About

Meet the new EYL40 Class of 2024!

This year’s EYL40 Class of 2024 includes an Olympic swimmer, a glaciologist, politicians from all levels of government and members of national parliaments, a winemaker, green tech entrepreneurs and social activists, prize-winning journalists, Unicorn and start-up founders and CEOs, a pioneering playwright of Roma feminist theatre and many more!

 

 


Bold leadership, ground-breaking ideas, unparalleled passion …

We’ve learned time and again that the challenges of the 21st century and of our ever complex world cannot be addressed using the rulebooks of the past. The world is screaming for a new type of leadership and a Renewed Social Contract in which the private sector, local and multilateral institutions, and citizens can collaborate and drive change.

Today’s leaders may look back in time for inspiration, but they must lead with innovation.

The European Young Leaders represent an alternative infrastructure of leadership – a new generation of leaders able to inspire action and generate change. Together, their passion, diversity of backgrounds and opinions, and innovative thinking create the right formula for generating fresh ideas to build a more forward-thinking Europe.

Our European leaders are scientists, artists, journalists, entrepreneurs and astronomers. They are citizens and their thinking is not bound by local and multilateral institutions, traditional political frameworks or bureaucracy. They provide alternative perspectives to EU decision-makers and challenge the status quo.

They help take Europe out of Brussels. In their own countries, cities and communities, the European Young Leaders also play an essential role in reconnecting people with and rebuilding trust in politics by engaging a wider community around key EU policy issues that need a whole-of-economy, whole-of-society approach to progress more quickly. They are facilitating citizens’ participation in the creation of a more equal, innovative and inclusive Europe and helping build a European identity.

The programme in the next years will take a new localism lens, bringing together these thinkers and leaders to act on some of the key issues affecting Europe’s future: supporting the green and digital transformation, strengthening our democracy, improving relations with our neighbours, increasing power sharing and building a more diverse Europe.

Succeeding in these policies and getting more citizens engaged in European elections will be our litmus test.


Tune in to the EYL40s on Friends of Europe’s podcasts

Policy Voices | Are we alone in the universe?

Leading view

Policy Voices | Are we alone in the universe?

Start playback
Policy Voices | Like Goebbels: Polish propaganda and the demise of democracy

Leading view

Policy Voices | Like Goebbels: Polish propaganda and the demise of democracy

Start playback
Policy Voices | The Netherlands chose the far-right. What happens next?

Leading view

Policy Voices | The Netherlands chose the far-right. What happens next?

Start playback
Policy Voices Podcast | Keeping the human in the loop: How to make a success story of AI in health

Leading view

Policy Voices Podcast | Keeping the human in the loop: How to make a success story of AI in health

Start playback
Continue to Meet the EYL

Meet the EYL40

Iva Gumnishka
Iva Gumnishka

Founder and CEO of Humans in the Loop and 2022 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Iva Gumnishka

A Bulgarian social entrepreneur, Iva is the Founder and CEO of Humans in the Loop, which provides remote online employment to conflict-affected and displaced people, such as refugees, in the field of dataset annotation and model validation for computer vision and artificial intelligence. The award-winning social enterprise has provided work and training opportunities for over 500 people in Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen, and maintains a dedicated programme to promote the economic inclusion of women. Humans in the Loop is part of MIT SOLVE’s ‘Good Jobs and Inclusive Entrepreneurship’ cohort of social enterprises and has also been awarded by the Global Innovators programme of the Dubai 2020 World Expo. Iva is passionate about promoting the role of humans in AI pipelines and the mitigation of bias in AI systems through diverse and representative data. She is also part of Forbes 30 under 30 in her country.

Photo of Jakob Haesler
Jakob Haesler

Managing Director at Foxdixneuf and European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Jakob Haesler

Prior to founding Project Alloy, Jakob was the CEO and Co-Founder of Tinyclues SAS, a Paris-based software startup with the objective of industrialising datamining on Big Data with the help of advanced machine learning algorithms in a Cloud Computing environment. Previously he was a partner and consultant at McKinsey & Company in Germany and France where he worked on topics ranging from Banking to Public Sector Reform to Global Public Health issues, notably the creation and distribution of child HIV treatments. Prior to McKinsey he briefly worked at the World Bank. He holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor of Science from the University of St. Gallen. Jakob is also a founding partner of the “Cercle du Leadership”.

