Editor’s note: The World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders is a community dedicated to accelerating solutions to global challenges. This year, Kalibrr’s Paul Rivera is the only Filipino to join the Class of 2021. Below is Kalibrr’s press release.

Paul Rivera, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kalibrr, a technology company headquartered in the Philippines, has been selected to join the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders Class of 2021. The forum brings together extraordinary individuals from different communities and industries around the world for a five-year personalized leadership program.

Every year, the World Economic Forum names its new Young Global Leaders. A selection committee evaluates thousands of publicly nominated candidates before narrowing it down to 100-150 members. Each member is chosen for exemplifying hope, empathy, authenticity, and the drive to develop solutions that can change the world for the better. Together, Young Global Leaders are committed to making a global difference, especially in these critical times.

The Young Global Leaders community has more than 1,400 members and alumni, including civil servants, business innovators, technology developers, journalists, and activists. Among the forum’s notable alumni are Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, French President Emmanuel Macron, and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. 

For Rivera, being recognized is “a win not just for myself and for Kalibrr, but also for the Philippines.” Only a few Filipinos have been named Young Global Leaders in recent years, including politician Bam Aquino, Benedict Carandang of financial technology firm First Circle Growth Finance, Henry Motte-Muñoz of education technology platform Edukasyon.ph, and Cherrie Atilano of social enterprise AGREA Agricultural. 

Rivera leads Kalibrr, a career platform for over 4 million young professionals across the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Kalibrr has enabled hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to get hired through its platform since its founding in 2012. Before Kalibrr, Paul was the co-founder and president of the innovative outsourcing company Open Access BPO, which has over 1,500 employees in the Philippines, Taiwan, and China. 

Rivera is also an active investor in local technology startups, all of whom are double-bottom line businesses, such as Remedy, Maria Health, and MyKuya. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and began his early career in Silicon Valley at Google before returning to the Philippines to become an entrepreneur. – Rappler.com