilities, hiring new staff, and making membership more accessible for girls from all backgrounds.

Eric Yuan founded Zoom in 2011 to deliver happiness and bring teams together to get more done in a frictionless video environment. Zoom’s video-first unified communications platform continues to transform how leading global enterprise companies communicate dramatically. Under Eric’s commendable leadership, Zoom was one of the highest-performing tech IPOs of 2019. His wealth has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Zoom has benefited from the shift to online work and teaching. In February 2022, the organization’s philanthropic arm, Zoom Cares, granted $5.5M to support Youth Leadership, Climate Progress, and BIPOC-Serving Groups. He was previously a manager of WebEx at Cisco, which acquired the video conferencing company in 2007.

Described as ‘a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,’ Simon Sinek has devoted his professional life to helping advance a vision of the world. A trained ethnographer, he is fascinated by the people and organizations that make the most significant and longest-lasting impact. Over the years, he has discovered some remarkable patterns in how they think, act, and communicate and the environments in which people operate at their natural best. Simon is also active in the arts and social impact sector. In 2021, he founded The Curve: a diverse group of forward-thinking chiefs and sheriffs committed to reforming modern policing from the inside out. Their purpose is to build a profession dedicated to protecting the vulnerable from harm while advancing a vision of a world where all people feel justice is administered with dignity, equity, and fairness.

Samia Suluhu Hassan is currently the only female head of Government in sub-Saharan Africa. She became the sixth President of the United Republic of Tanzania in March 2021, following the death of President John Magufuli. Since taking office, Hassan has set off on a different path than her predecessor: she encouraged COVID-19 vaccinations by publicly taking the shot herself, lifted a ban on pregnant girls in schools, and began to amend some Magufuli-era economic regulations to lure back investors. The Government has been actively pushing the climate agenda, its commitment reflected in President Samia’s $18 billion plan to build renewable power generation in southern Africa at talks in COP27 2022 held in Egypt as world leaders seek to increase climate finance in the region.

Camille Vasquez is a Partner in Brown Rudnick’s Litigation & Arbitration Practice Group and Co-Chair of the Firm’s Brand & Reputation Management group. Her current practice focuses on plaintiff-side defamation suits, with additional experience litigating contract disputes, business-related torts, and employment-related claims. Camille is adept at formulating offensive and defensive litigation strategies for private clients. She was Johnny Depp’s lawyer in the famed Depp and Amber Herd trials in 2022. With the victory in the trial, she garnered global acclaim and publicly advocated against domestic violence, regardless of gender, thereby giving male domestic abuse survivors a platform to voice their opinions.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud is the Founder of Kingdom Holding, a conglomerate with stakes in hotels, real estate, and equities. The Riyadh-based group’s publicly traded investments include Citigroup, Snap, Lyft, and Twitter. He also has a majority stake in Rotana, a provider of media and entertainment in the Middle East. He is known for his philanthropy, and in 2022, he announced that he would transfer his entire $32 billion fortune to his foundation, Alwaleed Philanthropies, over the coming years. He has already donated $3.5 billion to support charitable projects and hopes to give back to society. The foundation promotes more sustainable communities, empowers women and youth, assists survivors of natural calamities, and creates a more tolerant and accepting world.

Ma Huateng is a Chinese billionaire business magnate and business oligarch. He is the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Tencent, one of the most valuable companies in Asia, one of the largest internet and technology companies, and one of the most significant investments, gaming, and entertainment conglomerates in the world. The company develops China’s most popular mobile instant messaging service, WeChat, and its subsidiaries provide media, entertainment, payment systems, smartphones, internet-related services, value-added services, and online advertising services in China and globally. The company has granted various donations throughout the years for several noble causes. In 2022, Tencent donated 400 million yuan on its 99 Giving Day, a nine-day charitable event that ended on September 9th, in what has become China’s largest charitable fund-raising exercise to help with Beijing’s campaign for ‘common prosperity.’

Vélez is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nubank, a Sao-Paulo-based digital bank that offers credit cards, checking accounts, and life insurance. Vélez started Nubank after seeing that five Brazilian banks controlled 80% of the market and charged high fees for basic financial products. Under Vélez’s leadership, Nubank grew from a small digital banking start-up to the region’s largest bank by value and the fourth-largest company in Latin America. Nubank offers an array of financial services to millions of under-served Latin Americans who previously had no bank accounts or access to credit. In October 2022, Nubank’s CEO, David Vélez, and his partner Mariel Reyes launched the Philanthropy Platform. With this platform, he intends to bring a new philanthropic outlook to Latin America to empower social entrepreneurs who are contributing to solving society’s most critical problem: unequal distribution of access to opportunities.

