This list contains a sorted and vetted compilation of World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow (a one-year program that ran from 1993 to 2003) and Young Global Leaders (a five-year program started 2004/2005 and still running). Read more about World Economic Forum and Young Global Leaders in my article here. Download the list for free below but credit the sources when sharing.
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Updated: Sep 2023, including 2023 recruits plus a few amendments (e.g. Vivek Ramaswamy who was wrongly added by WEF).
New update 2024–2025 coming soon (October 2025).
YGL 1993–2023.xlsx (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet)
YGL 1993–2023.ods (Open Office spreadsheet)
YGL 1993–2023.csv (comma separated raw data, without link to profile)
YGL 1993–2023 (by Last Name).pdf
YGL 1993–2023 (by Country).pdf
YGL 1993–2023 (by Region).pdf
YGL 1993–2023 (by Sector.pdf
YGL 1993–2023 (by Year).pdf
Notes
This list was originally compiled by Inger Nordangård for Jacob Nordangard’s foundation Stiftelsen Pharos and Anita Hasbury-Snogles for Dr. Malone’s Malone Institute in February–June 2022.
We have done much manual research in order to verify each GLT and YGL and to identify those with minimal info given in WEF’s lists. Some prominent politicians appear to have been removed from the WEF website, or were never officially listed, but some have been named by Klaus Schwab himself.
• Names: Some spellings have been corrected and last names updated. In much of Asia (and Hungary) it is customary to put the family name first (there are exceptions, especially when working with or in the West). In Myanmar the standard is no family name, only given names. We have tried to identify and put names in the correct column but may not have gotten all of them right.
• Positions and Organisations are in some cases updated to the most recent we could find. Links to some of the organisations or corporations have been added.
• Sector (“stakeholder”) categories chosen by WEF have changed over the years. Currently they are: Academia; Arts, Culture & Sport; Business, Civil society; Government; Media; Social Entrepreneurship. We have taken the liberty of using the most descriptive and added some categories, and also extra subcategories in the diverse Business sector. We have used: Academia; Arts, Culture & Sport; Government & Royalty; Religion; Social Entrepreneurship; Think Tank; and Other.
• Region categories used by WEF have also changed over the years. Currently they are: Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East/North Africa (MENA), North America, Sub-saharan Africa. We have used: Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Latin America, MENA, North America, and Oceania.
• Extra info: We have also added additional info such as and WEF Profile link (if available, or else Wikipedia, LinkedIn, company pages, or news articles), Sex, Birth Year (if available), Political position, Past positions, University, and Notes.
Sources
The list is primarily based on World Economic Forum’s own published lists, press releases, and search engines (some via Internet Archives (Wayback Machine). Note that pdf files may download automatically when clicked.
Global Leaders of Tomorrow (1993–2003)
YGL Honourees 2022 (WEF press release)
YGL Honourees 2023 (WEF press release)
The list is open to corrections and additions should anyone spot an error, a duplicate, or have more information (contact us).
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Jacob Nordangard books (more titles are under translation)