European Young Leaders (#EYL40)

Lithuanian publisher Ūla Ambrasaitė has been on a mission to produce books that bring authors and readers together in a living social network. She founded the LAPAS publishing house in 2013 with a focus on architecture, humanities, arts and literature, providing opportunities for young authors and creating books that enrich the space around them. Ambrasaitė is a Board Member at the Lithuanian Publishers Association. In 2013 she founded the EDIT Street Art Festival, the first of its kind in Lithuania. As curator and director, Ambrasaitė attracted top international artists to the festival in Vilnius and Klaipeda. She continues to curate while exploring creative financial and philanthropic investments in cultural enterprises.

Maud Caillaux is Co-Founder of Green-Got, a French neo-bank that channels funding towards the green transition. Customers get ecological bank accounts where savings contribute to ocean clean-up, re-forestation, sustainable agriculture, renewable energies and other environmental projects. The goal is to empower all savers to make money while investing in transition. “No longer will a single cent go to finance fossil fuels,” affirms Caillaux. Founded in 2020, Green-Got is expanding rapidly, with €100mn under management and transactions totalling more than €1bn. The bank went international by moving into Belgium in 2023 and, in November 2024, raised €5mn in 148 minutes during a record-breaking crowdfunding drive.

Min-Sung Sean Kim is a General Partner at NGS Capital, a Berlinbased venture capital fund, where he focuses on identifying and scaling transformative ventures in healthcare and cybersecurity. He is also the co-founder of 2hearts, a platform dedicated to empowering young European digital talents with migrant backgrounds. Kim’s international investment experience ranges from early-stage to late-stage. In his career, he was responsible for the Berlin office of the Samsung Catalyst Fund and helped in creating AllianzX , a corporate venture capital fund dedicated to late-stage investments in proven digital growth companies. Kim is passionate about building bridges in venture capital and beyond, creating opportunities for people, ideas, and innovation to thrive.

Louis Linster was proclaimed 2024 Luxembourg Chef of the Year by the Gault&Millau guide, and he holds a Michelin star for his restaurant in the village of Frisange, south of the Grand Ducal capital. “His knack with sauces is second to none, as is his flair for presentation and plating,” says the Michelin guide. Cooking is in Linster’s DNA. His mother Léa Linster is a culinary legend: the first – and so far, only – woman to win France’s Bocuse d’Or contest for the world’s top chefs. Following her retirement, Louis Linster took over the restaurant, which still bears his mother’s name, serving up modern-French cuisine with Asian influences.

Estonian entrepreneur Taavi Madiberk is CEO of Skeleton Technologies. He was just 21 when he co-founded the company, a global innovation leader in high-power energy storage. Skeleton produces supercapacitors and its SuperBattery to decrease CO₂ emissions, stabilise grids, power AI data centres and accelerate the electrification of the planet’s largest industries. It is the only European energy storage company producing its supercapacitors and high-power batteries using its own patented material called ‘curved graphene’, based on widely available low-cost materials sourced in Europe. Skeleton’s customers include Siemens, Hitachi Energy, Honda Racing, Skoda Electric and the European Space Agency. Its new plant in Germany is the world’s largest supercapacitor factory. Madiberk is also a Board Member at the European Innovation Council.

Born in Israel to an Italian mother and Libyan father, Liel Maghen has spent years exploring his identity, which has led him to his active involvement in peace building activities in the Middle East. After co-directing the Israel/Palestine Centre for Research and Information (IPCRI), a partnership-building NGO and think tank, he co-founded Elham – the Day After, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian artists to sow seeds of hope in a shared future. Maghen also acts as a consultant on programmes across the Middle East promoting community building, intercultural dialogue and non-violent communication. In 2022, he was awarded the IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East. He is currently making his first feature-length documentary to inspire hope in the war-torn region.

Amélie Matton is the current Senior Advisor to the Board, and until recently CEO, of Ecosteryl, a world-leading medical waste management service based in Mons, Belgium. An experienced leader with a demonstrated history in the environmental services industry, Matton also has a strong background in the financial, operations and international trade sectors. At the head of a company, in a once male-dominated industry, now operating in more than 65 countries, this environmental engineer is passionate about women not having to make concessions in order to become leaders in business. Among her accolades, Matton is a member of Belgium’s 40 under 40, was nominated at the Manager of the Year 2023 edition and was part of the first Belgian list of Inspiring Women in Tech.

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.

Kosovo-based Erblin Ribari is Chief Financial Officer at dua.com, an app that seeks to transform the dating industry, providing a lifestyle platform that focuses on establishing meaningful connections through shared culture and origins. Starting out as a dating app for Albanians, dua.com has gone global, with more than 5mn registered users and a market cap of over $50mn. Its ambitions go far higher: dua.com aims to cut global loneliness by half over the next 10 years. The 2008 financial crisis sparked Ribari’s commitment to making change, driving him to take leadership roles in multimillion-dollar projects across tech, finance and government furthering economic development and global connectivity.

From her base in Latvia, wearing many hats, Marija Ručevska has been a driving force behind the Baltic tech scene for a decade. She is the General Partner at the Outlast Fund, launched in 2024 to back pre-seed and seed stage startups in the Baltic and Nordic region, to support bold founders with the grit and vision to build ventures that outlast the rest. Ručevska is also partner and co-founder of Helve, which she helped set up in 2016 to bring startup-style innovation to the wider corporate and public sectors. She continues as Member of the Board at TechChill, one of northern Europe’s biggest annual tech conferences, drawing over 300 startups and 250 plus investors.

Jan-Willem van Putten is a Dutch social entrepreneur and policy expert. He is co-founder of both The School for Moral Ambition and Training for Good, which focus on priming a new generation of leaders to confront pressing global challenges and make a lasting impact on society. Through his work, he strives not only to talk about a better world, but also to take action towards one. As Fellowship Director at The School for Moral Ambition, van Putten manages programmes that empower individuals to drive change in sustainable food production and tobacco industry control. Training for Good works to equip young European policymakers and journalists to recognise and reduce risks from emerging technologies.