It is not news that democracy is in trouble almost everywhere. Poll after poll shows that people in most countries—especially in the West and throughout the Americas—are disappointed with democracy as it exists today. This is particularly true among young people, many of whom seem to prefer a strong leader to the apparent impotence of their democratic leaders.

Of course, there are exceptions, and we should celebrate them. Top of that list is Bangladesh, with a history of autocratic leaders, some of whom used elections to hang on to power for years. However, during the summer of 2024, a student-led revolution succeeded in expelling the government of Sheikh Hasina, who had ruled for 15 years.

Fast-forward to February 2026, and Bangladesh has just conducted an election that, by all accounts, was mostly free, fair, and peaceful. The result was that the interim government, led by Nobel Prize-winning Muhammad Yunus, has now been replaced by a democratically elected government. From start to finish, the entire transformation took less than 20 months.

Score one for democracy!

Our guests on New Thinking for a New World were in the front ranks of that revolution. Aysha Siddiqua Tithi and Umama Fatema were both leaders of Students Against Discrimination, the organization that drove the revolution. Listen as they discuss their experiences and hopes for their country’s future.

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You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Aysha Siddiqua Tithi is a Computer Science student at Brac University and an internationally recognized Bangladeshi youth activist. She emerged as a leader of the 2024 anti-discrimination student movement and represented youth voices at the 79th UN General Assembly alongside Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus.

She co-founded She Leads to empower women and works with the Zero Missing Children Foundation to protect children’s rights. Aysha has held leadership roles at Brac University and contributes to civic training initiatives. Blending technology and activism, she focuses on innovation, human rights, and climate justice, aiming to advance equity and sustainability through tech-driven solutions.

Umama Fatema is a Bangladeshi student activist and youth leader committed to social justice and education reform. A graduate of the University of Dhaka, she rose to national prominence during the 2024 July Uprising, advocating for quota reform and greater transparency in public institutions. As a coordinator and spokesperson for Students Against Discrimination, she mobilized thousands of students and championed the rights of marginalized groups. Known for her clear, inclusive leadership, she previously served as General Secretary of the Dhaka University branch of the Bangladesh Chhatra Federation and remains active in youth empowerment and women’s rights advocacy.

What does global leadership look like in a fractured, uncertain world?

The Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize was created to recognize leaders from any discipline, any country, who are working to make the world better. Leadership that is global in perspective, innovative and persistent, and grounded in universal values.

This episode is a recording of a special webinar celebrating the 2025 Prize laureates: Rhett Ayers Butler, founder of Mongabay; Bryan Doerries, founder of Theater of War Productions; and David Gruber, founder of Project CETI.

Moderated by Helena Nilsson, Prize jury member and Deputy CEO of the MiL Institute, the wide-ranging conversation explores how journalism, art, and science can reshape how we understand truth, trauma, and our relationship with the natural world.

Listen as they reflect on their work, their motivations, and what leadership requires at this moment in history. Then NOMINATE someone for the 2026 version of the Prize.

Watch the full conversation with the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winners here:

You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Rhett Ayers Butler is a journalist, conservationist, and the founder of Mongabay, a leading global environmental news platform producing original reporting in multiple languages. His work bridges investigative journalism, conservation science, and storytelling, amplifying the voices of communities on the frontlines of environmental change. His reporting and leadership have been recognized with awards from organizations such as the Heinz Family Foundation and the Parker-Gentry Award for Conservation. Born in the United States, Rhett studied economics and biology at UC San Diego before working across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Bryan Doerries is a writer, director, and translator serving as Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions. Using dramatic readings of seminal plays and community conversations, he helps individuals and communities heal from trauma and loss by exploring the relevance of ancient stories to contemporary issues. His books include The Theater of War and The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan, and among his honors he has received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Kenyon College and was named Public Artist in Residence for the City of New York.

David Gruber is a marine biologist, explorer, and innovator whose work bridges biology, robotics, and artificial intelligence to reveal the hidden lives of ocean creatures. He is the Founder and President of Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), an effort to decode the communication of sperm whales using machine learning and robotics, and a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Environmental Sciences at the City University of New York. A National Geographic Explorer and TED Audacious grantee, his discoveries include the first biofluorescent sea turtle and over 200 new fluorescent and bioluminescent marine species, and he is the author of Aglow in the Dark: The Revolutionary Science of Biofluorescence.