David Zaslav is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Warner Bros. Discovery, one of the world’s largest and most diverse media and entertainment companies with market leadership across all programming genres. He sets the strategy and oversees all operations for Warner Bros. Discovery’s global suite of brands, including Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Bros. Television Group, HBO and HBO Max, discovery+, CNN, HGTV, Food Network, OWN, ID, Warner Bros. Animation, Discovery Kids, Eurosport and more. In April 2022, Zaslav spearheaded the transaction between AT&T’s WarnerMedia and Discovery, combining the companies’ media assets. Under his leadership, Discovery began trading as a public company in 2008, became a Fortune 500 company in 2014, and acquired Scripps Networks Interactive in 2018, making it the #1 most-watched pay-TV portfolio in the US.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the first woman and African to serve as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). She is an economist and international development expert with over 30 years of experience. She was Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2016 – 2020), the African Risk Capacity (2014 – 2020), and Co-Chair of The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor at Lazard and sat on the Boards of Standard Chartered PLC, and Twitter Inc. Dr Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as an AU COVID-19 Special Envoy and WHO COVID-19 Special Envoy. Dr Okonjo-Iweala served twice as Nigeria’s Finance Minister (2003-2006, 2011-2015), the first woman to hold the position, and spent a 25-year career at the World Bank, rising to the No 2 position of Managing Director.

Vitalik Buterin is the Co-Founder and inventor of Ethereum, described as a ‘decentralised mining network and software development platform rolled into one’ that facilitates the creation of new cryptocurrencies and programs that share a single blockchain (a cryptographic transaction ledger). He became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. In 2014, Buterin launched Ethereum with Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin. In 2022, the Russian-born cryptocurrency inventor quietly donated $5 million to Ukraine relief efforts. Half of the $5 million in donations went directly to Aid for Ukraine, while the other half went to Unchain Fund, a cryptocurrency charity initiative created by activists in the blockchain community to provide humanitarian relief for Ukrainians

Sevgil Musaieva is a Ukrainian journalist from Crimea currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of the online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda. With her primary focuses being current news, politics, and social issues, Sevgil also manages the group of websites run by the newspaper covering other areas such as the economy, and the political history of Ukraine, amongst others. An active charity worker, Sevgil was involved in many projects and events, one of which was initiating a project aimed at providing those affected by the political crisis in Crimea with trustworthy information and assisting them with matters of safety and resettlement. In 2022, with the bloodiest this century, Ukraine is fighting for its future and the right to exist. Sevgil has ensured that her outlet covers every aspect of the war and raises awareness about the issue on the global stage.

Narasimhan is the Chief Executive Officer-elect of Starbucks Corporation, the premier roaster, marketer, and retailer of specialty coffee in the world, since October 1, 2022, and will assume the CEO role and join the Starbucks board of directors on or before April 1, 2023. Prior to joining Starbucks, Narasimhan was CEO of Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, an FTSE 12 listed British multinational consumer health, hygiene, and nutrition company, since 2019. A regular attendant at various discussions and summits, he also takes an interest in global issues and challenges. At the B20 Summit, he said, “eradicating malnutrition, undernourishment, and obesity; ensuring environmental conservation, mitigation, and adaptation to climate change; fostering technology development and adoption; progressively eliminating barriers to global food trade, and minimizing food loss and waste,” are the five most significant challenges facing the global food system.

Sikhulile Moyo is a Medical Virologist based at the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership (BHP). He is the Laboratory Director for the Botswana Harvard HIV Reference Laboratory and a Research Associate with the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public health. As a Co-Chief Scientist, he is currently part of the presidential task team for COVID-19. He has made several significant contributions in laboratory systems strengthening, the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission and studies that have informed birth outcomes, the health of HIV-exposed infants, surveillance of HIV incidence, and monitoring of HIV mutations associated with drug resistance. In 2022, Moyo and his laboratory were the first to identify the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. Upon discovery, they alerted the Botswanan Ministry of Health and began working toward treatment alternatives to weaken the variant.

