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2022 Fellows

The Eighth Cohort

Stockholm School of Economics Fellows

Emna Khadri is a Master’s student at the Stockholm School of Economics pursuing a degree in Finance. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Retail Management from the Stockholm School of Economics. Ms. Khadri is a recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s full-tuition ‘Yes Program’, awarded to 20 students from her home country each year. She spent one semester studying at a high school in the US and led the role of youth ambassador to spread awareness about her home country and help bridge the gap between the Arab world and the U.S.
Prior to her fellowship, Ms. Khadri previously worked in a strategy and operations a Deloitte and growth capital at a Swedish investment firm. She also interned at a fast-growing operator of online marketplaces where she learned about technology and coding skills. Emna is 73particularly interested in financial management, the development of international businesses and the intersection of the private and the public sector. She is fluent in French, Arabic, and English, and has a proficient understanding of Swedish.
During the summer, Ms. Khadri interned at Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, an award-winning affordable housing developer in Virginia. She learned about how the political economy of governments shapes the growth of businesses. She conducted pro forma financial analysis, funding applications, and policy analysis. Ms. Khadri has chosen classes in international negotiations and political economy of cities as she is keen on learning about foreign policy.
Wuraola Okuwobi is a Master’s in Finance student at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE). She was the only Swedish Institute scholarship recipient at SSE in 2021. She graduated top of her class at Afe Babalola University, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in Economics. She is interested in optimizing finance for sustainable development.
Prior to SSE, she worked in the international tax divisions at PwC and Andersen where she advised multinationals and domestic group companies on related party transactions. While at Andersen, she contributed to the development of the firm’s Transfer Pricing practice in Africa and the Middle East.
Ms. Okuwobi manages the finance operations and sits on the board of Green Growth Africa (formerly ISNAD-Africa), a UNEP accredited organization committed to driving sustainable development in Africa through its various initiatives focused on education, energy, and environment.
As a Wallenberg fellow, Ms. Okuwobi works on exciting projects at GEF Capital Partners, a niche private equity firm focused on financing climate action and pollution mitigation. In this role, she contributes to different stages of a private equity deal process and discovers parallels between professional practice and theories from her SSE classes.
Isak Öhlund is a Master’s student at the Stockholm School of Economics pursuing a degree in International Business. He previously graduated from the Bachelor Program in Business & Economics with an emphasis in Accounting and Finance from the same school. During his undergraduate studies, Mr. Öhlund spent an exchange semester at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
Mr. Öhlund has additional academic experience from Stockholm University, where he has studied French. Furthermore, he has worked in human resources and assisted a digital health start-up. Additionally, Mr.  Öhlund has done a 4-week global engagement internship in Uganda as part of his Master’s. 
His interests include politics, where he sees the growing globalization and political volatility as a call for increased appreciation of institutional considerations in corporate strategy. Mr. Öhlund’s interest in politics is an aspect he looks forward to expanding as a Wallenberg Fellow. He is a native speaker of Swedish, fluent in English, and has intermediate knowledge of French.
His internship in Washington this summer was with Medtronic in the International Relations team, where he worked on sustainability-related questions and regulatory barriers in emerging markets for the medical technology industry. Throughout the fall, Mr. Öhlund is continuing his internship at Medtronic.

