Tällberg Foundation Announces Winners of 2023 Leadership Prize

Winners to be Honored in January at the University of Pavia

Stockholm and New York, November 15, 2023—The Tällberg Foundation today announced the winners of the 2023 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize, its annual celebration of leadership that is innovative, courageous, dynamic, global in implication and rooted in universal values.

Andrew Bastawrous, United Kingdom, for his innovative, systems-based approach that has brought vision—and thereby better lives—to more than a million people;

Tristan Harris, United States, for his advocacy efforts to align disruptive technology with humanity’s best interests;

Margaret Lowman, United States, for her scientific, educational and advocacy work globally to protect and restore forests.

These three leaders were selected by a jury of established global leaders who recognized not only what the nominees have already accomplished, but their shared commitment to continue to push the boundaries on what is necessary to make the world a better place,” said Alan Stoga, chairman of the Tällberg Foundation. “What do bringing vision to the impaired, disrupting disruptive technology and saving forests from the canopies have in common? Great leaders who are focused on outcomes, not processes.”

Andreas Dracopoulos, Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), which supports Tällberg’s leadership work, said, “Like all exceptional leaders, they give us hope that the exception can become the rule: that every one of us can take courageous and collaborative action on the problems humanity faces. We congratulate these three outstanding leaders for their work confronting the most critical topics of our age—health, new technology, and climate change—with optimism backed by hard work and resilience tempered by steadfast dedication.”

The winners will be celebrated at a dinner on January 26 at the University of Pavia in Italy, as part of a workshop on Leadership in a Disrupted World. “The University of Pavia, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the world, is a wonderful combination of old and new thinking, of context and imagination. In that sense, they are a perfect partner for our leadership work,” added Stoga.

This year’s Prize winners emerged from a pool of 2,710 candidates from 149 countries, nominated at large and selected through a several months’ long jury process. The Prize carries a $50,000 honorarium and the continuing opportunity to engage in the leadership network of the Tällberg Foundation. The Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize was launched in 2015 and has honored 27 leaders from across a wide variety of disciplines and countries.

The Tällberg Foundation, launched in 1981, exists to explore the issues that are challenging —and changing— our societies. Today, those challenges are profound: the world that we have known since the mid-20th century, which produced unprecedented peace as well as human advance, is changing at a pace and in directions that threaten to evolve towards Orwellian dystopia.

But forces for “good” still exist and need to be renewed, made more muscular and more effective. The Foundation aspires to be part of that process.

Tällberg’s work program focuses on understanding how to re-inject ethics into leadership; re-establish the legitimacy of governance; and manage, instead of being managed by, disruptive technologies, climate change, mass migration and other phenomena. We aim to contribute to the new thinking —and new acting— required by this moment in history.

Learn more at tallbergfoundation.org and tallberg-snf-eliasson-prize.org.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is one of the world’s leading private, international philanthropic organizations, making grants to nonprofit organizations in the areas of arts and culture, education, health and sports, and social welfare. SNF funds organizations and projects worldwide that aim to achieve a broad, lasting, and positive impact for society at large, and exhibit strong leadership and sound management. The Foundation also supports projects that facilitate the formation of public-private partnerships as an effective means for serving the public welfare.

Since 1996, the Foundation has committed more than $3.7 billion through over 5,300 grants to nonprofit organizations in more than 130 countries around the world.

Learn more at SNF.org.