Elisa Loncón Antileo is a Mapuche linguist and indigenous rights activist in Chile. In 2021, Loncón was elected as one of the representatives of the Mapuche people for the Chilean Constitutional Convention. Following the inauguration of the body, Loncón was elected President of the Constitutional Convention. Shortly after being elected President of the Constitutional Convention, she declared her aim to discuss terms for releasing the Prisoners of the Revolt and indigenous political prisoners. Loncón has helped build a “plurinational library” in the Constitutional Convention and brought books of Humberto Maturana, Ximena Dávila, Frantz Fanon, Christo Brand, Linda Tuhiwai, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui for that purpose.

Dr Mason is the President and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and a professor in the Women’s Studies department at Georgetown University. Dr Mason is the youngest person currently leading one of the significant inside-the-Beltway think tanks in Washington, D.C., and one of the few women of color to do so. She succeeded noted economist and MacArthur Fellow Heidi Hartmann, the Institute’s founding CEO. As one of the nation’s foremost intersectional researchers and scholars, Dr. C. Nicole Mason brings a fresh perspective and a wealth of experience to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. For the past two decades, Dr. Mason has spearheaded research on economic security, poverty, women’s issues, entitlement reforms, policy formation and political participation among women, communities of color, and racial equity.

Melanie Perkins is an Australian technology entrepreneur known as the Co-Founder and CEO of Canva, an online publishing and design tool which makes graphic design simple for everyone. Perkins is listed as one of the youngest female CEOs to lead a tech startup valued at over a billion dollars. Canva was launched in 2013 by Perkins, now-husband Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams in Sydney, Australia, but was met by investor skepticism due to its location. In 2022, the billionaire couple signed the Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge with a solid plan to give away their money through charitable donations. The main aim of their charity work is to eliminate extreme poverty.

Bialiatski is a human rights activist in Belarus, leading an almost 30-year campaign for democracy and freedom. In 1996, he founded the Minsk-based Human Rights Center Viasna to provide support for political prisoners. It has since become the country’s leading non-governmental organization contributing to the development of civil society in Belarus through documenting human rights abuses and monitoring elections. Bialiatski’s defense of human rights in Belarus has brought him numerous international accolades. In 2020, he won the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize.’ In 2022, Bialiatski was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the organization’s Memorial and Centre for Civil Liberties. He is currently being held in prison without trial; Bialiatski and other human rights activists have called the charges politically motivated.

Kengo Kuma is considered one of the most significant contemporary Japanese architects. He is regarded as one of Japan’s most famous contemporary architects concerned with reviving and revitalizing traditional Japanese values and customs by blending them well with the modernistic approach of the current time. His efforts have exposed many innovative uses of conventional Japanese materials in the throbbing market of the 21st century. He has proposed new ways of incorporating the built environment with natural resources like natural light and unveiled architecture as a proficient art, making life comfortable instead of something dominating our daily living. His method of mixing high-tech fashion with long-established construction manners is rapidly gaining international admiration and making its way to China and the West.

Jennifer E. Jones, a member of the Rotary Club of Windsor-Roseland, Ontario, Canada, has become Rotary International’s President for 2022-23, a groundbreaking milestone that will make her the first woman to hold that office in the organization’s 115-year history. A current Rotary Foundation trustee, Jones has been a Rotary member since 1997 and has served Rotary as RI vice president, director, training leader, committee chair, moderator, and district governor. She played a significant role in Rotary’s rebranding effort by serving as chair of the Strengthening Rotary’s Advisory Group. She is the Co-Chair of the End Polio Now Countdown to History Campaign Committee, which aims to raise $150 million for polio eradication efforts. Jones has also received Rotary International’s Service Above Self Award and The Rotary Foundation Citation for Meritorious Service.

Anthony Norman Albanese has been Australia’s 31st Prime Minister since 2022. He has been the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 2019 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Grayndler since 1996. In the 2022 election, Albanese led his party to a decisive victory against Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National Coalition. He is the first Italian-Australian to become prime minister, the first Australian Prime Minister to have a non-Anglo-Celtic surname, and the last of the 16 Australian prime ministers who have served under Queen Elizabeth II. Albanese’s first acts as Prime Minister included updating Australia’s climate targets in an effort to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and supporting an increase to the national minimum wage.

Vani Kola is the Founder and Managing Director of Kalaari Capital, one of India’s leading early-stage venture capital firms. She is a proponent of India’s digital opportunity to create next-gen large-scale companies which will scale globally. Having been a 2x entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, Vani’s investment philosophy is derived from her successful entrepreneurial experiences. Over the last decade, Vani has become an influential voice in the country’s vibrant startup ecosystem. She also actively supports various organizations fostering entrepreneurship and women’s leadership. To promote this cause, she started CXXO, an initiative that promotes and supports female founder-CEO-led startups in India by providing equitable access to capital, mentorship, and a community of other women founders and entrepreneurs. Kalaari has earmarked $10 million to support eight to 10 digital startups where women are the key decision-makers.