Georgetown University Fellows

Prior to coming to Georgetown, Ms. Adamian worked as a Press Assistant for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, which sparked her interest in private-public partnerships. She has also worked in journalism specializing in public policy coverage and disinformation campaigns. After years of experience in media and the public sector, she is interested in exploring private sector solutions to global crises. She is particularly curious about solutions for addressing wealth inequality and sustainability. She is fluent in German and Armenian.
While in Stockholm, Ms. Adamian worked as a Sustainability Associate for EQT AB’s Group Sustainability and EQT Exeter (real estate) teams. She helped develop and implement the company’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework and focused heavily on the collection and input of ESG data, research on global sustainability policies for firms, due diligence reports, and internal communications. Her summer experience sparked a passion for sustainable finance, which she plans to pursue after graduation.
Drew Fenner is a Master’s candidate in German and European Studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he is also pursuing an honors certificate in International Business Diplomacy with specific interest in trade, technology, and sustainability. His Master’s thesis focuses on transatlantic convergence on semiconductor trade and investment policy. Mr. Fenner graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with a Bachelor’s in Political Science and a minor in European Union Studies. During his undergraduate career, he spent summers abroad in Salzburg, Austria and Brussels, Belgium studying EU foreign and economic policy.
Mr. Fenner’s background concentrates on business-government relations in the EU and transatlantic contexts. Previously, he was a European Affairs Fellow at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, focusing on business challenges and opportunities linked to the EU’s green and digital agendas. Prior to Georgetown, he worked on issues of EU legislative politics at Brussels-based institutions, including Alber & Geiger, the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), and the Institute for Competitiveness. Mr. Fenner was born and raised in Sarasota, Florida. He is a native English speaker and has an advanced knowledge of French.
As a Wallenberg International Fellow, Mr. Fenner worked as a Sustainability Associate within the Private Capital and Infrastructure divisions at EQT Group. At EQT, he supported leadership in designing a firm-wide negative screening policy, as well as developed portfolio companies’ sustainability agendas used in fundraising efforts.
Eleanor Rubin is a Master’s candidate in German and European Studies at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service, where she is pursuing the International Business Diplomacy Honors Program and is most interested in studying the intersection of diplomacy, technology, and business.
Ms. Rubin graduated with honors from the University of Chicago in June 2021, having double majored in Law, Letters, and Society and Germanic Studies. She received the Germanic Studies Department’s Romberg Summer Research Award for her honors undergraduate thesis research. Her interdisciplinary thesis combined topics from both majors, comparing approaches to freedom of speech and internet hate speech regulation in the United States and Germany. 
Ms. Rubin is most focused on international relations, business, and technology, and plans to pursue a related internship in Stockholm this summer. She is fluent in Spanish and German, competent in Latin and Hebrew, and holds United States, German and Israeli citizenships.
This summer, Ms. Rubin worked at Ericsson in Stockholm as part of the Internet of Things (IoT) Go-to-Market Team. She helped her team research and develop a business strategy concerning the implications of evolving global technology policies and regulations for Ericsson’s IoT solutions. Ms. Rubin was thrilled to work at the Ericsson office in Kista and experience Science City’s entrepreneurial atmosphere, while getting to know her colleagues in Stockholm and around the world.

