Asheesh Advani, President & CEO, JA Worldwide

Asheesh is a lifelong social innovator who has led JA Worldwide since 2015. During his leadership tenure, JA Worldwide has been recognized as one of the ten most impactful NGOs in the world in annual rankings.

As an alumnus of JA, Asheesh recalls how participating in a JA program as a teenager stayed with him during his entrepreneurial endeavors, which have involved leading two businesses from start-up to acquisition. Asheesh’s first venture helped pioneer the business of peer-to-peer finance and was acquired by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group in 2007 and rebranded as Virgin Money. Prior to joining JA, he served as CEO of a financial technology company that was acquired by Interactive Brokers in 2015 and rebranded as Interactive Advisors. His experiences as an entrepreneur and founder have been chronicled in case studies at Harvard Business School and Babson College.

While running his first venture, Asheesh served as a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine for five years and wrote two books about business finance, which received positive reviews in the Wall Street Journal and Business Week. More recently, his book Modern Achievement, co-authored with bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith, reconsiders the concept of achievement for aspiring leaders.

Asheesh is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and is also actively involved in the World Economic Forum (WEF) as a stewardship board member of the Center for the New Economy and Society. He started his career as a consultant at Monitor Company (now Monitor Deloitte) and at the World Bank, where he conducted research on industrial clusters as a source of entrepreneurship and innovation in promoting economic growth.

In 2021, Asheesh received the Tony Hsieh Award as recognition for his leadership of JA Worldwide. In 2022, Asheesh was selected as an honoree from the United States for the YPO Global Social Impact Award.

Asheesh holds degrees from the Wharton School and Oxford University, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar. He and his family now live in the Boston area.

Asheesh’s recent publications include:

• World Economic Forum articles

  • Education 4.0: Here are 3 skills that students will need for the jobs of the future

  • Building resilience and youth entrepreneurship in Africa

  • Reframing the role of educators: five ways to maintain childlike optimism

  • 3-ways-to-prepare-young-people-for-the-post-covid-jobs-market

  • 5 ways to bring school curricula up to speed

  • Is this the secret to surviving in a fractured world?

  • A way to reduce poverty that’s so simple, it just might work

• JA Good Company articles:

  • Intersectionality and Global NGOs

  • Compounding Interest: Building Future Generations’ Financial Capability

  • Entrepreneurship’s Triple Payoff: Job Creation, Work Skills, and Social Impact

  • The One Things Kids Need to Learn for the Future Job Market

Asheesh’s speaking engagements include serving as a platform speaker, discussant, and moderator. These include the World Economic Forum Annual Meetings in Davos and the Annual Meeting of New Champions in Tianjin China. In addition, he has served as the co-Chair of World Economic Forum Latin America and has been a discussant or speaker at WEF events in the United States with a focus on the future of work, sustainable development, and the fourth industrial revolution. Asheesh has also been a speaker, panelist, or discussant at conferences held at the World Bank (spring meetings), the United Nations (Economic and Social Committee Chamber), G20 meetings (Mendoza, Argentina), and Great Hall of the People in China (World Philanthropy Forum).

He is an active speaker at technology conferences (Web Summit, Lisbon; Collision), policy conferences (Prosperity Summit, Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit), leadership conferences (Global Institute for Leadership Development, Marshall Goldsmith 100 Summit, YPO regional and global events), education conferences (Reimagine Education, Bett, REwired, GESF), and youth-focused conferences (Global Shapers Session in Davos, JA Global Alumni Conference in Vienna, and several other JA events).  He has also delivered guest lectures and presentations at several universities, including Harvard, MIT, Penn, Tufts, and Yale.