Anwar al-Bunni is a prominent Human Rights Lawyer in Syria. He is the Director of the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research and the Co-Founder of the Syrian Human Rights Association, a center for defending journalists and political prisoners. As a lawyer, al-Bunni was specifically involved in defending people who were prosecuted for expressing their opinions in non-violent ways, including intellectuals and human rights activists who were arrested when the ‘Damascus Spring’ of 2001 was suppressed. Because of his work, al-Bunni has been the target of repressive measures by the authorities. He and his family members were systematically threatened and followed and were the target of smear campaigns by the authorities. The Damascus Bar Association has repeatedly disbarred al-Bunni.

Bolor-Erdene Battsengel is the Chairwoman of the Government of Mongolia’s Communication and Information Technology Authority, the first female and youngest leader to be elected. As the youngest in the current Cabinet, she crafted the five-year plan to transform Mongolia into a ‘digital nation.’ In her first few months in office, Battsengel launched the revolutionary ‘E-Mongolia’ platform that digitized 181 popular government services for easy public use. Battsengel also founded the Girls for Coding program to teach young girls from rural areas in Mongolia to learn how to code. She studied Public Policy at Oxford and previously worked at the United Nations, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank.

Daniela is an award-winning social entrepreneur, thought leader, and internationally sought-after speaker on the entrepreneurial mindset, ocean innovation, technology, youth empowerment, and sustainability. At the age of 19, Daniela founded Sustainable Ocean Alliance as a college-room idea at Georgetown University. Five years later, SOA has created the world’s largest network of young Ocean Leaders in over 165 countries and launched the world’s first Ocean Solutions Accelerator to support developing technological solutions to address our planet’s greatest threats. Daniela has been recognized for her work by former U.S. Secretary John Kerry, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and E.U. Commissioner Karmenu Vella. She is a 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur and a member of Friends of Ocean Action—a select group of leaders working to fast-track solutions to ocean challenges.

Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder of the collaboration software firm Atlassian, based in Sydney. Atlassian, which has no sales team, boasts an impressive roster of clients, including NASA, Tesla, and SpaceX. Cannon-Brookes often carries the epithet of accidental billionaire after he and his business partner Scott Farquhar founded Atlassian, intending to earn the then-typical graduate starting salary of A$48,000 at the big corporations without having to work for someone else. He has been a vocal advocate for reducing Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy sources. In 2022, Cannon-Brookes and Canadian asset manager Brookfield Asset Management made an unsolicited $8 billion bid to acquire AGL Energy. The company rejected the offer.

Emily Oster is a Professor of Economics at Brown University and the author of Expecting Better, Cribsheet, and The Family Firm. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard. Prior to being at Brown, she was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Oster’s academic work focuses on health economics and statistical methods. Her goal is to create a world of more relaxed pregnant women and parents. In 2022, Oster extensively researched how children have been learning and developing during the pandemic. She also received the distinction for her valuable research in translating data into simple, rational guidance for parents worldwide.

Stéphane Bancel is the CEO of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech firm Moderna, known for its COVID-19 vaccine. He became CEO of Moderna in 2011 and owned a roughly 8% stake in the publicly traded company. Before joining Moderna, Bancel was the CEO of French diagnostics company BioMérieux, founded by fellow French billionaire Alain Mérieux. Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was granted full FDA approval on January 31, 2022; it had previously received emergency-use authorization in December 2020. In 2022, Moderna’s CEO Stéphane Bancel has been named a chevalier (knight) of the Légion d’Honneur, the highest French distinction for military and civil accomplishments. Stéphane currently serves on the Board of Directors of Generate Biomedicines and Qiagen NV. He is a Venture Partner at Flagship Pioneering and a Trustee of the Museum of Science in Boston.

Ambassador Nkengasong has a wealth of experience, having previously served as the first Director of the African Union’s Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and one of the World Health Organization Director-General’s Special Envoys on COVID-19 Preparedness and Response. He began his career at the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1995 as head of the virology lab in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Ambassador Nkengasong is currently the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State under President Joe Biden. His three decades of experience in infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness make him ideally suited to shepherd PEPFAR into its next phase of achieving and sustaining HIV epidemic control.