2021 Fellows

The Seventh Cohort

Stockholm School of Economics Fellows

Thomas Atherton is a Masters student at the Stockholm School of Economics, currently pursuing a degree in Economics. He previously graduated from Durham University with a BA in Economics, and is one final exam away from becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Mr. Atherton’s experience is varied, beginning with an internship in a Kosovan think tank and continuing with a graduate role on the London trading floor of U.K. investment bank HSBC. For 3 years, Mr. Atherton worked at HSBC in the Equity Sales team as well as building and leading the industry’s first ESG Sales franchise. In this position, he brokered sustainable investing trade ideas to institutional investors and advised global corporates on ESG considerations in strategy and capital markets transactions. Subsequently, Mr. Atherton created an ESG advisory franchise for corporates and investors at Global Counsel, a political consultancy.
As a Wallenberg fellow, Mr. Atherton hopes to have a positive impact at the intersection between business, politics, and sustainability, including via an internship at GEF Capital Partners, a sustainable private equity firm. Mr. Atherton is a native English speaker, with working proficiency in Swedish and basic French.
Başak Edizgil is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at Stockholm School of Economics with a specialization in International Economics. Before coming to Sweden, she studied at St. Lawrence University in Upstate New York where she majored in Economics and Mathematics with a minor in Arabic Studies as a Davis United World College Scholar.
During her time at St. Lawrence, Ms. Edizgil studied abroad in London where she interned at Afghanistan and Central Asian Association working on issues affecting the refugee community in London and in greater Europe. She also completed an Independent Research Project on the Turkish government’s specific agenda behind pursuing EU membership.
Ms. Edizgil sees growing wealth and income inequality as the defining feature of the modern world. Therefore, her work experiences have generally been concentrated on inequality as a political and an economic problem. After graduating from St. Lawrence University, she worked as a program associate at BOC Capital, a microfinance institution dedicated to bettering the lives of disadvantaged communities in New York City.
This summer, Ms. Edizgil will be interning at Limiar Capital where she will be researching several emerging markets to evaluate macroeconomic conditions and political risk in order to develop an investment thesis for these countries. She is very excited for the internship; it will be her first experience in the area of investing in emerging markets. She is also looking forward to the case intensive classes at Georgetown University and to leveraging them to become better at turning ideas into projects. Ms. Edizgil grew up in Turkey and is a native Turkish speaker. She is also proficient in English and Arabic.
David Huber is a Master of Science in Economics with specialization in International Economics and Data Analytics candidate at the Stockholm School of Economics. He previously graduated top of his class with a Bachelor in Economics from the University of St. Gallen, where he was also a member of the University’s talent coaching program, and spent one semester studying at Bocconi University in Italy.
Mr. Huber’s professional working experience includes working in both the private sector and diplomacy. Before starting his master at the Stockholm School of Economics, he spent six months working for the diplomatic corps at the Swiss Embassy in Argentina, where he advised the Ambassador and the first Diplomat on economic and political topics and represented Switzerland at diplomatic events.
Alongside his studies in St. Gallen, he co-founded the global umbrella organization of all WTO student simulations and presided over the biggest simulation worldwide taking place at the headquarters of the World Trade Organization in Geneva. On the private sector side, David worked for seven months in financial consulting in Zürich and São Paulo and three months for a healthtech startup in Geneva, completing the Future.Preneurship program in social entrepreneurship.
Through his experience in the private and the public sector, David saw the potential of an improved cooperation of the two sectors in solving many of our most pressing problems. He hopes that his studies at Georgetown and his internship at the IFC will help him to further deepen his understanding of the complex relation between the private and the public world. David is a native Swiss German speaker, fluent in German, English, Spanish, Portuguese and proficient in French, Italian and Swedish.

Georgetown University Fellows

Jessica Meyerzon is a Masters candidate in Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she is also pursuing a certificate in International Business Diplomacy. Her academic and professional interests include public and cultural diplomacy, business relations in Eurasia, and building private-public partnerships to help combat complex global issues.
Ms. Meyerzon previously graduated from Lewis and Clark College in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and Foreign Languages (Russian/Spanish). After graduating, she spent one year teaching at Baranovichi State University in Belarus as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. She has also worked for American Councils for International Education, where she was a participant recruiter for their Future Leaders Exchange program (FLEX) in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Estonia. Ms. Meyerzon has also worked at the University of Washington in Seattle as the Program Coordinator of the Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies and the Center for West European Studies. She also enjoys dancing salsa and bachata, as well as hiking in different parts of the world.
Ms. Meyerzon is a native English speaker, and is fluent in Russian and Spanish. Her fellowship internship in Stockholm this summer will be at Ericsson, where she will be supporting the internal incubation hub Ericsson ONE. She is looking forward to gaining experience and practical skills in an authentic international business environment.
Iris Thatcher is a Masters candidate in German and European Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign service, where she is pursuing a certificate in International Business Diplomacy with a particular interest in economic policy within the Nordic and Arctic regions.
Ms. Thatcher graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington (UW) in December 2019, where she majored in Political Economy and Finnish Language and Culture, along with a minor in Scandinavian Studies. She was also a recipient of the Kalevala Scholarship, awarded by the UW Scandinavian Studies Department in winter of 2019 due to her academic achievement and abiding interest in Finnish studies.
While at UW, she studied abroad in Berlin, where she examined transatlantic populist rightwing movements. This experience inspired her undergraduate senior capstone, where she wrote about the development of the Finnish populist right-wing party, the Perussuomalaiset. In March 2020, she subsequently won the Gurli Aagaard Woods Publication Award for the best essay written for an undergraduate course relating to Scandinavia by the Association for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies in Canada. Ms. Thatcher was also awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Finland for the 2020-2021 school year, but turned it down due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Upon graduation from the UW, Ms. Thatcher stayed in her hometown of Seattle, Washington and pursued nonprofit opportunities both with The Borgen Project and the World Affairs Council in Seattle. Both experiences enhanced her understanding of social justice issues, where The Borgen Project allowed her to make an impact in addressing global poverty through advocacy work, and the World Affairs Council allowed her to explore the importance of international exchange programs in fostering inter-cultural dialogue.This summer, she will be working with Ericsson’s Partnership and Ecosystem for IoT Team this summer, and she is looking forward to enhancing her understanding of private-private and private-public partnerships. Ms. Thatcher is a native English speaker and is fluent in Finnish, with a basic understanding of German.