Suvi Haimi
Suvi Haimi

CEO and Co-Founder of Sulapac and 2019 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Suvi Haimi

In addition to her role as a biochemist, Suvi is the CEO and Co-Founder of Sulapac, a company that develops innovative and fully biodegradable wood-based packaging. Named one of Helsinki’s hottest start-ups in 2018 by WIRED magazine, Sulapac products offer a viable alternative to the plastic packaging most commonly used for food, commodities and cosmetics. A former researcher at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, Suvi holds a PhD in biomaterials and is committed to halting the build-up of microplastics in the world. In 2017, Sulapac was awarded Europe’s first founder’s prize for the circular economy, going on to win both the Green Alley Award and the Sustainable Beauty Award in Paris that same year.

Audrey Hanard
Audrey Hanard

Chair of the Board of Directors at bpost and 2022 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Audrey Hanard

Audrey is a Belgian businesswoman with a wealth of experience in advising corporate, government and philanthropic clients on a range of development and social impact topics. As an Associate Partner at Dalberg Advisors, she works with clients to improve education, employment and health outcomes worldwide through the development, implementation and impact evaluation of inclusive development strategies. Audrey currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors at bpost, leading the Belgian postal operator’s transition from a mail to parcel network. She is the Chair of the Board at Be education, an organisation that supports the improvement of education in Belgium. Audrey is also the Co-Founder and former operational director of Spectralys Biotech, a start-up that provides a unique protein analysis technology for the biopharmaceutical industry. She was previously the president of Groupe Vendredi, a think tank focused on societal issues in Belgium, and head of philanthropy at Telos Impact, a venture philanthropy firm.

Oisin Hanrahan
Oisin Hanrahan

Co-Founder and CEO of Handy and 2015-2016 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Oisin Hanrahan

Oisin became an entrepreneur at the age of 18, when he set up the Clearwater Group, a real estate development company in Budapest while a student at Trinity College, Dublin. Oisin founded Handybook in May 2012 with Umang Dua to address the difficulty of finding a reliable handyman that Oisin experienced in Budapest. Oisin also established MiCandidate, which became the leading source for online election information across Europe in 2009, and set up the Undergraduate Awards, which has become the world’s largest pan-discipline awards programme. Supported by Google, Microsoft and others, it is a global annual awards event hosted in Dublin with the award distributed each year by the President of Ireland. In 2019 Oisin became Chief Product Officer for ANGI Homeservices which operates HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List and other brands.

Fabian Heilemann
Fabian Heilemann

Founder & CEO of Sky & Sand and 2013 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Fabian Heilemann

Fabian founded the leading German couponing company DailyDeal in 2009. To date he still leads DailyDeal together with his co-founder and brother. In private, he invests as a business angel in technology start-ups through his holding Heilemann Ventures. Before founding DailyDeal, Fabian worked for various German law firms and as a business consultant for Booz & Co. Prior to that, he passed the First Bar Exam of the State of Hamburg with distinctions and submitted a PhD thesis in Corporate Law at Heidelberg Law School. He was a visiting student at Santa Clara University and Stanford University, CA, USA and founded the Entrepreneurs Club at Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, Germany.

Sabrina Hersi Issa
Sabrina Hersi Issa

Chief Executive Officer Be Bold Media, 2017 North American Young Leader

Show more information on Sabrina Hersi Issa

Sabrina Hersi Issa is the CEO of Be Bold Media, a digital agency for global advocacy that notably produces a hackathon series to build and improve technology tools used for humanitarian relief and refugee services. She is the co-founder of End Famine, a campaign dedicated to developing sustainable solutions to hunger, food security and humanitarian assistance. Hersi Issa organises Rights x Tech, a gathering for technologists and activists, and runs Survivor Fund, a political fund dedicated to supporting the rights of survivors of sexualised violence. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, where she leads research on journalism ecosystems and how philanthropy can support efforts to build diverse, inclusive media ecosystems. In addition, she curates New/s Disruptors, a project working to re-frame the narrative of digital disruption in journalism to champion the experiences and contributions of diverse voices. Sabrina is a former fellow of the Roosevelt Institute where she worked on issues related to technology, human rights and humanitarian disasters. She has also worked for Afghans for Civil Society, Oxfam America, NBC News and National Public Radio.

