Hugh Evans

Hugh Evans, the CEO and Co-Founder of Global Citizen, is one of the most recognized leaders in international development. Its platform mobilizes millions of people globally, convening across sectors — business, entertainment, policy, government, philanthropy — to drive policy change and financial investments across three policy pillars: defeat poverty, demand equity, and defend the planet.

In a recent AP article, he talks about harnessing the passion of Gen Z, those born between the last 1990s and early 2010, to address our most urgent challenges. About 70% of Global’s members are Gen Z. “So many of the world’s most prolific movements were started by people when they were young,” he said, referring to Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. “It’s fueled by the reality that I think we have a model of activism powered through the Global Citizen app that young people can relate to. And it gives them the power of putting activism and advocacy within their own hands,” he said.

Like these leaders who envisioned a better world, Evans had his own vision when he was young: Perhaps poverty could one day be eradicated. When he was 14 years old, he spent a night in a Philippines’ slum, which was built on top of a garbage dump. This profound experience led to co-founding the Oaktree Foundation, Australia’s first youth-run aid organization, which focuses on creating education opportunities across Asia Pacific and African regions. Today, the organization is still run by people between the ages of 16 and 26.

In 2006, Evans coordinated the “Make Poverty History” campaign in Australia, culminating with a concert on the eve of the G20 meeting. With support from Bono and Pearl Jam, the Australian Government agreed to double its investment in international development. With a grant from the United Nations, Global Citizen was launched. Its mission: to build an unstoppable movement toward eradicating extreme poverty.

In 2012, Evans launched the Global Citizen Festival, a music event on the Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Park that coincides with the UN General Assembly meeting in September. The event requires concert-goers to perform anti-poverty actions in exchange for free tickets, according to the World Bank. Nearly 3 million actions have been taken against extreme poverty, resulting in 87 commitments and policy announcements, according to the World Economic Forum. Evans has been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 (2012) and was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business 2014. In 2022, Sharon Prince, Grace Farms CEO and Founder, would receive the same honor for her Design for Freedom movement and her work to “get leaders in architecture and construction to find ways around using materials made with slave labor.”
Evans is a featured speaker at the 2025 Design for Freedom Summit.