New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast

In late June, the Tällberg Foundation joined the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) in Athens to celebrate the winners of the 2025 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize, part of SNF's week-long 30th anniversary celebration. In this episode of New Thinking for a New World, Vishakha Desai, vice chair of the Tällberg Foundation Board of Directors, introduces the three 2025 laureates: Rhett Ayers Butler, founder and CEO of Mongabay; Bryan Doerries, artistic director of Theater of War Productions; and David Gruber, oceanographer and founder and president of Project CETI. Their work spans environmental journalism, theater and public dialogue, and interspecies communication. What they share is a determination to challenge conventional thinking, a deep ethical commitment, and a belief that the world can be made better when people of good will work together. They reflect on how they built their leadership, what they've accomplished, and what they hope to do next.

A companion episode to our conversation with Ye Jin Min. Sit back and listen to three pieces she imagined, composed, and played: Vinyl Road, Honey, and Four Moons with Koriobots.

Making a living as a musician has always been hard. For classical and experimental artists, it can feel nearly impossible. Ye Jin Min knows this firsthand. A violinist, composer, singer, and conductor equally at home in Carnegie Hall and the avant-garde, she has spent her career navigating the brutal economics of professional music-making. Her answer is Unboxed Musicians — a bold new venture designed to build sustainable, creative ecosystems where musicians and composers can actually thrive. In this conversation with the Tällberg Foundation, Ye Jin reflects on the joy and discipline of making music, the structural barriers that hold artists back, and why reimagining the business of music may be just as important as the music itself.

Democracy may be struggling across much of the world, but Bangladesh offers a rare counterexample. In the summer of 2024, a student-led movement forced out the long-ruling government of Sheikh Hasina. Less than 20 months later, the country conducted elections widely described as mostly free, fair, and peaceful—leading to a democratically elected government replacing the interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

In this episode, Aysha Siddiqua Tithi and Umama Fatema—leaders of Students Against Discrimination and central figures in the revolution—share what it took to organize, mobilize, and persist. They reflect on the risks they faced, the hopes that sustained them, and what democracy’s revival in Bangladesh might signal for a world increasingly skeptical of democratic governance.

What does great leadership look like today? In this special episode, we bring together the 2025 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize laureates: Rhett Ayers Butler, founder of Mongabay; Bryan Doerries, founder of Theater of War Productions; and David Gruber, founder of Project CETI. Moderated by Helena Nilsson, Prize jury member and Deputy CEO of the MiL Institute, the conversation spans journalism, art, and science—revealing how curiosity, creativity, and moral courage can reshape how we confront global challenges. Together, these leaders demonstrate that meaningful leadership transcends politics and borders, grounded instead in universal values and persistent commitment to making the world better.