European Young Leaders (#EYL40)

Pia Henrietta Moon is the Co-Founder and CEO of Carbo Culture, a climate technology company on a mission to remove one billion tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere annually. Carbo Culture removes carbon by converting CO₂ from plant waste into a stable form of carbon, also generating renewable energy and carbon credits in the process. Carbo Culture’s breakthrough carbon removal solution solves key scalability challenges of the carbon removal industry. Her prior experience includes growing two organisations in ed-tech: Mehackit, which provides creative technology courses for youth to experience building technology, and Rails Girls, a global non-profit that organised open-source weekend workshops for women to dive into the world of technology. Given her management expertise, Moon was the youngest board member of a publicly traded company in Finland, YE International. Named a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst, she is also an alumna of Stanford’s StartX founder community.

Fatima is a professional field hockey player. She has played for the Dutch national team in international tournaments and for several teams such as Tempo ’34, HGC and HC Rotterdam in Dutch national competitions. She was a member of the Dutch national team that won the 2006 Women’s Hockey World Cup and the 2007 Hockey Champions Trophy. After a bronze medal in Sydney in 2000 and a silver medal in Athens in 2004, Fatima won a gold medal at the 2008 Games in Beijing. In 2006, she was named Rotterdam Sportswoman of the Year. In addition to field hockey, she presented TV programmes on local and national networks.

Alfredo is a Spanish architect, who has designed and managed more than six million square metres across five continents. Under Alfredo’s leadership, his architectural, urban and interior design firm has designed projects in a wide range of scales, from large urban developments and affordable housing townships to small temporal structures. Before founding ABIBOO, Alfredo held senior roles at Toyo Ito and SOM. Internationally-renowned, Alfredo was recognised among the most important and emerging young architects and designers by the European Centre and the Chicago Athenaeum Architecture Awards, and his work has been featured in various media outlets, including The New York Times, Wallpaper and Domus, among others.

A Dutch businesswoman and entrepreneur passionate about sustainability and innovation, Talitha is involved with a number of social initiatives. She launched Blikverruimers, a training programme and recruitment selection agency for young professionals in the Netherlands, who aspire to become business leaders. She is also the driving force behind Energieboot, a leadership programme for young professionals developing sustainable energy projects. As one of the faces of the Coalition-Y movement, a partnership of youth, trade union and climate organisations, Talitha promotes youth participation in society. She also regularly appears on talk shows and previously hosted the current affairs TV programme, Op1. She started her career at MVO Nederland, an organisation which guides companies in corporate social responsibility, where she became the youngest member to sit on a supervisory board in the Netherlands nearly a decade ago. Talitha is also Member of the Advisory Board at the research institute TNO.

Adolfo was the Portuguese Secretary of State of Tourism till 2015. Prior to this he was a Member of the Portuguese Parliament’s Committees on Ethics, Communication and Citizenship; Budget, Finance and Public Administration; and Monitoring Measures of the Financial Assistance Programme to Portugal. He has extensive experience in the legal sector, having served as a lawyer, consultant and advisor to various public institutions and private firms. In 2004 he was Head of Cabinet for the Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning. He holds a Master’s degree in Law and Political Science from the University of Lisbon where he defended his thesis on The Urgency in Public Procurement Litigation.

Claudia is the Founder and CEO of Stellar Capacity, a global educational platform, which trains and empowers leaders and professionals to drive digital change through various programmes on business and operational models, the impact of digital developments, as well as digital skills and productivity. The platform operates under Exponential AB, a global consultancy also founded by Claudia, where she previously served as CEO. Exponential AB specialises in strategic advice, analysis and progression development related to personal leadership and digital transformation. Claudia has helped governments and businesses alike understand the impact of new technologies and smart solutions in addressing global challenges. She authored the strategic innovation agenda for the Swedish steel and metal industry, as well as the Sweden 2030 Future Scenario for the Government of Sweden. Claudia has previously worked on issues related to healthcare access, having established and manages ACCESS Health International, a think tank which promotes access to high quality and affordable health care for all.

Passionate about consumers’ needs and desires, Daniela is an expert in brand management, strategy and finances, as well as merchandising and product knowledge. She is the Founder of Agape Strategy Consulting, which supports luxury and fashion brands with their brand, product and go-to-market strategy. Daniela also teaches a class on Luxury Brand Management at ESSEC Business School in Paris. Daniela has a wealth of experience in the industry as the former CEO of Eden Being at the Oetker Collection, CEO of Tomas Maier and COO of the Kering Luxury Division at Kering, director of strategy at Gucci Group and director of strategy and marketing at Balenciaga. In addition to being recognised as one of Women’s Forum Rising Talents, Daniela has been a recipient of the LSE Research Award and the Economic & Social Research Council Award.

