| 30 UNDER 30
Europe’s latest crop of young entrepreneurs, inventors and disruptors.
“I assert myself in things that I want to achieve, and I just don’t give up,” says chart-topping singer Rita Ora, 27, who started out performing at her father’s London pub after her refugee family emigrated from Kosovo when she was just a year old. Ora kept at it, sitting outside Universal Music Group in London when she was a teen and handing out her record to people exiting the building. Fast-forward a decade: One of the people who took the music from her is now producing her second album.
That sophomore record, due out later this year, comes five years after her first in the wake of struggles with her former label Roc Nation. If the success of her latest single, “Anywhere,” is evidence, there’s plenty of pent-up demand for her music: The song peaked at No. 2 on the British charts in November.
Ora’s persistence has landed her on our third annual 30 Under 30 Europe list as one of 300 young disruptors who are helping create the future now. These entrepreneurs and innovators hail from a record 34 countries, including smaller places like Belarus and Ora’s native Kosovo. An elite cross-section of the group gathered last month at
Lordship Park in North London to share their stories with one another and sit for the group portrait you see here.
Ora has kept busy between albums, designing more than a dozen collections for Adidas, debuting a lipstick and nail polish line with cosmetics maker Rimmel London and partnering with Absolut Vodka in a project in which she collaborated with fans on a new song.
“I wanted to do it all. I feel like we’re in an era in which entertainment can be so diverse,” she says. “Being able to be an actress, be on TV and still put out an album, I think I’m part of a new breed.”