The only hope for a world awash in troubles is that leaders with vision, universal values, and determination will seize the moment. But just bemoaning the lack of leaders accomplishes nothing. That’s why we established the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.

This year, our global jury selected two amazing leaders: Asha de Vos, a Sri Lankan marine biologist and Tero Mustonen, a Finnish climate scientist, fisherman and community leader.

Listen as two jurors—David Kiernan and Marthe Reinette—discuss leadership, challenges and hope with the winners.

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ABOUT OUR GUESTS

David C. Kiernan, M.D., J.D. is a partner in the Washington D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP. He has nearly thirty years of experience litigating a wide variety of intellectual property, product liability and commercial cases in state and federal courts. Mr. Kiernan is also a co-founder and director of Synthetic Genomics, Inc., a La Jolla, California company that utilizes synthetic biology to develop sustainable solutions in the pharmaceutical, food and energy fields.
He received his B.A. in chemistry, magna cum laude, from Duke University and his J.D. and M.D. at Duke’s School of Law and School of Medicine. He undertook a year of general surgery training at Georgetown Hospital before joining Williams & Connolly in 1986.

Tero Mustonen is the President and Co-Founder of the Snowchange Cooperative based in Selkie, North Karelia, Finland.
Mustonen is an academic, a professional fisherman and the President of Snowchange, an organization that leads landscape-scale rewilding projects. He works to protect and restore the unique biocultural diversity of Arctic and boreal regions in the face of climate change in solidarity with the region’s local and Indigenous peoples. His role as a lead author in the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is bringing global prominence to how Arctic nations can meaningfully contribute to global climate efforts. He is also the head of the village of Selkie, North Karelia, Finland.

Marthe Reinette is the Director of Engagement at THNK School of Creative Leadership. In her role she leads the team responsible for sales and marketing. She has a background in sustainable development with extensive experience working as a marketer in the responsible investment and impact investing space. Most notably she held senior marketing roles at Nyenrode Business University, Sustainalytics (leading responsible investment research firm), FMO (Dutch Development Bank) and Phenix Capital, an investment consultant focused on impact and sustainable development investing. Marthe sits on the Board of Other Futures festival, a multidisciplinary bi-annual festival that presents speculative visions of the future. Born and bred in Paris, France, she has visited over 35 countries and lived in Switzerland, Canada and the UK before settling in Amsterdam in 2006. She holds a MBA from Purdue University, USA.

Dr. Asha de Vos is the Founder and Executive Director of Oceanswell in Sri Lanka.
As a marine biologist, ocean educator and pioneer of blue whale research within the Northern Indian Ocean, Asha de Vos’ life work is to change the current marine conservation model, protect the unique population of blue whales and inspire the next generation of diverse ocean heroes from all corners of the globe.

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The only hope for a world awash in troubles is that leaders with vision, universal values, and determination will seize the moment. Not just in politics, but across sectors and across countries. Unfortunately, nothing like that is yet happening. 

But just bemoaning the lack of leaders accomplishes nothing. That’s why we established and have nurtured the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize. 

In 2021 our global jury selected two amazing leaders: Asha de Vos, a Sri Lankan marine biologist who has established a world class marine conservation research and education institution in her country, and Tero Mustonen, a Finnish climate scientist, fisherman and community leader, who blends the wisdom of local and Indigenous peoples with the hard truths of scientists to define new approaches to climate change.

Listen as two Tällberg jurors—David Kiernan, a leading American litigator and Marthe Reinette, of the THNK School of Creative Leadership in the Netherlands—discuss leadership, challenges and hope with Asha and Tero.

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