Anshula Kant is the Managing Director and Group Chief Financial Officer of the World Bank. In this role, she is responsible for the financial and risk management of the World Bank Group, reporting to the President. Among other essential management duties, her work includes oversight of financial reporting, risk management, and mobilization of IDA and other financial resources. She was the Managing Director and member of the Board of SBI from September 2018 to August 2019. Her style of leadership is one of inclusion and empathy. She has mobilized $157 billion worth of financing to countries for handling COVID-19. Under Kant, the International Development Assistance (IDA) was able to raise $5 billion. IDA is an arm of the World Bank that provides finance to low-income countries at minimal to no interest rate.

Nasrin Sotoudeh is an Iranian lawyer advocating for the rule of law and the rights of political prisoners, opposition activists, women, and children in the face of Iran’s repressive regime. She is currently serving a long prison sentence for standing up against the country’s draconian legal system. Sotoudeh rose to prominence in the aftermath of the 2009 anti-government protests, the so-called ‘Green Revolution,’ following the country’s presidential elections. Sotoudeh defended several activists arrested during the government’s aggressive crackdown on the demonstrations. Because of her unrelenting commitment to justice, Sotoudeh has been frequently imprisoned. In March 2019, she was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes on made-up charges, including stoking ‘corruption and prostitution.’

Kim Jones succeeded Sara Blakely as the CEO of the retail giant Spanx in September 2022. Kim has worked for SPANX for 15 years and, in addition to serving as CFO and President, she has been instrumental in the company’s growth from startup to the category-defining, digital-first apparel brand it is today. Her love and deep understanding of the brand and the customer make her the perfect fit for the job. In 2021, Kim worked closely with Founder Sara Blakely to sell a majority stake of Spanx to investment firm Blackstone – the much-awaited deal that valued the company US $ 1.2 billion. Prior to SPANX, she was the Chief Executive Officer at Sweetwater Brewing Company and held finance positions at Ernst & Young, The Coca-Cola Company, and EarthLink.

William Ruto is Kenya’s fifth and current President since September 13th, 2022. Prior to becoming president, he served as the 11th Deputy President of Kenya from 2013 to 2022. After taking office, Ruto announced a pledge to address climate change and end the use of fossil fuels in Kenya’s electricity production by 2030. At his debut address to the United Nations General Assembly, he nodded to President Biden’s ‘Build Back Better,’ proposing a global effort toward building back better from the bottom upward. Other themes he addressed were; the expansion of the representation of Africa on the U.N. Security Council, increased investment in the African continent, “moving Africa from aid to investment,” tapping “the ever-bustling” human capital for economic prosperity and a concerted effort towards tackling climate change in the world.

Villarreal is a Psychologist and Founder of Oriéntame, the first organization in Colombia to provide legal abortion and reproductive rights counseling in the country. She has also created several other organizations in favor of this cause, such as CLACAI, the Latin American Consortium against unsafe abortion. Villarreal was a member of the Board of Directors of the NAF and the Guttmacher Institute, the Foundation for the Right to Die with Dignity, and the advisory committee of Global Doctors for Choice in Latin America. Together with González, she started the Causa Justa Movement, a movement in favor of the decriminalization of abortion, which found its first achievement in 2006, when the Constitutional Court enabled three situations for the practice of legal abortion: health grounds, sexual violence grounds, and fetal malformation grounds.

Amit Sood is the Director of Google’s Cultural Institute. He and his team work on making art and culture accessible and engaging for everyone. They have partnered with over 1,000 museums, archives, and other institutions from more than 70 countries to bring our shared heritage onto the web and connect them with people through new technologies. Most recently, they have been experimenting with combining art with machine learning algorithms and other advanced technologies to create new ways to explore our cultures. The process of digitizing and scanning artwork at high resolution is done using robotic art cameras built in-house by Google. Sood’s team has built innovative story editing tools with inbuilt artificial intelligence and an intelligent content management system that uses machine learning.

Prof Tulio de Oliveira is the Director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP). Prof. de Oliveira is a Professor of Bioinformatics at the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, Stellenbosch University, and the College of Health Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Prof De Oliveira was also included in the MIT Technology Review list as one of the leaders of the ten breakthrough technologies in 2022. In 2022, he received the Gold Medal Award from the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). In the same year, he received the Batho Pele Award from the Government of South Africa for his contributions to society.

