July 21, 2020
Millennium Leadership Program
Enabling innovative ideas, transformational leadership, and global impact.
In 2019, the Millennium Leadership Program (MLP) celebrated its fifth cohort of Millennium Fellows. Chosen from over 1,200 applications and 100 countries, this year’s class was our strongest yet. All thirty-five years old or younger, these young leaders inspire hope for a bright future.
The MLP is in my mind the most impactful leadership program in the world for international policy makers, business leaders and public intellectuals.
From the public sector, they included the senior advisor on parliamentary affairs to the prime minister of North Macedonia instrumental in forging political consensus for his country’s landmark deal to change its name; a Ukrainian member of parliament driving sustainable energy development in her country as the chairperson of this committee in Parliament; the senior advisor for international economic affairs at the National Security Council supporting the US-China trade negotiations; and the chief financial officer and deputy treasurer for the state of Illinois overseeing its $300 billion banking operation and $31 billion investment portfolio. The program also included Fortune 500 executives such as Allianz’ chief economist; award-winning entrepreneurs solving food security, mobility, and healthcare challenges in developing nations; and groundbreaking media figures such as the first female football commentator in the Arab world, among many others across civil society, academia, business, the arts, and science.
In May, MLP took the class to Colombia to explore the country’s historic peace process, the promise of the “Orange Economy,” and the crisis in Venezuela. Under the theme of “Leading Change,” they met with current Colombian President Iván Duque and former president Alvaro Uribe among many other senior officials and business leaders in Bogotá and Medellín. They also spent time in rural Colombia, sharing meals and stories with grassroots activists and former combatants from different sides of the conflict, as well as Venezuelan leaders in exile. This extraordinary experience was the product of exemplary cross-program collaboration within the Atlantic Council between MLP and the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.
Fellows figured prominently both across and beyond council work, including serving as featured speakers at our largest events such as the 2019 NATO Engages conference in Washington, DC; and launching new programs and projects within the council such as the Veterans Advanced Energy Summit in Chicago, Illinois. Beyond the council, fellows were engaged in impact projects supported by the MLP community, such as the Azadi Project—moved by their 2018 study tour to the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis in Turkey and Greece, fellows founded the Azadi Project, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that trains young female refugees and connects them to employment opportunities. Through two workshops in 2019, they trained women from Niger, Palestine, Iran, and Afghanistan, and are now entering their second year of operations.
MLP also deepened its expertise and capabilities in the domain of leadership development with a second successful year of executive education programming, the addition of a full-time community manager to more fully integrate fellows across the council, the addition of next-generation firepower to our programs and centers, and the introduction of a new leadership curriculum that includes individualized executive coaching and practical training on key frameworks and concepts supplemented with distance and virtual learning to complement in-person gatherings. MLP’s fellowship has already emerged as one of the most competitive, transformational, and prestigious programs of its kind. These new additions, along with partnerships in the executive search, leadership advisory, and academic worlds, position the program as an emerging center of excellence on leadership within the council.
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Read the full report:
Annual Report 2019/2020
John FW Rogers, Chairman of the Atlantic Council, and Fred Kempe, CEO and President, explain how our past year’s performance, and a dozen years of growth and innovation, helped position us for the historic disruptions of 2020. Read the full introduction.
Image: Image: 2019 Millennium Fellows in Guatape on Fellow Expedition focused on Leading Change in Colombia.