Helena Nilsson is an experienced People & Culture leader passionate about developing business and people together, working with a Gestalt and systemic approach at the core. She is currently Deputy CEO of the MiL Institute. Before that she headed up HR, Communication and Continuous Improvement at Electrolux, BA Europe, and prior to that was head of People & Culture at Inter IKEA Group, where she owned the IKEA People Strategy, driving a continued strong people focus across the organization after 19 years at IKEA. She holds a BSc in Business, Marketing and Management from Växjö University and an MSc in Gestalt in Organisations from the University of Derby and Gestalt Academy in Scandinavia.

No, not Iranians and Israelis on the brink of war. And, no, not the seemingly endless search for a Palestinian state. Rather, the implications of the newest rivalry that is defining Middle Eastern politics: Saudi Arabia vs. United Arab Emirates.

These two countries are rapidly passing through the geopolitical equivalent of the five stages of grief: from allies to collaborators to competitors to adversaries and—possibly—to enemies.

Why? What’s at stake? Is it personal or just business? What are the potential consequences?

It is probably too soon for answers, but not for informed speculation. Professor Rob Geist Pinfold is a close observer of the Arab Gulf and the Levant. Listen as he explores how the Saudis and the Emiratis—and their leaders, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed—are maneuvering for power in a region that is critical to all of us.

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You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr Rob Geist Pinfold is a Lecturer in International Security at King’s College London. He is also a Research Fellow at the Peace Research Center Prague and an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Rob is a scholar of grand strategy, with a regional focus on war and contemporary conflict in the Middle East. His work has been published in numerous academic journals, such as the European Journal of International Security, the Journal of Global Security Studies, Survival, International Studies Perspectives, the Journal of Strategic Studies and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. His full-length book manuscript, Understanding Territorial Withdrawal: Israeli Occupations and Exits, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023. He has written for Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, Haaretz, The New Arab, The Middle East Council on Global Affairs and the Royal United Services Institute, and provided commentary for Al Jazeera, France 24, RTE News, CNBC, the BBC and many others.

This year is going to be memorable for all sorts of reasons, most of which already look to be depressing. The biggest offset to that is likely to be a global event that will distract much of the world from dismal headlines about war, climate, and tariffs. On June 11th, the FIFA World Cup kicks off, co-hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

The first match will be played in Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium between co-host Mexico and South Africa. The final will be played on July 19th, at MetLife Stadium outside New York City. If the past is prelude, many billions of people will watch the 104 matches that comprise this year’s tournament. 

Have you ever wondered how such an extravaganza is organized and executed? Today on New Thinking for a New World, we depart from our usual fare to consider the answer. Gabriela Cuevas, an experienced Mexican political leader and friend to the Tällberg Foundation, has the near-impossible task of preparing and producing Mexico’s World Cup experience. But if anyone can do it, Gaby can.

Listen as she shares some of the challenges and opportunities presented by this year’s edition of the World Cup. Then tell us who you think will play in that championship game on July 19th.

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You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Gabriela Cuevas Barron, Mexico’s Representative for the FIFA World Cup 2026

Gabriela is a Mexican diplomat, public leader, and academic with over 20 years of experience in democratic governance and international affairs. She has held senior roles in Mexico and internationally, including President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, where she advanced institutional reform, gender parity, and parliamentary diplomacy.

In Mexico, she has served as Senator, Federal Deputy, and a local government leader in Mexico City. She is currently Mexico’s Representative for the FIFA World Cup 2026, with a strong focus on social legacy, community development, and inclusion.

She has taught at international institutions and published in leading academic journals. Gabriela holds a degree in Political Science from ITAM and has received international recognition for her contributions to democratic governance and global dialogue.

For decades, environmentalists and climate scientists have warned about the catastrophic consequences of the shrinking and erosion of the Amazon and Congo rainforests. Politicians have echoed and amplified the warnings, but have done little of consequence to slow the actual pace at which the rainforests are moving towards tipping points.

The recent UN climate summit in Belem was supposed to change all that. However, it would take an unusually large dose of magical thinking to believe what happened at COP 30 will have much more impact than what happened at its twenty-nine predecessors, at least concerning the Amazon and Congo River Basins.

Maybe what’s needed is new thinking. Protecting the Amazon and the Congo isn’t just an environmental challenge but also a governance challenge, a justice challenge, and an economic development challenge. And stopping—or even slowing—the tipping probably requires bottom-up local action, not just top-down global declarations of intent.

To discuss potential new approaches, we gathered three people who have skin in the game: Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Ugandan wildlife veterinarian and founder of Conservation Through Public Health; Dr. Fernando Trujillo, Colombian marine biologist and world-leading expert on river dolphins; and Sam Muller, Dutch lawyer with extensive experience in global justice and environmental practices.
Listen as they explore how to define and execute new approaches to saving the rainforests.