Mazen Darwish is a lawyer and journalist who defends the freedom of the press in Syria. News organizations, including Reuters and the Associated Press, have described him as one of Syria’s most prominent activists. For the past ten years, Darwish has been speaking up for the Syrian cause about torture, detention conditions, and the plight of civilians in a war zone. In 2012, he was incarcerated multiple times for delivering information about the Syrian conflict to Arab and foreign news outlets. He has received numerous awards, including the Pen Pinter Prize, was a World Press Freedom Hero, and was honored with the UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Darwish continues to relentlessly stand up for freedom of expression for all future generations in Syria.

After spending twelve years at Harvard University, Shawn Achor has become one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between 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 his lecture airing on PBS has been seen by millions. Shawn has lectured or worked with over a third of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as 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). His Happiness Advantage training is one of the largest and most successful positive psychology corporate training programs in the world.

Dr Miga is an Assistant Research Scientist at the UCSC Genomics Institute. She works at the forefront of sequence technologies and computational data structures/repeat assembly strategies to generate telomere-to-telomere reference-quality assemblies of human chromosomes. In 2018, she co-founded the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium, an open, community-based effort to develop the first complete human genome assembly. Dr Miga is the Program Director of the Human Pangenome Production Center, which aims to reach the goal of 350 fully phased, T2T diploid genomes capable of representing a broad range of human genome diversity in the following human pangenome reference map. This work promises to ensure that the eventual applications of genomic research and precision medicine are effective for all populations.

The Founder of iron ore miner Fortescue Metals increased his direct influence on the company in May 2022 when he shifted from Non-Executive Chairman to Executive Chairman after CEO Elizabeth Gaines announced she was stepping down. The change will allow Forrest to drive Fortescue’s decarbonization agenda even harder. Investing in sustainable energy projects, he is now focused on repositioning the company into a green energy powerhouse to produce steel in Australia. But the billionaire’s influence is much wider than one company: Forrest is an investor across industries disparate as food, energy, fashion, hospitality, and property. In 2022, he also has farming interests to capitalize on China’s growing appetite for meat and dairy products

Dave Ulrich is a Professor of Business at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the Co-Director of Michigan’s Human Resource Executive Program. His teaching and research address the question: How do people create organizations that add value to customers? Ulrich studies how organizations change, build capabilities and leverage human resources activities. He has written numerous books covering topics in HR and Leadership, including Tomorrow’s (HR) Management, Results-Based Leadership, and The Leadership Code, amongst others. He has helped generate multiple award-winning databases that assess alignment between strategies, human resource practices, and HR competencies. Ulrich has been ranked the ‘#1 Management Educator & Guru’ by BusinessWeek, selected by Fast Company as one of the ‘10 Most Innovative and Creative Leaders,’ and named ‘The Most Influential Person in HR’ by HR Magazine for three years.

Nilekani is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited. He was the Founding Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in the rank of a Cabinet Minister from 2009-2014. Most recently, Nandan has co-founded and is the Chairman of EkStep, a not-for-profit effort to create a learner-centric, technology-based platform to improve basic literacy and numeracy for millions of children. In 2022, the high-profile mogul is helping Prime Minister Narendra Modi build an open technology network to level the playing field for small merchants in the country’s fragmented but fast-growing $1 trillion retail market. Its purpose is to create a freely accessible online system where traders and consumers can buy and sell everything from 23-cent detergent bars to $1,800 airline tickets.

Hoda Khamosh is a well-known women’s rights activist, journalist, and campaigner who has launched several public programs to raise awareness of female health-related issues. Khamosh has participated in numerous marches and demonstrations organized to defend women’s rights, including the women’s demonstrations after the Taliban took over. In these demonstrations, women raised their voices in defense of the right to work, education, and active participation in politics and the country’s top management. She was invited to be part of the women activists to participate in a conference in Oslo with the Taliban. She bravely used the opportunity to tell the Taliban Foreign Minister to order the release of two detained colleagues.

Vernā Myers is an inclusion strategist, cultural innovator, thought leader, and social commentator. She’s well-known for her high-energy keynotes, captivating insights, and ability to help people bridge differences and connect more meaningfully. A Harvard-trained lawyer and Founder of The Vernā Myers Company, she took on the inaugural role of VP, of Inclusion Strategy at Netflix, where she now leads a diverse team of talent in curating and implementing strategies to integrate cultural diversity, inclusion, and equity into all aspects of the organization’s global operations. Vernā is the author of two best-selling books published by the American Bar Association and What If I Say The Wrong Thing? Her inspiring TED talk, How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Towards Them has been viewed over 4 million times and translated into 27 different languages.

