European Young Leaders (#EYL40)

Armin Čerkez currently serves as Managing Director of the Global Asthma and Allergy Excellence Network, which promotes cutting-edge research, innovation and medical education in allergy, asthma and dermatology research worldwide. He is also a founder of Youth Power, an influential Bosnian NGO that pushes for non-violence, human rights and tolerance in the country. His inspirational work on Program Y led to the inclusion of gender-based violence prevention in school curricula. Coming from a region that has historically suffered from religious violence, Čerkez has championed the need for more interfaith dialogue. He has also brought his message directly to citizens, providing lessons to prevent alcohol abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and violence in schools.

Manuel is the Managing Director of J.P. Morgan in the United Kingdom. Formerly, CEO of Angels Den Funding, a digital investment platform that matches active investors with European start-ups, and a Non-Executive Director at the fintech start-up, iFactor. Also, a former member of the Parliament of Romania, Manuel served as the deputy minister for trade and investment, in which role he oversaw the implementation of infrastructure projects and stimulated foreign investment and public-private partnerships in Romania. Before joining the government, he worked as an executive director at JP Morgan, where he was responsible for various public sector clients in Europe, including central banks, debt management offices, development banks and government agencies. With experience as an independent consultant on business and development projects in Australia, South Africa, Tanzania and Peru, Manuel was also a research analyst at the Brattle Group, where his worked focused on risk management and strategies in the energy sector.

Camille is a European writer, creator and artist. He studied in Paris, at the London School of Economics, as well as in New York. He has published several novels, shorts and essays, such as The Inversion of Hieronymus Bosch (2005), Lives and Death of an American Terrorist (2007), and L’inquiétude d’être au monde (The Anxiety of Being in the World) (2012). In 2004, Camille won the Villa Medicis scholarship for his literary and video work. His short film, “Tango de Olvido”, was selected for the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. In 2008 he founded the European Society of Authors with other intellectual figures to promote a cultural Europe on the basis of what he coined a translation citizenship. He is the Chief Editor of www.ifverso.com and Chief Advisor of the “TLHUB.org” project, a multilingual translation platform.

Balázs is a Hungarian lawyer and a human rights activist. In 1997 he joined the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), the country’s leading civil liberties watchdog organisation, and after holding various positions he served as the HCLU Executive Director from 2004 to 2012. Since early 2013, he is Director of the European Civil Liberties Project at the Open Society Foundations. He is a founding member of many Hungarian NGOs, and serves on the board of the Common Sense for Drug Policy Foundation and the Melymosoly Foundation. He focuses on civil liberties, human rights, communication and NGO management issues. Balázs received his law degree in 1998 from ELTE University Budapest and is a 2003-2004 Columbia University/Global Network for Public Interest Law (PILnet) Fellow.

Rokhaya is a human rights activist committed to anti-racism work. She is currently the Host and Co-Editor of “Egaux, mais pas trop” (Equal, but not too much), a series of reports on diversity issues in France, and has previously held a number of noteworthy positions in the television field, basing her work primarily on social and political issues. The Founder and former president of Les Indivisibles, a French organisation that uses humour and irony to fight racism, Rokhaya is also a published author, scriptwriter and award-winning director of several documentaries. She is a member of several NGOs and organisations that base their work on social awareness and also sits on the board of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) Foundation. In 2012, she received the COJEP International Award for her work against racism and discrimination.

Together with Ashoka, Markus has founded FASE and established it as the leading European impact finance advisor. Since 2013, FASE has built a successful track record: an investor base with >2,000 impact investors and successful support for >85 European impact ventures, raising EUR >75mn in hybrid growth capital. Additionally, FASE has initiated the European Social Innovation and Impact Fund (ESIIF). The ESIIF is the first financial intermediary across Europe providing impact ventures with patient capital and benefiting from EU-guarantees (EaSI).

Markus is recognized as a thought leader for social finance in Germany and beyond. Markus has an active presence in public discourses (e.g. member of Expert Group on Social Entrepreneurship of EU Commission (GECES), Board Member of Impact Europe) and wrote a wealth of articles, reports and case studies on best practices in social finance. He was also selected for the 40 under 40 European Young Leaders Class 2017.

Prior to this, Markus worked for more than 7 years as consultant for McKinsey & Company. Markus studied Business Administration and Economics at the Universities of Witten/Herdecke and Cambridge and received his Ph.D. from the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management.