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This podcast episode is a recording of a live webinar and is also available to watch on YouTube for those who prefer a video format.

You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Sam Muller, Partner at Justice Compass Advisers; founding CEO of HiiL and the Wildlife Justice Commission; former Chair of WWF Netherlands.
A Dutch social entrepreneur and strategic adviser, Sam led the establishment of the International Criminal Court before founding HiiL and the Wildlife Justice Commission, both internationally recognized for advancing justice and conservation. He has advised governments, CEOs, and civil society leaders on governance reform, institutional transformation, and ESG strategy.

His contributions to justice and environmental protection earned him the 2022 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize and a Royal Decoration of the Netherlands (2024)

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is a Ugandan wildlife veterinarian and founder of two award-winning initiatives: Conservation Through Public Health, which promotes the coexistence of endangered mountain gorillas, other wildlife, and local communities; and Gorilla Conservation Coffee, a social enterprise that supports farmers living around gorilla habitats.
A pioneer of the One Health approach, she has led efforts to highlight the deep connections between human and wildlife wellbeing—work made especially urgent during the COVID-19 era. Her leadership and vision earned her the 2022 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize

Dr. Fernando Trujillo is a Colombian marine biologist and world-renowned expert on river dolphins. With an MSc in Environmental Sciences and a PhD in Zoology, he chairs the Small Cetacean Subcommittee of the International Whaling Commission and serves on multiple IUCN specialist groups. A prolific researcher with more than 300 publications, he has led major expeditions and advanced conservation science across aquatic ecology, endangered species, wetlands, and protected areas.
His groundbreaking contributions to science and conservation have earned him numerous honors, including the 2024 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.

The number of active conflicts today is the highest since the end of World War II. The world has clearly entered a new, more violent, and fragmented era.

We can and should debate “why?” But we also need to focus on “so what?” What are the consequences, not only for warriors but also for the innocents caught up in spreading conflict? Is it possible that the impacts of traumatic violence could be transmitted across generations?

A group of scientists believes their work proves that war trauma can alter gene expression, thereby impacting the children and grandchildren of victims of war. Among the authors of a profoundly important scientific paper published last year was Rana Dajani, a Jordanian molecular biologist and long-time participant in the Tällberg network. Listen as she explains the science and its implications.

What do you think?

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You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Rana Dajani is a professor of molecular biology at the Hashemite University in Jordan, specializing in epigenetics and biomarkers of trauma among refugees. A leading voice in scientific policy, she helped introduce national and regional stem cell laws and has served on numerous scientific boards and UN councils, most recently as President of the Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World. She has held visiting professorships at Harvard, Yale, MIT, the Jepson School of Leadership, and Cambridge, and is an ISC and TWAS fellow. A committed advocate for building indigenous research capacity and mentoring women scholars in STEM, her mentoring model has been recognized by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Rana is also a social entrepreneur and global thought leader. She founded We Love Reading, a grassroots movement that cultivates changemakers by fostering a love of reading in underserved communities; the program has received the UNESCO International Literacy Prize and grown to more than 8,000 locally run libraries in over 70 countries. Her work has been recognized through Fulbright, Eisenhower, Robert Bosch, Ashoka, Yale Morse, and Yidan Global Fellowships, as well as the Jacobs Social Entrepreneur Award, the Nansen UNHCR Refugee Award, and the Schwab Social Entrepreneur Award. Her 2018 book Five Scarves: Doing the Impossible — If We Can Reverse Cell Fate, Why Can’t We Redefine Success?challenges global leaders to rethink inequities in education and employment and to redefine how we measure success in a rapidly changing world.

“The whale has no voice,” Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick. “But then again,” he went on, “What has the whale to say?”

Turns out he was wrong: not only do sperm whales have voices, but these massive, amazing mammals talk constantly to each other. They are humongous creatures: males can be 18 meters long and weigh 45 tons. Think something the weight of an industrial dump truck, but twice as long. Despite their massive size and the capacity to dive more than a mile into the depths of the ocean, they apparently are quite sociable.

How amazing would it be if we could decipher what they are saying? That’s the passion of David Gruber, a marine biologist and technologist who organized and leads Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative). He has gathered a team of 50 global scientists and technicians dedicated to understanding what the sperm whales are saying to each other—not so we can talk to them, but so that we can understand how they think about the world we share.

David is also one of the recipients of the 2025 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize, who was honored for his work with CETI and his underlying drive to help humans and nature co-exist.

Listen as he discusses what drives him and CETI.

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You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

The Greek classics are timeless because they provide insights into our souls, into how we think and why we do what we do. Of course, few of us regularly read or ponder the wisdom of those epic tragedies. But what if they could be made accessible in ways that shed light on the specific challenges of life in the 21st century?  