Emmett Schelling is a trans-South Korean immigrant by way of foreign adoption and currently serves as Executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT). While his primary focus of work is on trans issues, his leadership is informed by the knowledge and real-life experience that single issues do not impact trans individuals but rather a myriad of issues that often manifest themselves in oppression and marginalization. He is also a part of the Community Council for Transform Houston, a board member of Deeds Not Words and House of Tulip (HoT), a member of Transgender Law Center’s (TLC) T4All national cohort, and currently serves as Co-Director for the TransFORWARD, a statewide trans powered research collective in Texas with Texas Health Institute, TENT, and Equality Texas.

Nigussie is an Ethiopian Human Rights Lawyer who works toward women’s and girls’ rights and inclusive education. She is the Executive Director of the Ethiopian Center for Disability and Development (ECDD) in Addis Ababa. 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. 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.

Patricia E. Harris is the Chief Executive Officer of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which encompasses all of Michael R. Bloomberg’s giving, including his foundation, corporate, and personal philanthropy, as well as Bloomberg Associates, a pro bono consultancy that works with mayors in cities around the world. As CEO, Harris oversees Bloomberg Philanthropies’ programs focused on the arts, education, environment, government innovation, and public health, with the mission of ensuring better, longer lives for the most significant number of people. In 2022, Bloomberg Philanthropies reinforced their investment in oceans with a $204 Million Commitment to Oceana, which will receive a portion of the funding. They will continue to be a lead partner in protecting marine habitats, empowering artisanal fishers, and fighting climate change.

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.

Tristan is Co-Founder & Executive Director of the Center for Humane Technology (CHT), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to align technology with humanity’s best interests. He regularly briefs heads of state, technology CEOs, and US Congress members and mobilizes millions of people worldwide through mainstream media. Tristan has explored the influences that hijack human attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs, from his childhood as a magician to his coursework in Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab to his leadership as a Design Ethicist at Google. Today, he studies how major technology platforms wield dangerous power over our ability to make sense of the world and leads the call for systemic change. As a Co-Host of the top-rated technology podcast, Your Undivided Attention, he explores the drivers behind social media’s race for attention, its destabilization of society, and potential solutions.

Boyan Slat is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur, passionate about creating megaprojects to address planetary problems. He is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization developing and scaling technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic. The organization aims to put itself out of business by removing 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040. In 2022, they teamed up with organizations worldwide to clean up some of Earth’s most essential ocean habitats on September 17, 2022, and create artwork to inspire change. More than 400 volunteers joined cleanups in 8 locations worldwide, removing 4,598 lbs of trash from the environment, and unique marine debris artwork was shared worldwide.

As Chief People Officer and Executive Vice President, Employee Experience, Gloria Chen leads all aspects of people strategy and operations for Adobe. She’s charged with creating an exceptional employee experience for more than 22,000 employees across 75 locations. Under her leadership, Adobe has been recognized as the World’s Best Workplace by Great Place to Work and Fortune for six consecutive years. In 2022, Gloria’s team started an onboarding innovation process. “We’re A/B testing different virtual onboarding approaches, measuring the impact on sales productivity ramp, and testing the impact of different work schedules on engineering productivity metrics,” she explained. “This model of engaging employees in the ideation, experimentation, and learning is in line with the idea that good ideas come from everywhere — one of the principles our company was founded on.”

Frances Haugen is an advocate for accountability & transparency in social media. In 2021, she made global headlines by releasing tens of thousands of pages of Facebook’s internal data to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Wall Street Journal. Haugen alleged that Facebook consistently chose profits over people, allowing disinformation to spread on its platform. Haugen says she never intended to be a whistleblower but wants to use her platform to start a nonprofit dedicated to social media reform. She fundamentally believes that the problems we face today with social media are solvable and is dedicated to uniting people worldwide to bring about change. We can have social media that brings out the best in humanity.

Scott Harrison is the Founder of the non-profit organization charity: water. While volunteering as a photojournalist aboard a hospital ship off the coast of Liberia, West Africa, Harrison witnessed extreme levels of poverty and illness. He understood that many of the infections and diseases needing treatment were waterborne. With a newfound understanding of the importance of clean drinking water, Harrison returned to New York City in 2006. He established a small team to develop a non-profit dedicated to this cause. 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.