Christel Heydemann
Christel Heydemann

CEO of the Orange Group and 2014 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Christel Heydemann

Christel Heydemann is committed to connecting people in a sustainable world, while addressing today’s societal challenges, in her role as the Orange Group’s CEO. Prior to her current appointment, she served as the executive vice president of European operations and of France at Schneider Electric, where she also sat on the company’s executive committee. Heydemann first joined Schneider Electric as the senior vice president of global strategic alliances, in which role she focused on the launch and adoption of the Internet of Things. She previously worked at Alcatel-Lucent, where she was entrusted with a range of responsibilities, specifically in the context of the merger of Alcatel and Lucent. Having first joined Alcatel’s project finance team, she progressively made her way up the ladder to serve on the executive committee of Alcatel-Lucent as the director of human resources and transformation. Heydemann began her career at the Boston Consulting Group in Paris.

Daire Hickey
Daire Hickey

Managing Partner at 150Bond and 2018 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Daire Hickey

Daire is the Managing Partner at 150 Bond, a strategic advisory firm based between New York and Dublin, which advises fast-growing tech companies, venture capitalists and Fortune 500s. He also co-founded Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech start-up event and the largest technology conference in the world. In this role, he has facilitated a number of tech conferences across the United States and Europe. Daire has previously written for top publications in Ireland as a journalist and worked at Irish broadcaster, RTÉ. An active angel investor who also sits on the advisory boards of several companies, Daire has received recognition as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and on the Forbes’ ‘30 under 30’ list.

Karoli Hindriks
Karoli Hindriks

CEO and Co-Founder of Jobbatical and 2020-2021 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Karoli Hindriks

Karoli is an Estonian entrepreneur and creator of Jobbatical, a digital visa and relocation platform using AI and automation to digitise archaic immigration systems. On a mission to make immigration more resourceful, Jobbatical is changing individuals’ lives and building high-performing teams by relocating exceptional people to impactful tech jobs around the world. Since founding her first company at the age of 16, officially making her the youngest inventor in Estonia, Karoli has been on a fast-track to setting up innovative initiatives. She is regularly counted amongst today’s most influential women, having received numerous awards and recognition from prestigious organisations, including EU-Startups and the European Council. She was also nominated as speaker of the 2017 Fortune Magazine Most Powerful Women International Summit. Thanks to her influence, she also led the launch of seven television channels in Northern Europe, including National Geographic Channels and MTV.

unknown
Lars Hinrichs

Serial Entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of Cinco Capital and 2013 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Lars Hinrichs

Lars is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He is the Founder and CEO of both Cinco Capital, a private equity fund that invested in tech companies throughout Europe and the United States, and HackFwd, a pre-seen venture capital company which invests in technical talent across Europe. Lars also founded XING, a networking platform dedicated to cultivating business contacts. His other projects include Apartimentum and politik-digital.de. Among the most successful web entrepreneurs in Germany, Lars has received several awards, including the 2004 German Internet Prize of the Federal Ministry of Economics and the Lead Award, Germany’s top award for print and online media. He was also elected Germany’s most important web entrepreneur in 2008 by the Startups Initiative. A true expert in his field, Lars is a member of the supervisory and advisory boards of various companies and advises politicians on digitalisation at the local, national and European levels. He is also an honorary member of the German Committee of UNICEF.

Photo of Laurent Hublet
Laurent Hublet

Co-Founder of BeCentral and 2023 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Laurent Hublet

Nicknamed ‘the philosopher of tech’, Laurent Hublet is a Belgian entrepreneur, who champions investment in human capital and skills as a means to strengthen the social pact between the public and the government. He founded BeCentral, the largest tech campus in Europe in terms of the number of people (re)trained, with the belief that every citizen, regardless of their age, gender, colour or culture, should have the opportunity to become a digital native and an actor of the digital revolution. An angel investor in over 15 digital start-ups, Hublet is also behind the We Are Founders programme, which assists non-entrepreneurs in launching start-ups. In the academic arena, he is the Co-Academic Director of an executive programme at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, which focuses on responsible and ethical approaches to management. Hublet has previously served in the cabinet of the Belgian deputy prime minister and advised on the digital strategy of the federal government.

