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Alejandro Agag is an entrepreneur and a bold visionary whose career trajectory has taken him from politics in his native Spain to becoming the Founder and CEO of the electric street racing series, Formula E.  His self-proclaimed addiction to disrupting the motor-sport industry has seen him tear up the motor-sport rulebook in the name of equality and the environment.

Born in Madrid in 1970, Alejandro enjoyed an international upbringing in Madrid, Paris, and New York then studied Economics and Business at the Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros. Having been actively involved in politics while at University, Alejandro quickly moved up the ranks of the international relations department due to his knowledge of languages. He was elected International Secretary of NNGG at their congress in 1994 and in 1999 won a seat in the European Parliament, becoming the youngest Spanish person to ever do so. In the same year Alejandro graduated, he was offered the position of Deputy Secretary General of the European People's Party. In 1996 the Center-right won the elections in Spain, and Alejandro was offered the position of designated aid to the President of the Government, José María Aznar. At only 28, Alejandro was elected a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Partido Popular. In 2000, he led the Parliaments report on antitrust policy, and was active in redrafting the present antitrust rules.

However, in 2001 Alejandro decided to leave the world of politics in order to further a career in business and sport.  Together with his business partner Flavio Briatore, he purchased the F1 TV rights in Spain. A few years later, Alejandro purchased the Campos Racing GP2 Team and revamped it into the highly successful Barwa Addax Team. Alejandro quickly realised that many sponsors were withdrawing from Formula 1 because it was not a green sport and made the radical decision to create a cleaner version.  He, together with business partner Enrique Bañuelos, began Formula E Holdings, winning the tender to promote the new FIA Formula E Championship. Formula E Holdings went on to set up an electric car racing series in ten different cities around the world.

Through Formula-E, Alejandro became even more fervent about climate action and was convinced he could do more with motor-sport’s colossal viewership to promote change.  He is now fearlessly taking sport to distant and perilous places like the Arctic, rainforests, deserts, and oceans in order to shine a spotlight on the challenges we face with the climate crisis.  This bold venture is an FIA-sanctioned international off-road racing series that uses spec electric SUVs to race in the most remote parts of the world. 

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Alejandro is also on a mission to bring equality to motor-sport.  He got the idea of mixed teams from the mixed doubles format in tennis, in which the women and the men on the team are equally important to a victory and would be standing together in triumph on the podium.  He acknowledges he can only play the role he has within his power and so he is determined to make a difference where he can – in the sport he is most passionate about.

Alejandro has been named as one of the 10 "movers and shakers" of the Spanish economy by the Financial Times, Spanish "Businessman of the Year" by GQ Magazine, and described as a "political hopeful, economist, banker and indefatigable dealmaker" with a “priceless” rolodex due to his extensive range of political and business contacts all over the world.

Useful links

https://www.fiaformulae.com/

https://www.extreme-e.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Agag

Our Favourite Quotes:

"You have to take criticism as a motivation, the bigger the criticism the bigger the motivation to prove them wrong.”

"I think every company, every industry, and every person needs to become a pragmatic environmentalist."

"We are choking in the cities. So we need electric cars to basically clean the air inside the cities. And that was really the objective of Formula E to improve the technology to change the perception of people about electric cars. And we are succeeding in that. The technology is improving massively. We have the Generation Three coming which is going to be an incredible leap in terms of performance of these Electric Formula cars."

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Professor Muhammad Yunus is a leader who transforms visionary ideas into practical actions which benefit millions of people around the world. He is a social entrepreneur, banker, economist, civil society leader and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, globally recognised for pioneering the game-changing concepts of microcredit and microfinance.   His revolutionary microloan system, designed to empower entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans, won Yunus and the Grameen Bank a joint Nobel Peace Prize for their ground-breaking contribution to economic and social development. 

Following a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University, Yunus returned to Bangladesh to head the economics department at Chittagong University.  However, after observing the Bangladesh famine of 1974 Yunus found his true calling and became driven by his passion for impacting the poverty he witnessed. In 1976, during visits to the poorest households in the village of Jobra, he hypothesised small loans could make an exponential difference to those who would not qualify at traditional banks. Fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right, Yunus secured a personal loan to lend to entrepreneurs in Jobra.  By July 2007, Grameen had issued US$6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers and today the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a flourishing world movement eradicating poverty through microlending.

The success of the Grameen microfinance model has inspired equivalent organisations in almost every nation in the world, in developing and developed countries alike. Many microcredit projects retain Grameen's focus on lending to women who typically suffer disproportionately from poverty but are renowned for their natural entrepreneurialism and ability to pay back loans at record rates.  Currently, the Grameen Bank has nine million borrowers, 97% of which are women. 

For his ground-breaking contribution to social development, Professor Muhammad Yunus is one of only seven people to have received the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal. He is also the recipient of numerous international awards for his ideas and endeavors, including the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993), Sri Lanka; Humanitarian Award (1993), CARE, USA; World Food Prize (1994), World Food Prize Foundation, USA; lndependence Day Award (1987), Bangladesh’s highest award; King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Award (2000), King Hussien Foundation, Jordan; Volvo Environment Prize (2003), Volvo Environment Prize Foundation, Sweden; Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth (2004), Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan; Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom Award (2006), Roosevelt Institute of The Netherlands; and the Seoul Peace Prize (2006), Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, Seoul, Korea.

Yunus's visionary ideas and trailblazing fearlessness have been inspirational to countless people and have led to new systems and programs devoted to social causes all over the world.  Yunus was named among the most desired thinkers the world should listen to by the FP 100, one of 12 greatest entrepreneurs of the current era by Fortune Magazine, one of Forbes “10 Most Influential Business Gurus” and is one of the most followed people on social media worldwide.

Watch the interview: 

https://youtu.be/dlabloRGMkg

Useful Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2006/yunus/biographical/

https://www.yunussb.com/prof-muhammad-yunus

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Muhammad-Yunus

https://www.muhammadyunus.org/

https://grameenfoundation.org/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33785340-a-world-of-three-zeros

Our Favourite Quotes:

“Young people have to know about it. They should learn that there are two kinds of businesses in the world. One is a business which makes money, and the other solves the problems of the world. It’s an academic exercise and what they do with that in real life will depend on them.”

“I was feeling terrible that here I teach elegant theories of economics, and those theories are of no use at the moment with the people who are going hungry. So I wanted to see if as a person, as a human being, I could be of some use to some people.”

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Energy Trailblazers is a podcast and video conversation series hosted by renowned interviewer Holly Ransom and created by the founders of Energy Disruptors: UNITE. The Calgary-based initiative has been awarded for its in-person conferences designed to accelerate global clean energy and climate solutions by uniting the world’s boldest trailblazers.

In collaboration with EY, the team is rallying the most inspirational entrepreneurs, business leaders and global thinkers in energy, finance, investment, technology, automotive, public policy, and creative sectors to move the conversation forward and understand how we catalyze the human change necessary for clean energy adoption.

We believe conversations about our clean energy future should be as relevant around a kitchen or classroom table as they are around boardroom or political tables. Only audacious creativity and unprecedented collaboration between diverse groups will ensure we evolve fast enough to outpace our global energy and climate challenges.

We’re here to fuel a new energy conversation and it starts with you.

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