These Under 30 Listers Are Impacting Marketing And Media Across Europe

These European journalists, entrepreneurs, marketers and designers are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with storytelling, creativity and business.

Being a war correspondent isn’t something everyone experiences while still in college, but Anastasiia Lapatina has spent the past several months doing just that. As a national reporter for The Kyiv Independent—an English-language publication in Ukraine founded less than six months ago—she’s written about the horrific events during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, filing stories about bombings, hospitals in towns occupied by Russian soldiers and cyberattacks.

The 20-year-old undergrad—who is currently in Ukraine but finishing her junior year studying international relations remotely at the University of British Columbia in Canada—has also amassed a large Twitter following of more than 600,000 users and written op-eds for The Guardian and The New York Times, including a piece about the refugee crisis on the Polish-Ukrainian border. (She says her biggest achievement so far is having a large platform through social media and journalism to speak about Ukraine.)

“I’m only here to pay witness,” Lapatina tells Forbes. “I’m only here to pass this history to the next generation.”

Lapatina is one of this year’s honorees on the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Media & Marketing list. However, she’s not the only journalist at the Kyiv Independent being honored. This year’s list also features deputy editor Toma Istomina, 26, political editor and chief operating officer Oleksiy Sorokin, 26, and head of investigations Anna Myroniuk, 27. They are just several of the cofounders of the six-month-old publication, reporting on the war in their home country with bravery and tenacity as well as with sensitivity and responsibility. (Other fellow cofounders are above the age of 30). Read the full feature about all four honorees here.

Other journalists on the 2022 list came from elsewhere in Europe. London-based news editor Shakeel Hashim, 25, writes The Economist’s daily Espresso briefing, a digital collection of five short stories published to the publication’s Espresso app. He also helps run the magazine’s home page and writes stories ranging from nuclear weapons to techno-optimists. British journalist Joice Etutu, 26, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is now a correspondent for the BBC News based in Nairobi. Fabrizio Romano, a 29-year-old Italian with CBS Sports, is one of the continent’s top soccer journalists.

Also on the 2022 list is Ben Hunte, a 29-year-old journalist at Vice covering LGBTQ+ issues—following a stint at Google, where he helped media companies that were working with the Silicon Valley giant. Another honoree, 28-year-old Vicky Chandler, editor of Delish UK, has built out the publication’s e-commerce business along with new content and new audiences.

Speaking of food, fans of baked goods might be happy to hear that a donut marketer is on this year’s list. Hamza Ayub, the 29-year-old chief marketing officer of Dunkin’ Switzerland, is one of several CMOs being honored. Others include Amalie Angelskår, 28, CMO of the Swedish online therapy startup Mindler, and Katrina Allikas, 29, CMO of the Latvia-based audio tech startup Sonarworks.

Several other brands are represented for 2022. At ASOS, senior social media editor Muinat Abdul, 29, works across Topshop, Topman and Collusion brands. Meanwhile, Pooja Popat, 25, digital publishing manager of Adidas, produces The Original Creator Network Project, which works with emerging and underrepresented artists.

Startup founders are also among the 2022 honorees. Jesse Pyy, the 27-year-old former CMO of the popular Finnish tech conference Slush, is now founding partner of Bou, a Nordic branding company that works with brands like Polestar and Metacore. Amy Durant, the 29-year-old founder of Bold Strokes, is the studio’s creative director and has worked with major brands like Marvel, Amazon and Nike. Wiktoria Wójcik, the 24-year-old cofounder of the Polish startup inStreamly, is connecting marketers with many micro influencers at once and has already done deals with Netflix, Disney and Porsche.

Wherever marketing and media are these days, it’s likely that Big Tech is nearby. That’s also true for our list. Yuvraj Boparai, 27, head of gaming marketing for Snap Inc., has launched global gaming franchises for Snapchat while also helping with new DEI initiatives. Normanno Pisani, 29, an Italian in London, was TikTok’s sixth hire in Europe and now heads up the platform’s media partnerships across sports, entertainment, music and fashion. Rochita Dua, 29, senior international growth consultant has been coaching startups and agencies about digital advertising.

We hope you’ll spend time reading about all of the 2022 honorees on the Media & Marketing list and other Under 30 Europe categories.