Joss Garman is a British environmental and humanitarian campaigner, who currently works as the UK Programme Director for the European Climate Foundation, where he oversees the organisation’s strategy and grant-making in Britain and advises the organisation on its broader European and international strategies. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and also sits on the boards of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) and GreenerUK, a coalition of the UK’s largest environmental NGOs. His previous roles include associate director for energy and climate change at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), political advisor to the Labour Party and chief advisor for the British Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. He has also held several senior positions at Greenpeace UK, including political director, head of media and head of the energy and climate campaign. During his time at Greenpeace, Joss co-founded the direct action group, Plane Stupid, and acted as an advisor to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and UNICEF.

Passionate about youth empowerment, urban affairs and youth participation, Katerina is President and Founder of the European Cyprus Society, an NGO which encourages young Cypriots to engage with issues that concern them, such as education, European and international relations, and national politics. Her contribution to youth empowerment in Cyprus and worldwide has earned her various titles and awards, including the Queen’s Young Leaders Award, Representative of European youth to the advisory body of the UN Habitat and UN Youth Envoy Nominee.

Moha is a Spanish journalist and anti-racism activist. Prior to his current roles at Vogue Spain and La Hora de La 1, he wrote for eldiario.es, a leading online newspaper in Spain, contributing op-eds and video content on issues related to race and discrimination. Moha served as president of SOS Racismo Madrid, a prominent organisation that seeks to combat racism and xenophobia. Additionally, Moha is active on the speaker circuit and is a lecturer at the University of Syracuse and the University of Stanford’s campuses in Madrid. Known for utilising both print and multimedia content to advance his message, Moha is the creator of the audio-visual monologue, “How my life would be if I were a black character in a movie”, and one of the authors of the book, “Lost in Media: Migrant Perspectives and the Public Sphere”.

In addition to his current role at the Festival de Marseille, Jan is the Co-Artistic Director of L’Art Rue and its Dream City festival in Tunis, which promote access to culture and the democratisation of the arts. He also leads the ‘Brussels 2030’ project, the city’s bid to be named the European Capital of Culture. During his time as the director of the Festival de Marseille, Jan received the Chevalie de l’Order des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture for his contribution to the arts. He is also the former artistic director of the Royal Flemish Theater (KVS), which became a key cultural organisation in Brussels under his leadership.

Joséphine is Chief Executive Officer at Sistech, a European non-profit supporting displaced and uprooted women to access qualified and sustainable jobs in the tech & digital sectors. Prior to this, she was leading Techfugees, an international non-profit coordinating the technology industry’s response to the refugee situation. A serial social entrepreneur and fierce activist for smarter migration policies, she was selected to be part of the EU’s immigration expert group to advise on the reform of visa rules for foreign entrepreneurs in Europe. In addition to these roles, she was a board Member for the Norwegian Refugee Council from 2018 until 2023 and was nominated as one of the top ‘30 under 30 Social Entrepreneurs’ by Forbes in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Prior to founding Techfugees, Joséphine was Director of Partnerships at Migreat, a London-based start-up developing an AI for visa applicants to Europe.

As one of the most charismatic conductors of his generation, Dionysis made his debut at the age of twenty-one with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Since then, he has been awarded with several honours and was the first Greek to receive a Conducting Fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival. By the age of twenty, Dionysis had won European Young Musician of the Year Prize and had been featured on a Greek postage stamp. This young virtuoso has performed in some of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Cité de la Musique in Paris and the Barbican Centre in London and has worked with orchestras such as the Vienna Symphony and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, among others.

“Victoria Herrmann is the President and Managing Director of the Arctic Institute. Her
research and writing focus on climate change, community adaptation, human
development, and resource economies, with a particular focus on Arctic oil and gas.
Herrmann previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s
Energy and Climate Program. She was awarded a Eureka! Prize from the Baker
Institute for Entrepreneurship in 2012 and a Fulbright Scholarship to Canada to
pursue Arctic research in 2013. She is the author of Arctic Melt: Turning Resource
Extraction into Human Development (2015). She has been published in many peerreview
journals and appeared on BBC and CNN, among others. In 2016, Herrmann
travelled across the United States for the National Geographic-funded book on
climate change stories America’s Eroding Edges. She is a Gates Scholar at the
Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, where she is pursuing
a PhD in Political Geography of the Arctic.”

Aslak Holmberg is a salmon fisher, teacher and former president of the Saami Council, an international body made up of nine Saami member organisations from Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. A former member of the Saami Parliament of Finland, Holmberg has for the past decade been involved in Saami activism, working with various processes dealing with indigenous Saami knowledge and rights. Holmberg is currently working with research ethics and has led the Saami Council’s work on biodiversity for several years. Safeguarding healthy and productive ecosystems and their sustainable use is essential for Saami culture and identity. He has taught North Saami language at the Saami University of Applied Sciences and holds an MA degree in Indigenous Studies from UiT, the Arctic University of Norway.