Ryan Gersava is the Founder and President of Virtualahan, an impact-driven company that breaks down employment barriers for Persons with Disabilities and other excluded communities using the equalizing power of technology. Gersava was inspired to start Virtualahan after he was denied a job because he had hepatitis B and faced discrimination. Since its launch in 2015, the nonprofit has trained more than 600 people, 78% of whom found employment in digital-related jobs, such as digital design, social media marketing, and video editing. He is also an Ashoka Fellow, an honoree for Forbes 30 under 30 Asia for Social Impact, and was the first Filipino to be awarded Inspired Leadership Award, previously given to Melinda Gates and Sir Richard Branson.

Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who is the 43rd president of El Salvador. He is the first President since José Napoleón Duarte not to have been elected as the candidate from one of the country’s two major political parties:  Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). El Salvador’s murder rate decreased to historic lows during Bukele’s tenure, falling by over 50 percent during his first year in office. In 2021, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender and became the first country in the world to do so. President Bukele is a cryptocurrency enthusiast and is confident that Bitcoin will attract foreign investment, create jobs, and “help push humanity in the right direction.”

Sara Menker is the Founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence. Gro illuminates the interrelationships between the earth’s ecology and human economy to help see the big picture and act on the small details. From assessing the impact of climate change in real-time to optimizing agricultural supply chains, Gro’s data, analytics, and forecast models provide honest answers to what on earth is going on. Sara is also a Trustee of the Mandela Institute For Development Studies (MINDS) and a Trustee of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Sara was named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum and is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative of the Aspen Institute.

Nelly Cheboi grew up in a rural village in Kenya and landed a full scholarship to Augustana College in America. As an undergrad, she invested all her income from various campus jobs into her community back in Kenya and built a school, Zawadi, there and later started TechLit Africa. TechLit Africa is an American non-profit organization that redistributes recycled technology to build computer labs in African schools. They have built ten computers in rural Kenya and are working on the following 100 computer labs. The organization currently has around 4,000 students and 20 teachers. By 2023, they aim to have about 40,000 students and 200 teachers.

Phyllis Omido dubbed the ‘East African Erin Brockovich,’ is a Kenyan environmental activist. She was one of 6 people awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015. She is known for organizing protests against a lead-smelting plant in the middle of Owino Uhuru, a slum near Mombasa. The plant was causing lead poisoning by raising the lead content in the environment, killing residents, in particular children, and harming others, including her own infant. The plant was ultimately closed after multiple protests led by Omido. She is the Founder of the Centre for Justice, Governance and Environmental Action (CJGEA). The organization was established to address environmental issues faced by the settlements near Kenya’s industrial areas.

Andrew Youn has lived in rural East Africa for more than 12 years and observed one of the world’s most significant impoverished civilizations: 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. He established One Acre Fund, a non-profit fighting extreme poverty in Africa, based on his findings. 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.

After launching, working for, and investing in high-growth startups around the world, Zach Oschin founded Elenas,  a social commerce platform in Latin America. Since its inception, Elenas has allowed over 100,000 women across Latin America to launch and grow their online stores on the forum. As the top social commerce platform in Mexico and Colombia, the platform has raised over $28M USD in funding from investors like DILA Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, FJ Labs, and Mercado Libre. The company has grown over 30x over the past 18 months and hopes to continue empowering more micro-entrepreneurs in the future.

Ayesha A. Malik is the first female Supreme Court judge in Pakistan’s history. On 6 January 2022, the Judicial Commission of Pakistan approved her appointment to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. She took her oath of office on 24 January 2022. Ayesha’s legal practice consists of appearances in the High Courts, District Courts, Banking Courts, Special Tribunals, and Arbitration Tribunals. In England and Australia, she has been an expert witness in family law cases involving child custody, divorce, women’s rights, and constitutional protection for women in Pakistan. She has authored several notable judgments regarding women’s rights and gender equality. She is also a part of The International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ), an initiative for women’s empowerment through equality and justice for every girl and woman. Justice Ayesha advocates the importance of the gender perspective in upholding the rule of law.

Farwiza Farhan is an environmental activist and one of the leading voices in the fight to protect the Leuser ecosystem in Sumatra, Indonesia. She is the leader of Forest, Nature & Environment Aceh (HAkA), a homegrown Acehnese NGO striving to protect the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra. The Leuser Ecosystem is the last place in the world where several key Sundaland mega-fauna species can still be found: the tiger, orangutan, elephant, and rhino. Farhan focuses on ground-level species protection and high-level legal advocacy. Her strength is fostering collaboration; she built a grassroots movement that successfully advocated for law enforcement against companies operating illegally and launched a civil lawsuit that empowers local communities to have meaningful involvement in policymaking.