Hugh Evans is Co-Founder and CEO of Global Citizen, the world’s leading international advocacy organization working to end extreme poverty now, an internationally renowned humanitarian, and one of the most recognized leaders in international development. Under his leadership, Global Citizen has grown into an unstoppable movement of tens of millions of people around the world taking action to defeat poverty, defend our planet, and address the systemic barriers that keep people trapped in inequality.

Powered by a worldwide community of everyday activists raising their voices and taking action, the Global Citizen movement is amplified by campaigns and events that convene leaders in music, entertainment, public policy, media, philanthropy and the corporate sector, including the Global Citizen NOW thought leadership summit and the world renowned Global Citizen Festival, which takes place in New York’s Central Park’s and coincides with the UN General Assembly each September. Over the past 10 years, $41 billion in commitments announced on Global Citizen platforms has been deployed, impacting more than 1.15 billion lives.

Evans’ passion for poverty eradication was sparked at the age of 14, when he spent the night in a slum in Manila,Philippines. The experience led him to co-found the Oaktree Foundation, Australia’s first youth-run aid organization, which focuses on creating education opportunities to countries in need across Asia Pacific and African regions, and is still run today by people aged 16 to 26. In 2006, Evans coordinated the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign in Australia, which culminated in a concert on the eve of the G20 meeting in Melbourne with support from Bono and Pearl Jam. As a result of the campaign, the Australian Government agreed to double its investment in international development. Immediately following, with a grant from the United Nations, Global Citizen was born.
Over the course of his career, Evans has been named Young Australian of the Year (2004), one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business (2014), and Billboard magazine’s Humanitarian of the Year (2015); he featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list (2012), and received GQ’s Man of the Year Award for Chivalry (2014) and the Diamond Ball Award for humanitarian work from Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation (2018). He holds a Bachelor of Law and Science from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and a Master of Philosophy in
International Relations from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and has received Honorary Doctorates from Utah State University in Utah, St. John’s University in New York and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is based in New York City.