The Forum of Young Global Leaders identifies the world’s most promising leaders under the age of 40 - people driving innovation for positive change across civil society, arts, culture, government and business. By connecting them to a community of remarkable peers and investing further in their leadership abilities, the aim is to create a ripple effect over five years that benefits their organizations and the world.


Cristina Fonseca, is the first portuguese woman be appointed to this selective global group joining fellow Partner at Indico, Stephan Morais (YGL 2010), António Simões and Rodrigo Granito, past Portuguese YGLs.


Cristina´s recognition stems from a very successful career as an entrepreneur and investor. In 2011, she co-founded Talkdesk, one of the few Portuguese “unicorns”. Talkdesk is the leading global Cloud-Based Call Center Solution, having raised $267 million from top Silicon Valley investors and employing over 1000 people today.


As a Partner at Indico Capital Partners, the first private institutional early-stage venture capital fund in Portugal, with 66 million euros under management and backed by institutional and individual investors from 16 countries, Cristina works closely with the portfolio of 21 global tech disruptors. Indico invested over 30 million euros since early 2019 in its companies, who in turn, raised a collective amount of more than 626 million Euros and created more than 1000 jobs.


Cristina is also a non-executive Board Member and Member of the Sustainability Committee of Galp since 2019 and a co-founder at Cleverly.ai, a startup that automates customer service with Artificial Intelligence, eliminating manual and repetitive work and making customer service teams 30% more productive on average.


Having previously been a Member of the Global Shapers Community (Lisbon hub), the Forum´s under-30 category for promising local leaders, Cristina stated that “It´s a great honour to be recognised by a prestigious organization such as the World Economic Forum. I am fully aligned with the Forum´s commitment to Improve the State of the World and humbled to join this diverse group of inspirational leaders. I look forward to accelerating the impact of my work through the community and promote a more inclusive, ethical and sustainable future.”


Every year, the World Economic Forum nominates about 100 Young Global Leaders. Past nominees have included Emmanuel Macron, Jacinda Arden, Leonardo di Caprio, Jack Ma and Mark Zuckerberg, amongst other global political, social and business leaders.