The World Economic Forum has just published its annual list of Young Global Leaders, recognizing “between 200 and 300 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world”.
The list of honorees, besides celebrities like Coldplay’s Chris Martin and F1 legend Michael Schumacher, includes a good number of people from the technology and Internet industry, so here’s a quick run-down of the names you might know:
Mark Zuckerberg – founder and CEO of Facebook
Kevin Rose – founder of Digg
Chad Hurley – co-founder and CEO of YouTube
Josh Silverman – CEO of Skype
Michael Birch – founder and CEO of Bebo
Premal Shah – President of Kiva
Lisa Huddleson – Corporate Foundation Executive Director at Dell
Vinny Lingham – CEO of Synthasite
Paul Bassat – CEO of Seek
Suranga Chandratillake – co-founder and CEO of blinkx
Michael Cannon-Brooks – co-founder of Atlassian
Andrej Nabergoj – co-founder and CEO of Noovo
Matias de Tezanos – founder of HealthCare.com
Kamal Quadir – founder of CellBazaar
Ashok Vemuri – Senior VP, Banking and Capital Markets at Infosys Technologies
Habib Haddad – co-founder of Yamli
Josh Spear – founding partner of Undercurrent
For the full list, click here (PDF).
World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Honorees 2009 – Get more Business Plans
Drawn from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates, the Young Global Leaders 2009 were chosen by a selection committee (PDF), chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, comprising 31 eminent international media leaders.
The recently published list of active YGLs includes names like Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), Tony Fadell (Apple) Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), John Battelle (Federated Media), Peter Thiel (Clarium Capital), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Uday Khemka (Sun), Tariq Krim (Jolicloud), Philipp Justus (PayPal), Lila Ibrahim (Intel), Esther Duflo and Kristin Forbes (MIT), Jack Ma Yun (AliBaba), Jorge Blanco (Avaya), Bill Nguyen (LaLa), Tero Ojanpera (Nokia), and Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook).
Great to hear that both Google founders – Sergey Brin and Larry Page are included in the list. It seems that these young technology entrepreneurs rule the Internet industry…
I like the idea. Congratulations to all the people who made the list.
Just a few cursory observations:
1. Two of my friends are on the list!
2. It seeems almost 30% of the people on the list are from India
3. While many of these companies have had a big societal impact, the majority of them seem to be less than successful from business perspective. For Premal at Kiva, that is a different story, as it is a non-profit, but many of the others on the list seem to be losing money at an alarming rate.
Anjali Sen
Congrats Vinny! Seems we just can’t stop the top talent coming out of South Africa!
Young leaders at the front!
great to see Mark Zuckerberg in the top the list…FACEBOOK rocks…
Why aren’t you using it to comment?!
anyone who can get excited about fazebk, utoob, beebow as leaders is beyond me. the only thing they have going is they either got funded or bought. there ideas are not rocket science. inevitable evolution. i would be more apt to call this group the lucky leaders of today. than you have guys from gaggle telling you they are organizing the the worlds info without a structured format. like a jelly fish telling you it can walk. dont believe the hype. WEC is just another gossip rag wearing a business suit.
ClassLocator.com – study yourself
Your dumb. The technology may not be rocket science, but it is certainly revolutionary, plus successful. Your just pissed you can’t spell and that you run a whack website that is pure spam… Get over yourself.
I second your idea indeed!
Ultimately economies are driven largely by production of goods and delivery of those goods to people who need them.
Facebook, YouTube etc while interesting and fun are empty when it comes to economic well-being.
Huge, nice going Vinny!!
Seems rather ironic that a lot of those startup founders aren’t profitable and are living off VC money.
Goooo economics!
Good to see lots of Indian names.
I wonder how Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan quaify to chair this. AND: where is evan from twitter???
As someone who is making a significant contribution to leadership in the Middle Eeast, I think she is well qualified!
Why on earth would you think she isn’t?
This list is a joke.
How many of these CEO’s run a profitable business??
How many of these CEO’s actually do a substantial amount of work on their own endeavours instead of paying other people to do it?
The questions go on and on.
This list is not full of leaders (for the most part) Just people who were in the right place at the right time and/or exploited other people to get where they are at.
Leadership? Yeah right..
Yeah, I’m pretty mad I wasn’t honored, either.
At least they got something right haha
I really think this issue is worth debating, you do have a point. What was the criteria behind the list?
