Corporate stars brighten G-20 Business Summit
Peter Sands, Cynthia Carroll, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Stephen Green Josef Ackermann Joseph Saunders, Lakshmi Mittal
The Seoul G-20 Business Summit, which will be held today and tomorrow, is expected to attract some of the biggest names in the international business world, with about 120 chief executives slated to discuss some of the major issues facing the private sector.
The corporate leaders represent almost every important industrial sector and amounts to a who’s who of Fortune 500 companies.
The results of their discussions will be included in the G-20 Summit of governmental leaders, which will follow tomorrow and on Friday.
More than 80 CEOs from the G-20 nations and more than 20 corporate heads from non-G-20 nations will participate in the event.
The Seoul G-20 Business Summit will mark a rare occasion in which multiple high-powered chief executives meet in a single location.
Representing leading global financial groups will be chairmen and chief executives from BNP Paribas, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase.
In the green technology sector, participants include Antoine Frerot, CEO of Veolia Environment, the world’s largest water services company; Ditlev Engel, president and CEO of Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest wind energy company; and Anne Lauvergeon, the CEO of Areva, the world’s largest nuclear energy company.
Marcus Wallenberg, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Yasuchika Hasegawa, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Ditlev Engel, Chey Tae-Won, Victor Fung
In the information technology sector, those participating will include Todd Bradley, executive vice president of Hewlett-Packard; Ben Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent; John T. Chambers, chairman of Cisco Systems; Paul Jacobs, CEO and chairman of Qualcomm; Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Infosys; Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research in Motion; and Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile.
But the two most popular names in the IT sector, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc., and Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, will not participate in the event. Jobs had turned down the initial invitation, while Gates, who had originally confirmed his participation, recently had to cancel his trip because of an unexpected change in his schedule.
Fifteen Korean corporate leaders will participate, including Lee Kun-hee of Samsung Electronics, Chung Mong-koo of Hyundai Motor Group, Chey Tae-won of SK Group, Park Yong-hyun of Doosan Group, Lee Suk-chae of KT, Koo Bon-moo of LG Group, Chung Joon-yang of Posco, and Kim Seung-youn, chairman of Hanwha Group.
In addition, 11 national leaders will attend the business summit, including President Lee Myung-bak of Korea, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom.
The business-summit organizing committee said that eight political leaders will take part in one-hour round table discussions with the corporate leaders on a range of topics, and the results will be included in a joint statement released before the G-20 Summit begins tomorrow evening.
By Jung Seung-hyun [seungjung@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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