2020 Fellows

The Sixth Cohort

Stockholm School of Economics Fellows

Alfred Hedlund is a Masters student at the Stockholm School of Economics pursing a degree in Finance. He also holds a Bachelors
degree in Business & Economics from the Stockholm School of
Economics, with a concentration in finance. During his bachelor he
spent one semester studying at Smith School of Business at Queen’s
University in Ontario, Canada.
Alongside his studies, Mr. Hedlund works at the management consultancy firm QVARTZ as a Junior Consultant. During his time at QVARTZ he has discovered an interest in how businesses and financial institutions can drive sustainable development, and has also come to realize that there is a huge need for collaboration between the private and public sector. His intention is to develop an in-depth expertise at making these partnerships as efficient as possible.
Mr. Hedlund is fluent in Swedish and English, and has a basic understanding of Spanish.
Mr. Hedlund’s summer internship was spent at Albright Capital, an emerging markets private equity firm, where he was fortunate to work with a range of questions relating to potential investments, portfolio investments, and marketing. The internship allowed him to put his theoretical learnings from his MSc in Finance program into a practical context, while also learning about entirely unrelated topics, such as political risk considerations.
Nastassia Rudak is a Masters student pursuing a degree in Economics and a recipient of the af Jochnick Foundation scholarship at the Stockholm School of Economics. She previously graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Economics and Government.
Nastassia Rudak is a Masters student pursuing a degree in Economics and a recipient of the af Jochnick Foundation scholarship at the Stockholm School of Economics. She previously graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Economics and Government.
Ms. Rudak’s professional experience has been concentrated
mainly in the field of education. She has taught in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, working in a program focused on delivering
education in a post-conflict context. For two years Ms. Rudak
taught Economics in Costa Rica. She worked with various NGOs
to create after-school programs for children from at-risk
backgrounds. Ms. Rudak came to SSE with the goal of ultimately
using her education to create evidence-based policy, addressing the issues of transition economies such as the disproportionately large involvement of the state in the economy, lack of diversification and openness, and corruption. She believes that her experience as a Wallenberg fellow will allow her to develop a global perspective on the issues of transition economies while allowing her to refine the narrow expertise she is looking for.
Ms. Rudak is fluent in Russian, Belarusian, and English, proficient in French and conversational in Croatian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Spanish.
As a Wallenberg Fellow Ms. Rudak interned for the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery. As part of their Strategy and Design Team, she explored the potential for the Fund’s intervention into Eastern Europe as well as assisted in framing the directions for their projects in East Africa. The most important milestone for her was the final presentation she did for the Fund, which has the potential to translate into real action a year or two down the line.
Nicolas Powell is a Masters student at the Stockholm School of Economics pursuing a degree in Economics. He also holds a degree in Computational Math from Stanford University.
Following graduation from Stanford, Mr. Powell spent two years in London and the Bay Area working as an engineer at tech startups. Much of his work experience has focused on big data, specifically on realizing solutions to fundamental problems that businesses and governments face in the modern era. Mr. Powell is interested in intelligent policymaking, with a particular passion for alleviating global inequalities in wealth and productivity. He hopes to address these problems through trade policy as well as domestic solutions. Mr. Powell also plans to leverage his experience with information architecture in the pursuit of these goals.
A dual Czech-American citizen, Mr. Powell was raised in California and Colorado. He is fluent in Czech and English and conversational in French.
Last summer, Mr. Powell worked at AES, the energy company, working on a machine learning approach to predict interest rate and currency exchange risks for the company’s portfolio. He was working remotely, as the DC office was closed due to coronavirus.