From my opinion, i think it’s the value to humanity rather than the value to the entreprenuers. Were their invention useful to mankind? If yes, i think in some way they can be regarded as leaders.
What do you think?
Lists are always worth debating. The selection committee doesn’t provide much insight into their selection criteria, but I doubt running a profitable business was high on their priority list.
If thats the case that accounts for about 50% of the list, the other 50% I would hardly call innovative or important by any means. Thats what I think
Its almost as though whatever receptionist was stiffed with compiling this list, ran out of ideas halfway through and just picked a bunch of not so well known startups that had been mentioned recently to give them their 15 seconds of fame.
Call me harsh
Well, I think you should not take such lists too seriously. I personally know some of the people on the list and they take it as kind of a joke as well.
These are not that different from Glamour Magazine’s top 20 college students, or USA Today’s Top high school students, etc. etc. basically a combination of some achievement + being known by the right people.
And for that, I think it is not a bad list.
So…the list is a joke then and i was right?
I agree what a joke. How about adding some leaders to the ‘economic forum’ from companies that make a profit…
Companies like what? Citibank?
No, wait. They’re not profitable.
No, wait. They just had their best 2 months of 2009.
No, wait. They’re still going ahead with the bail out request/etc.
No, wait. We’re bailing out companies that are profitable?
No, wait. That’s brilliant.
While I agreed with you initially, the criteria for making this list doesn’t actually mention anything related to economics. I thought it was curious that Zuckerberg and Hurley were at Davos, seeing as neither really have much experience with global economics, but again, they weren’t on any economic panels there.
I think the list is really just highlighting young individuals who have accomplished a lot publicly. Yes, many were in the right place at the right time, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’d rather see some young doctors on this list than some of these entrepreneurs, but that doesn’t make for an interesting read I suppose.
Agree.
Steve, So basically what you are saying is that Steve Jobs deserves no merit because he isn’t building Iphones from his garage?
Steve jobs is not a new batch, he proved himself long ago
Kevin Rose didn’t exactly start with an arsenal of programmers and developers on his side.
The same thing applies to most people on that list.
This is a very useful information, i just downloaded the full list on PDF, for futher perusal. Thanks!
Hopefully someday, your name will be on the list!
Apparently, Loic Le Meur is no longer in the list…
My Goddette…and only one woman! What is wrong with us? Or is it not us
uhm – Sorry – They forgot me! I’m so important too! My profession? Writing comments on Techcrunch!
Boo! Not enough women on that list.
What about Gina Bianchini from Ning? Tina Sharkey from BabyCenter?
who? haha.
Congrats Vinny! And all the others too of course..
With over 132 million unique visitors, it is not a surprise that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has found himself on the list.
With the world’s attention now focused on the credit crunch, it helps us all breathe a sigh of relief
Congrats to the list. We have added the names to the Media Life Top1000.
To learn more about each person, (i.e. crowdsourced photos, videos, and tweets), visit http://media.tearn.com/
Habib Haddad is a Rockstar ….. congratulation ….. he truly deserve it ….
Young economic leaders is a solid list of people that understand the way the world works and the way the internet is changing how we live. Zuckerberg and the Team Google rise to the top. Who will be on this list in 5 years?
Way to go MATIAS DE TEZANOS!!
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!
Enrique
Congrats Mats!
global leaders? I call BS.
Id be interested to know how many of these people are known outside of silicon valley. Id bet less than 10 percent.
what? no Loic Lemiur?
astonishing!
… yeah!!! 2 from Viet Nam. .. never think we make the list 2.
… Cheer!!!! & congratulation 2 all!!!
Of that entire list Kiva is the one organization doing something truly inspiring from a leadership point of view.
Thank you Alan. Kind of the point I was trying to make, but you did it better and shorter.
I’m growing bored of WEF. What comes of it each year? Do we see anything meaningful actually happen as a result? Posing a list is just another signal that it is becoming more of a media show than a productive catalyst of change.
To me change is about people like B. Obama who last night declared a day of reckoning and instituted significant programs of change to healthcare, energy, and education. It’s about the little girl last night that The President honored for fighting back on behalf of her school and declared “we aren’t quitters.” It’s about the mayor he honored , whose town was wiped out by natural disaster, who focused on the opportunity for his town to lead the country as a fresh new “green” community.
This isn’t to say the tech community doesn’t do big things. We do. I just think putting Mark Z on a list is a duh rather than a wow.
Congrats to all, especially good friend Vinny. That’s exciting.
