Our charter limits the number of business members to 500 globally. It also stipulates that at least 51% of our community members have to be scientists, so we never devolve into a business club.
WORLD.MINDS is run by an outstanding board of trustees, with strategic input from our first-class executive advisory board.
EXECUTIVE ADVISORY BOARD
EXECUTIVE
ADVISORY BOARD
ADVISORY BOARD
Jorge Paulo Lemann
Investor and Entrepreneur, Founder of 3G Capital
General David Petraeus
Former Director of the CIA, Chairman of the KKR Global Institute
Dmytro Kuleba
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ukraine
Niall Ferguson
Historian and Author at Stanford, Harvard and Tsinghua
Mathias Döpfner
Owner and CEO of Axel Springer
Neri Oxman
Legendary architect, designer and inventor, CEO of OXMAN Inc.
Fred Kempe
President and CEO of The Atlantic Council
Anne Neuberger
Lecturer at Stanford University; Former Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, The White House; Strategic Advisor at a16z
Heiner Linke
Professor of Nanophysics, Lund University
Matt Kaminski
Editor-at-Large of POLITICO
Shéhérazade Semsar-de Boisséson
Former CEO of POLITICO Europe and Executive Director of the McCourt Institute
Christian H. Kälin
Chairman of Henley & Partners, Co-Founder of Arnova Capital
Daniela Schwarzer
Board Member, Bertelsmann Foundation
Matt Ridley
Former Member of the House of Lords, best-selling author and former Editor of “The Economist”
Peter Singer
Moral philosopher and best-selling author, Princeton and University of Melbourne
Stefan Hell
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Director of the Max Planck Institute
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Nobel Prize in Economics, Former Chief Economist of the World Bank
Kishore Mahbubani
Former President of the UN Security Council
Alon Chen
President of the Weizmann Institute
Tenley E. Albright
Director of the MIT Collaborative Initiative, Board member of the Bloomberg Foundation, Olympic Gold Medalist
Uli Sigg
Former Ambassador to China, Largest private collector of contemporary Chinese Art
Sebastian Thrun
Founder of Waymo, Google X and Udacity
Kurt Wüthrich
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Marc Walder
CEO of Ringier and Founder of digitalswitzerland
Jöel Mesot
President of ETH Zurich
Uwe Krüger
Senior Managing Partner at TEMASEK (Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund)
Thomas Schmidheiny
Founder and Chairman of Spectrum Value Management
Anna Fontcuberta i Morral
President of EPFL
Kiana Aran
Founder of Cardea Bio, Professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego Medical School
Markus Pertl
Chairman of the Stern Stewart Institute
FOUNDATION BOARD
Ralph Büchi
Chairman of the Advisory Board, Axel Springer
Michael Hengartner
President, ETH Board (ETH Zurich and EPFL)
Lawyer and Philanthropist
Michèle Rodoni
CEO, Die Mobiliar
Schoscho Rufener
Entrepreneur Philanthropist
Alex Wassmer
Chairman, KIBAG Holdings
OUR SQUADRON
Artem Babichenko
Digital Solutions Architect
Kipper Blakeley
Producer and Chief of Staff
Ralph Büchi
Executive Chairman
Rolf Dobelli
Founder
Mor Eini
Vice President, Partnerships
Corinna Hoyer
CEO
Safiye Kucukkaraka
Director, Middle East
Émilie Luthringer
Community and Operations Coordinator
Simon Mitterreiter
Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operations Officer
Pascal Rathle
Director, North America
Aleksandra Reinert
Head of CEO Office
Amanda Schlumpf
Director, Europe
DISTINGUISHED VOICES
“The thinkers and doers WORLD.MINDS convenes is so consistently and emphatically strong.” John Harris, Co-Founder and Chairman of POLITICO
“WORLD.MINDS is a great community… and an unequaled intellectual critical mass.” General David Petraeus, Former Director of the CIA, Former Commander of the Surge in Iraq
“WORLD.MINDS makes me a better thinker.” Henry Kravis, KKR
“WORLD.MINDS is an intellectual oasis” Paul Romer, Nobel Laureate in Economics, Former Chief Economist at the World Bank
“I’m proud to be part of the WORLD.MINDS community.” Ray Dalio, Founder, Bridgewater
“WORLD.MINDS delivers spectacular, glittering, stimulating, thought provoking results.” Jim Collins, Author, “Good to Great”, “Built to Last”, “What to Make of a Life” and more
“WORLD.MINDS is indispensable to the intellectual vibrancy of our society.” Prof. Gerd Gigerenzer, Director, Max Planck Institute, Berlin
“A community like no other — unparalleled, unrivaled.” Georges Kern, CEO and co-owner, Breitling
“If your interests extend beyond your own field, WORLD.MINDS is a must.” Marc Pollefeys, Director, Microsoft AI Lab
“WORLD.MINDS is one of the smartest, most vibrant and most inspiring communities I know.” Marc Forster, Filmmaker and Screenwriter, “The Kite Runner”, James Bond “Quantum of Solace” and more
“The density of fascinating people at WORLD.MINDS is unparalleled.” Prof. Ed Boyden, Professor of Neuroscience, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
“Brilliant people. A great community and I love the style.” Prof. Sarah Kenderdine, Professor of Digital Museology, Director and Lead Curator of EPFL Pavilions
“WORLD.MINDS is a stalwart group.” Admiral James Stavridis, Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, Vice Chair of Carlyle Group
“A high for the mind and the spirit.” Prof. Neri Oxman, Founder & CEO, OXMAN Inc.
“WORLD.MINDS is focusing on things of real concern.” Henry Kissinger
“WORLD.MINDS is a masterpiece.” Prof. Avi Loeb, Chair of Harvard’s Astronomy Department
“WORLD.MINDS is top-notch. It’s all around superb.” Eric Cantor, Former House Majority Leader, U.S. Congress, Vice Chairman of Moelis & Company
“WORLD.MINDS is a superb mixture of science, technology, society and culture.” Prof. Christof Koch, Chief Scientific Officer, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle
“WORLD.MINDS is about bringing different disciplines together.” Lord Norman Foster, Architect
“The WORLD.MINDS community broadens my horizon with ever new insights beyond my own field.” Prof. Kurt Wüthrich, Nobel Prize Winner, ETH Zurich
“I get so much feedback on my ideas from WORLD.MINDS.” Prof. Jonathan Haidt, New York University, Author of “The Anxious Generation”, “The Righteous Mind”, “The Coddling of the American Mind” and more
“An excellent community to break out of your daily professional life.” Thomas Buberl, Global CEO, AXA
“WORLD.MINDS is setting a gold standard for what community really means.” Prof. Marcel Salathé, Co-Director of the EPFL AI Center
KNOWLEDGE PARTNERS
The not-for-profit WORLD.MINDS FOUNDATION is based in Switzerland and regulated by Swiss law. Funding is provided by our international business community and generous individuals. WORLD.MINDS Management Ltd. is the event management company that organizes our events on an international level. The event management company is jointly owned by the WORLD.MINDS-team and Axel Springer.