Georgetown University Fellows

Last summer, Ms. Durling interned at Electrolux focusing on sanctions compliance, which ultimately inspired her masters thesis on the impact of extraterritorial U.S. sanctions on European companies. Her studies at Georgetown have been focused on Europe and the challenges facing global businesses, and this semester she is taking courses in government affairs, international trade law, and investment negotiations. After graduation, Ms. Durling is pursuing a career in regulatory compliance and policy in the private sector in Washington, D.C., and is looking forward to one day getting to visit Stockholm and connect with Wallenberg International Fellows Program fellows living there! 
Yinuo (Jenny) Zhang is a Master of Science in Foreign Service candidate at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, concentrating in Global Business and Finance. She is also pursuing an honors certificate in International Business Diplomacy. Ms. Zhang studied Science, Technology and International Affairs at Georgetown University as an undergraduate, focusing on food and agriculture’s role in sustainable development. 
Ms. Zhang has previously pursued professional opportunities that furthered her interests in agriculture and development. During her study abroad in Australia, Ms. Zhang worked on a consulting project evaluating blockchain’s potential to improve financial inclusion within the local dairy industry. She also worked on the Digital Agriculture research team at the World Bank, examining the potential for digital technologies to transform the food system and improve agricultural development outcomes. Through these experiences, she became interested in different vehicles to finance sustainable development and social impact. Most recently, Ms. Zhang interned at the Milken Institute’s Center of Strategic Philanthropy, analyzing philanthropic capital’s potential to catalyze social change. Professionally, she is interested in leveraging private capital and expertise to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and generate social impact. A ballroom dancer and philosophy enthusiast, Ms. Zhang also enjoys cooking and experimenting with new recipes from different parts of the world. 
Ms. Zhang is a native Mandarin Chinese speaker and fluent in English. 
As a Wallenberg International Fellow, she has been working with Ericsson’s Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility team since last summer. At Ericsson, Ms. Zhang supported its partnership with UNICEF to bring internet connectivity to schools, researched business models for rural connectivity, and she’s currently supporting its work with the Broadband Commission on digital learning.
Amanda von Trapp is a Masters candidate in German and European Studies in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she is also pursuing a certificate in International Business Diplomacy. She is interested in transatlantic relations and building partnerships between the public and private sectors to develop innovative tools and systems that solve global issues. Ms. von Trapp previously graduated summa cum laude from Portland State University with a B.S. in Political Science and International Development. After receiving a high distinction for her honors research in European Union defense integration, she was selected to author a public opinion project on the same subject for the European Union Studies Association. Through her diplomatic work with the World Affairs Council of Oregon, she received the 2018 Global Ties Emerging Leader Award and seeks to use that responsibility to build relationships and both find and champion cooperative solutions to international problems. 
Ms. von Trapp is a native English speaker and proficient in German. 
Last summer, Ms. Von Trapp worked on a research project for Saab concerning EU industrial policies initiatives. Her interest in joining the Wallenberg International Fellows Program started with her love for ABBA and the exciting opportunity to work with a Swedish Company in Stockholm over the summer