Hera Hussain
Hera Hussain

Founder of CHAYN and 2020-2021 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Hera Hussain

Hera is the Founder and CEO of CHAYN – a global non-profit that creates resources on the web to address gender-based violence. CHAYN’s multilingual resources, designed with, not for survivors, have reached more than 500 000 people. Raised in Pakistan and living in the UK, Hera committed early to tackling violence against women. She believes in using the power of open-source technology, trauma-informed design and hope-filled framing to solve the world’s pressing issues. Hera is an Ashoka Fellow, and was on the Forbes 30 Under 30 and MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list.

Justas Janauskas
Justas Janauskas

Serial entrepreneur, Co-Founder of Vinted and 2022 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Justas Janauskas

Justas is a Lithuanian entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of Lithuania’s first unicorn start-up, Vinted. The mobile shopping platform for second-hand fashion is Europe’s largest online customer-to-customer (C2C) marketplace. Operational in 15 countries with over 45mn users, the platform has continued to experience tremendous growth, as consumption patterns continue to shift against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Justas served as Vinted’s CEO for nearly a decade. A serial angel investor who offers his expertise and financial support to young entrepreneurs, Justas has backed a wide range of projects, including Memby, an after-school online learning platform, the sustainable Local Ocean shrimp farm, as well as Dogo, a mobile app for dog training that has been named Apple’s App of the Day in countries across North America, Europe and Australia.

Toms Jurjevs
Toms Jurjevs

Founder and CEO of Sun Finance Group and 2022 European Young Leader (EYL40)

Show more information on Toms Jurjevs

Toms is a Latvian entrepreneur in the fintech industry. He is the Founder and CEO of Sun Finance Group, a fintech company that operates a user-friendly online and mobile lending platform. One of the fastest growing companies in Europe, Sun Finance has expanded its operations beyond Latvia to Denmark, Poland, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Vietnam and Sweden and secured over €1.2bn in loans to clients who have been typically unable to access funding. He has also launched two additional successful businesses, supporting their growth in the start-up stage and development as international multi-million companies. Toms is also the Founder and Chairman of the Council at the Alternative Financial Services Association of Latvia, which connects fintech and other companies in order to promote responsible practices and cooperation in the sector.

Continue to Events

Events

view more events
Continue to Insights

Insights

view more insights
Continue to Selection process

Selection process

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS/NOMINATIONS FOR THE EYL CLASS OF 2025 IS NOW OPEN

The European Young Leaders (EYL40) programme is a unique, inventive and multi-stakeholder programme that aims to promote a European identity by engaging the continent’s most promising talents in initiatives that will shape Europe’s future.

The European Young Leaders represent a new generation of European leaders from all over the continent and various backgrounds, including politics, business, civil society, academia, arts, science and the media.

The programme acts as a forum for those who have already established themselves at the forefront of their professions to meet, discuss and collaborate with their counterparts from other fields of expertise. Previous candidates include government ministers, CEOs, Michelin-starred chefs, international film directors and high-profile journalists.

Since the launch of the programme, we have gradually taken steps to ensure the diversity and exceptional quality of its selection process. We have made sure that its comprehensive and competitive nature ensures the identification and selection of remarkable individuals.

We aim to select 40+ European Young Leaders of diverse backgrounds to enable a broad exchange of ideas, creating the basis for a new generation of engaged European leaders.

SELECTION CRITERIA

  • Candidates must be between 30 and 40 years of age (born on or after 1 January 1985).
  • Candidates must be a national of an EU member state, the UK, Ukraine, Moldova or one of the 6 Balkan states currently on the path towards EU integration (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia).
  • Candidates should have established themselves at the highest levels of their chosen profession or be on track to do so.
  • Candidates must be committed to serve society at large through noteworthy contributions and have demonstrated a record of significant achievements and outstanding professional experience.
  • Candidates are also evaluated based on their ability to contribute to the enrichment of the programme as a whole.
  • Candidates are required to be fluent in English as it is the working language of the programme.
  • Candidates must commit to participating in at least one of the two EYL seminars during the programme year, usually scheduled for March and September.

Please click HERE for the Selection Guidelines 2025 that will give you an idea of the process and will provide you with a link to the nomination/application form.

Should you have any questions or need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us at eyl40@friendsofeurope.org.

We look forward to receiving your applications and nominations.

* References to Kosovo here are used without prejudice to positions on status and are in line with UN Security Council resolution 1244/99 and the International Court of Justice Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

Continue to Partners

Videos

view more
Track title

Category

00:0000:00
Stop playback
Video title

Category

Close
Africa initiative logo

Dismiss