It’s wonderful to see South Africans like Vinny Lingham making an impact on the global stage. Last year, I recall Allon Raiz (Raizcorp) and Kumi Naidoo (Civicus) being the local-born stars selected for YGL.
I actually feel privileged to have emails from all three of these inspiring South Africans archived in my inbox.
Every society needs heroes, and that is what the Young Global Leaders represent to their respective people and industries. Tech entrepreneurs make up only a small part of the 200-300 odd group that all come from wildly diverse backgrounds (politics, business, NGOs, sport etc).
Profitable business or social development aren’t, in my opinion, the only indicators upon which these individuals are measured. Rather, it is more likely about their demonstrated capability and future capacity to create massive change and influence in the world. This is what sets them apart. (And to the skeptics, Vinny Lingham does have a record of building profit machines, e.g. Clicks2Customers).
The suggestion that the World Economic Forum has no impact is flat out wrong. When some of the world’s most influential people gather repeatedly in a neutral forum to discuss important issues, great things usually come of it. The reports and proceedings of the WEF and YGL (e.g. last year’s excellent “World in 2030″ report) are probably read by more Presidents and CEOs than any other global gathering of leaders. What non-state, non-industry conference creates more impact than that?
@Steve: Lastly, I have to single you out Steve for being one sour guy. To wonder “how many of these CEOs actually do a substantial amount of work on their business” shows how little you understand about the people who fit in this category. I happen to know a few YGLs, and they are easily some of the smartest, hardest working and exceptionally value-adding people that I’ve ever encountered.
Debate the selection process all you like- but please, let’s give credit where it is due.
–
Vinny: Well done; we’re rooting for you back home!
LaLa is on there, sweet!
YGL & their twitter profile :
Mark Zuckerberg – founder and CEO of Facebook
http://twitter.com/zuck [?]
Kevin Rose – founder of Digg
http://twitter.com/kevinrose [verified]
Chad Hurley – co-founder and CEO of YouTube
http://twitter.com/Chad_Hurley [?]
Josh Silverman – CEO of Skype
http://twitter.com/jgsilverman [?]
Michael Birch – founder and CEO of Bebo
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Premal Shah – President of Kiva
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Lisa Huddleson – Corporate Foundation Executive Director at Dell
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Vinny Lingham – CEO of Synthasite
http://twitter....om/VinnyLingham [verified]
Paul Bassat – CEO of Seek
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Suranga Chandratillake – co-founder and CEO of blinkx
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Michael Cannon-Brooks – co-founder of Atlassian
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Andrej Nabergoj – co-founder and CEO of Noovo
http://twitter.com/andray [verified]
Matias de Tezanos – founder of HealthCare.com
http://twitter.com/TwoCentz [?]
Kamal Quadir – founder of CellBazaar
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Ashok Vemuri – Senior VP, Banking and Capital Markets at Infosys Technologies
http://twitter.com/ [????]
Habib Haddad – co-founder of Yamli
http://twitter.com/habibh [verified]
Josh Spear – founding partner of Undercurrent
http://twitter.com/joshspear [verified]
Congrats Matias! =)
Alright finally some names from the arab world!!! congrats Habib
congrats! wtg Habib… you are the man…
Congrat Habib, hope to c u on top of the list next time!
Mabrouk Habib, i am really excited to meet you and all the people in the list in Dead Sea, Jordan
I think they missed Matt Mullenweg, Toni Schneider & Craig Newmark. Where would the world of blogging and community building be without them?
This is a comprehensive list of pure capitalists, not necessarily leaders. However, it was pleasant to see someone from Kiva on the list.
I link love http://kiva.org
In the future Shai Agassi of Better Place will be on this list.
GO YAMLI GO! ARABIC KEYBOARD. Congrats Habib!!!
SMAAAAAAART ARABIC KEYBOARD: YAMLI
Aren’t many of these new business leaders businesses losing money extremely fast right now?
The Endeavor SA network to which Vinny of SynthaSite belongs would like to congratulate him on such a fantastic accolade!!
Congratulations Habib – Yamli rocks and so do you!
Props to Premal Shah from Kiva. We went to college together, worked together, and have stayed in touch over the years. This honor couldn’t have come to a more deserving, thoughtful guy.
Hi, cool post. I have been thinking about this issue,so thanks for posting. I’ll probably be coming back to your blog. Keep up great writing
Wonderful article – I will come back soon,,
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