From Dialogue to Direction: Learning with Future Leaders at the Berlin Global Dialogue
Prajval Jhunjhunwala ’26 joined a delegation of students from Global Network for Advanced Management schools to attend a conference where leaders from many countries and companies discussed the challenges and opportunities presented by today’s fluctuating policy landscape.
When asked how to remain optimistic in an increasingly fragmented world, European Investment Bank Group president Nadia Calviño said, “I’m not optimistic; I’m determined.” Calviño was speaking in conversation with KKR co-founder Henry Kravis at the opening plenary of the Berlin Global Dialogue (BGD) 2025, organized by ESMT Berlin. I had the chance to attend the fourth iteration of the conference this year, and it proved to be a much-needed shot of positivity and forward momentum at a moment when news headlines are full of geopolitical tension, volatile capital flows, and rising climate pressures.
I had the opportunity to represent Yale SOM as part of the BGD Young Voices delegation, which allows future leaders to attend the summit as full participants. It was an incredible four-day trip spent with 30 graduate-level students from some of the most prestigious universities across the world, all part of the Global Network for Advanced Management. Through the Young Voices delegation, we participated in a specially curated program in parallel to the conference itself that gave us direct access to global leaders. We met privately with President Vjosa Osmani of Kosovo; Ola Kallenius, the global CEO of Mercedes-Benz; Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s minister of foreign affairs; and Herve Ekue, global managing partner at A&O Shearman, to name a few.
Our conversations focused on policy choices, institutional strategy, and the personal dimensions of leadership—who these powerful leaders are as people. They spent time talking to us about how they organize their lives as parents or as managers, and they also expressed sincere gratitude towards the people they have connected with who helped them reach this stage of their lives. In such moments, I couldn’t help but recall the many wonderful people who have helped me thus far on my own journey.
In my experience, even the best-organized conferences can risk becoming echo chambers, with media-trained participants repeating the same statements. But the hosts of the BGD worked to provide a candid and inclusive platform. I valued hearing a range of perspectives from European, Chinese, Indian, and African policymakers and business leaders. The panels covered sovereign investment strategy, regulatory uncertainty, industrial policy, and climate transitions, and speakers addressed concrete constraints that governments and firms face in a world where power is distributed more unevenly than before. This year’s theme, “Shifting Power, Shaping Prosperity,” was reflected in nearly every session. My favorite sessions revolved around the “green guarantee” financial instruments that might help emerging and frontier markets to leapfrog their climate investments and development. I enjoyed learning about proposals to build more inclusive and context-specific debt instruments for developing countries. I also deepened my understanding of ongoing trade policy shifts by hearing from India’s minister of trade and commerce, and from experts within the Chinese Communist Party.
Aside from listening to experienced leaders, we were also encouraged to spend time with the rest of our delegation. Prior to the conference, I spent a day preparing for the experience with the Young Voices delegation. We worked with professors at ESMT; our program lead, Nick Barniville; the conference chair, Lars Hendrik-Roeller; and the ESMT president and GNAM chair Joerg Rocholl. They gave us detailed guidance on how to pose challenging questions to the panelists of the conference, and urged us to take our roles as participants and accountability managers seriously. Together, we drafted a declaration outlining the issues we believed should stay central to global political and economic cooperation. In just a few days, all the graduate students became fast friends, bonding over our different visions for creating change. I am confident that I will cherish these connections for a long time to come.