With 20 years of leadership experience in the digital industry, Martin advises companies from start-ups to leading global brands on their growth opportunities in the digital world. Martin currently serves a Board Member of AfriKids, an NGO which supports sustainable development projects in Ghana. He is the former president and managing director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa at WeWork, in which role he led the restructuring of the company in the EMEA region and was responsible for the cross-functionality of the real estate, finance, product, operations, sales and marketing teams. Martin has also held several leadership roles at Facebook, including managing director of Central Europe, regional director of Africa, the Middle East, Israel and Turkey, as well as managing director of Northern Europe. Prior to joining Facebook, Martin was co-CEO of Skrill, one of Europe’s fastest growing fintech unicorns, and COO of Jamba, a global mobile content provider.

Since 2009 Giovanna has been the Brussels Bureau Chief Correspondent for Belgium, France and Germany at SKY TG24, where she was previously a reporter and special correspondent covering the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her work has covered interviews with the US President Obama, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, and French President François Hollande. She has obtained two Master’s degrees, the first in Political Science and International Relations at the Sapienza University of Rome, and the second in European Studies at the College of Europe in Bruges. She has authored numerous academic publications on Italian and international politics.

Joanna Patsalis, from Cyprus, is Co-Founder and COO of Direct Kinetic Solutions (DKS), a startup working on the cutting edge of Radioisotopic Power Sources (RPS) – batteries that run off tiny bits of nuclear material. “We bring nuclear power to the palm of your hand by combining the persistence and reliability of a power plant with the convenience and mobility of a battery”, Patsalis says. The company works to commercialise this revolutionary energy source that is light-weight, safe, powerful and just-about everlasting. DKS works closely with US government agencies including the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation and NASA to make this groundbreaking technology an everyday reality. The company has raised $17mn in non-dilutive and private funding, placing it on the top 100 list of the highest-funded MBA startups of 2024.

An Iranian-Luxembourgish entrepreneur, Dr Tahereh Pazouki founded Magrid, a pedagogical programme that develops and improves cognitive and math abilities by removing language as a barrier to learning, in order to support equal educational opportunities for all learners. The award-winning project was inspired by Pazouki’s research on children with migrant backgrounds and language disorders in Luxembourg’s public school system, which concluded that adapted training can support children who are disadvantaged by an education system in reaching their full potential. The Magrid programme now helps thousands of students in schools across Luxembourg and Portugal with early childhood development in math, visual-spatial and cognitive abilities. It will soon be available for parents all over Europe. Pazouki also founded a start-up, LetzMath, to continue the research and development of educational solutions that champion equal opportunities. In recognition of her innovative contributions to the field of education, she has been the recipient of the World Summit Awards, the European Investment Bank’s social innovation prize, the Creative Young Entrepreneur award and the MIT Solve award.

Jonathan is an innovative Cypriot serial entrepreneur who is convinced that the best thing to do for the planet is to inspire far more people to eat plants. He launched a successful vegan ready meals business in 2016. From their kitchen in London they use bold flavours and hyper convenience to bring more plants onto plates across the UK. With chef-made plant-based food delivered nationwide, they are inspiring more people to eat healthily and in turn are helping the planet. Since launching the company, he has received a number of culinary awards for pushing the boundaries. Constantly striving to bring innovative people together and easing citizens’ lives, Jonathan previously launched a Kenyan mobile banking app and a network of rural health centres.

Cristina is an Italian businesswoman and social entrepreneur with a passion for emerging technologies and a goal to ensure everyone has access to a digital future. She is the CEO of Tercanni Futura, an Italian cultural EdTech hub and the product of the Treccani Scuola acquisition of Impactscool. Cristina co-founded Treccani to raise awareness about innovative education, stimulate reflection on the ethics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and encourage citizens to adopt a more forward-thinking approach to technological change. She led Impactscool as CEO for five years, prior to which she co-founded Wish Days, where she served as general manager and a board member. Her motto, “the future is open source”, acknowledges that the future is shaped by and accessible to everyone. A published author, Cristina is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education and an Independent Advisor on the Advisory Board of Fondo Italiano d’Investimento SGR.

Josef founded the Prague-based open-source 3D printing house, Prusa Research, famous for its award-winning Original Prusa i3 3D printer, which is also one of the largest in the world. The start-up prides itself on its craftsmanship, developing its own hardware and software, and its most notable feature is a large hall, nicknamed ‘The Farm’, of over 500 printers that create printer parts. Prusa Research aims to develop as many parts as possible on-site, challenging reliance on global supply chains. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prusa Research developed protective medical shields and shared plans on how to replicate the product on social media networks, a commendable action for which Josef received the Czech Red Cross. Josef started off his career as a core developer of the RepRap project, famed for starting the open-source 3D printer revolution by creating a printer that can print its own parts, after discovering his interest in 3D printing at university.

Kira Randinsky is director of data science of eBay, responsible for the next generation predictive data mining, deep learning and natural language processing solutions that will transform eCommerce. Before this, Kira co-founded SalesPredict, working in the field of predictive marketing by building solutions leveraging large-scale data mining to predict sales conversions. As well as this, Kira is involved in research activities, gives workshops and tutorials, and is visiting Professor at Techiunion. In 2013, she was on MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35 list.