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Manila Bulletin devider Environment and Sustainability devider Sustainability leader Carlo Chen-Delantar joins the ranks of the World's Most Influential Youth

Sustainability leader Carlo Chen-Delantar joins the ranks of the World's Most Influential Youth

Published Apr 18, 2026 02:36 am
Carlo Chen-Delantar has been named to the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) Class of 2026, making him one of over 20 Filipinos in history to be given the prestigious recognition.
He joins a global community whose alumni include Amal Clooney, human rights lawyer and barrister; Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand; Esther Duflo, Nobel Prize in Economics laureate and MIT Professor; Lewis Pugh, Olympian and UN Patron of the Oceans; Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine; Emmanuel Macron, President of France; Sergey Brin, Co-Founder of Google; and Jack Ma, Co-Founder of Alibaba Group, among many others.
Carlo Chen-Delantar
Carlo Chen-Delantar
Chen-Delantar is the only Filipino in the Young Global Leaders, Class of 2026. He follows a pattern of Filipino inductees with a track record of designing and implementing sustainable projects. Last year, Ann Dumaliang, Managing Trustee of Masungi Georeserve, was the only Filipino inducted in Young Global Leaders, Class of 2025.
The Young Global Leaders community, established by the World Economic Forum in 2004, selects fewer than 120 leaders under 40 each year from thousands of nominees worldwide.
The Class of 2026 comprises 118 leaders from 54 countries. Among Chen-Delantar’s co-inductees are Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir of Iceland, Tomas Okmanas of Lithuania, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nord Security, Dominican-American Olympic gold medallist Thea LaFond, Jennifer Zhang of Singapore, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of WIZ.AI, and Ghanaian-American Professor Sally Nuamah of Northwestern University.
The cohort’s ambition and diversity reflect the Forum's recognition that the defining challenges of this moment demand leaders who think and work across boundaries. Chen-Delantar’s inclusion places the Philippines in that conversation.
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Chen-Delantar is Partner and Head of Sustainability at Gobi Partners, a venture capital firm managing US$1.7 billion across 20 funds with over 400 portfolio companies. Since 2021, he has directly overseen the deployment of over US$200 million in capital across 17 Asian markets. He is the first from the venture capital sector with a dedicated sustainability mandate to join the Young Global Leaders community.
Chen-Delantar has spent his career building the case that sustainability and economic growth are not competing forces. Back in 2018, he pioneered Circulo, the Philippines' first circular economy initiative, funded by the British Council through the Circular Futures Lab with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Circulo now operates under the non-profit Sustina, where Chen-Delantar sits on the board. He has strengthened the organization's capacity to fight for transparency in the sustainability sector, advance Circulo's circular economy programs, and push for greater accountability in the Philippines' emerging green economy.
“I am deeply grateful for this recognition and humbled to be in the company of so many remarkable leaders. But I also feel the weight of how much work remains. I have seen what it looks like when communities bear the cost of environmental degradation without the systems or resources to recover from it. That reality is what drives me and the work done by Sustina,” said Chen-Delantar. “We are still building the foundations that will determine whether sustainability becomes real for the people who need it most.”
Chen-Delantar’s background is in working with communities on the ground. As Founding Country Director and now Chairperson of Waves for Water Philippines, he helped extend clean water access to over two million Filipinos in communities, earning both the Presidential Development Award and the Presidential Bayanihan Award.
Internationally, he has represented the Philippines at WEF convenings, including the Annual Meeting in Davos and the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree, an Ellen MacArthur Foundation alumnus, and served as co-chair of the WEF Global Shapers Climate Action Steering Committee from 2018 to 2021.
Chen-Delantar joins a distinguished lineage of Filipinos recognized by the World Economic Forum, among them former Senator Bam Aquino (2006), media personality Karen Davila (2010), agricultural entrepreneur Cherrie Atilano (2020), and conservation advocate Ann Dumaliang (2025), among others.

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