Jul 28 2010
Fred Bergsten
Director of the Institute for International Economics
Fred Bergsten has been director of the Institute for International Economics since its creation in 1981. He is chairman of the “Shadow G-8,” which advises the G-8 countries on their annual meetings. He frequently testifies before Congressional committees. He was chairman of the Competitiveness Policy Council which was created by Congress from 1991 to 1995 and chairman of the APEC Eminent Persons Group throughout its existence from 1993 to 1995.
Leading authority on the global economic landscape
He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1977-80 and Under Secretary for Monetary Affairs from 1980-81. From 1969-71 he served as Assistant for International Economic Affairs to Henry Kissinger at the National Security Council. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Council on Foreign Relations.[/expand]
Few can claim to even come close to the level of expertise and understanding of global imbalances and the understanding of deeper sources which determine growth in industrial and developing countries. Decision makers across the globe will learn from his surveillance of the state of thinking on growth and the role of globalization in this context, making the case that the world is in need of globalization for the benefit of the poor and the rich equally.[/expand]
Skillfully highlighting crucial issues and trends, Fred’s presentations are engaging, informative and always well received.[/expand]
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Frank-Jürgen Richter is the World Economic Forum’s Director in charge of Asian affairs. Under his leadership, the Forum’s Summits in Asia and the Asia part of the Annual Meeting in Davos have evolved to facilitate the exchange of expertise between leaders in business, government and civil society. He also had a distinguished career with multinational corporations in Asia and in Europe with a number of European multinationals.
Annie worked for Rolling Stone until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone lookAnnie Leibovitz is a unique photographer, the recipient of many honours, including being decorated a Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2006. She has covered Richard Nixon’s resignation and Barack Obama’s campaign, along with a Rolling Stones Tour, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, The Blues Brothers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keith Haring, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patti Smith, George W. Bush, William S. Burroughs, Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth.
Mark McGregor was team manager for the Canadian National ice hockey team, Team Canada. As team manager, he was responsible for recruiting Canadian players in Europe and developing the team. During an impressive career he has been an in-house trainer with various companies and organizations and a keynote speaker at many events world-wide. Since 1999, he has been ranked as one of the top speakers at the St. Gallen Business School, the St. Gallen Management Program and the St. Gallen Management Institute.
John Cassidy is one of the world’s leading business journalists. A writer at The New Yorker and a contributor to The New York Review of Books, he has covered economics and finance there since 1995, writing on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Iraqi oil industry and English journalism. He is also a financial commentator for the BBC and Contributing Editor at Conde Nast Portfolio where he writes the monthly Economics section column.
Álvaro González-Alorda is professor and Director of the Innovation Department at ISEM Fashion Business School, Associate Professor at Instituto de Empresa and other business schools. In the last five years he has focused his research and his consulting activity on developing a methodology to launch transformation and innovation processes in companies, by adjusting the business model to cope with instability in the market.
Euan Semple gained unparalleled experience as Director of Knowledge Management at the BBC and subsequently with major organisations such as Nokia, the World Bank and NATO. Euan is one of the few senior managers in the world who has direct experience of how to make social media work internally. He is now independent advisor on social computing for business, and a well known writer, thinker and public speaker, breaking social media down into easy to understand terms.
Steve McCurry is an American photojournalist best known for his photograph, Afghan Girl that originally appeared in the National Geographic magazine. Throughout his distinguished career he has continued to cover international conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and Afghanistan. His work has been featured worldwide in magazines and he is a frequent contributor to National Geographic. He has twice been awarded the World Press Photo Award, which has come to be regarded as the most prestigious international award for photojournalism in the world.
Misha Glenny is an award winning author and journalist who has been working in Eastern and Central Europe for 20 years. A former BBC Central Europe Correspondent, Misha is also the author of four best-selling books and has spent several years in a courageous investigation of organized crime networks worldwide. He is the Founding Director of SEE Change, an NGO which completed a two-year project developing cross-border cooperation between multi-ethnic municipalities in Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia. 
So what kind of car you would like? One that shrinks for easy parking? A four-seater that turns into a pick-up at the touch of a button? Or would you like seats that lean into the curves? Well, they all exist. Swiss inventor Frank Rinderknecht comes up with a different curiosity every year. With his company Rinspeed, Rinderknecht has a habit of unveiling a world’s first and most innovative that is guaranteed not to go unnoticed. The Swiss are among the world’s pioneers in the area of hydropower – his car creations sQuba is a zero emission car. 