The results could be amazing, healing, entertaining, and educational—partly by stripping away what we think is so special about our time, focusing instead on what makes us human.

That’s exactly what Theater of War Productions, Bryan Doerries, and a host of actors have been doing with global audiences for almost two decades.  

Six months ago, we recorded this podcast with Bryan, who co-founded Theater of War Productions and serves as its artistic director. We share it again in recognition that Bryan Doerries has recently been selected as a winner of the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize. The jury honored him for creating brave spaces where art, empathy, and dialogue aim to restore human connection, reimagining the role of culture in public life.

Listen again and let us know what you think. 

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You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Bryan Doerries is a writer, director, and translator who currently serves as Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions, a company that presents dramatic readings of seminal plays and texts to frame community conversations about pressing issues, such as mental health, polarization, end of life care, racialized violence, incarceration, gun violence, domestic violence, substance abuse/addiction, the climate crisis, health inequities, sexual assault, disability justice, immigration, and the impact of war on children and families. A self-described evangelist for ancient stories and their relevance to our lives today, Doerries uses age-old approaches to help individuals and communities heal from trauma and loss. Doerries’ books include The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today, The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan, All That You’ve Seen Here is God, and Oedipus Trilogy. Among his awards, he has received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Kenyon College and was named Public Artist in Residence for the City of New York. For more than ten years, he has served on the board of directors for the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the nonprofit organization that administers The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

By almost every objective indicator, the process of dramatic climate change grinds on. However, the optimists are currently making a big deal out of the notion that warming might top out between 2.5 and 3°C over pre-industrial levels, compared to earlier and much higher scenarios. And Bill Gates now assures us that it is poverty, not climate change, that is potentially catastrophic.

No one should be reassured!  

When it comes to the environment, what people around the world need is reliable, fact-based information about how the places in which they live are actually changing. They need to be empowered with accessible science, and the voices and knowledge of those directly impacted by environmental change amplified in ways that could actually produce positive outcomes.

Thank God for something called Mongabay. Rhett Ayers Butler founded and built Mongabay as a global digital platform for high-quality journalism about the environment. He and they have deservedly won endless journalism awards. Far more importantly, Mongabay is practically the only reliable source for consistently objective reporting on conservation and the environment on a global basis.

Butler is a world-class conservationist and journalist. He is also one of the recipients of the 2025 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize Winners. 

Listen as Rhett talks about the world as he reports on it….

“May you live in interesting times,” is usually described as a Chinese curse, although its origin is actually English or Irish. While that may or may not be another example of Chinese disregard for intellectual property ownership, it nonetheless applies almost everywhere as this complicated year draws towards a close.

That is certainly true in Colombia, which is beset with rising political violence, the potential for a constitutional crisis, pre-election maneuvering, and harassment from Donald Trump, his Pentagon, and his budget cutters. How will Colombia’s leadership react? Will they rise to the challenges? Or, as in so many other places, are the problems too great, and the leaders too small?

Our guest on this week’s New Thinking for a New World podcast episode is well-positioned to discuss the challenges of leadership in Colombia and beyond. Paula Moreno was Minister of Culture in the government of President Álvaro Uribe, the first woman Afro-Caribbean minister in her country’s history, and the founder of Manos Visibles. Listen as she discusses leadership in the 21st century.

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You can also find the New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Paula Moreno is a trailblazing advocate for racial equity, social innovation, and generational transformation in Latin America. A Colombian industrial engineer with an MPhil in Management Studies from the University of Cambridge and additional studies at MIT and Yale, she made history as Colombia’s youngest and first Afro-Colombian woman to serve in a cabinet position as Minister of Culture. In the last fifteen years, as founder and president of Corporación Manos Visibles, Paula has catalyzed transformative leadership among more than 28,000 people and helped establish over 600 community organizations with a transnational network in 11 countries, championing new generations of Black and ethnic leaders shaping Colombia’s future.She was member of the truth commission of Colombia and the presidential advisory group for the most recent peace process in Colombia.  For twelve years, she has served on the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees and more recently at the Toriba Institute in Brazil. Her contributions have earned her international honors, including the Order of St. Charles (Colombia), the Order of the Aztec Eagle (Mexico), the Black Excellence Award in the U.K.  and the UN MIPAD Recognition. A respected writer and cultural producer, Paula is the author of El Poder de lo Invisible and Soñar lo Imposible—the latter inspiring an upcoming Netflix series—works that reflect her vision of a more inclusive, creative, and just world.