The Bilderberg Meeting is an annual off-the-record forum established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another world war, is now defined as bolstering a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe. Participants include political leaders, experts, captains of industry, finance, academia, numbering between 120 and 150. Attendees are entitled to use information gained at meetings, but not attribute it to a named speaker. The group states that the purpose of this is to encourage candid debate while at the same time maintaining privacy, but critics from a wide range of viewpoints have called it into question, and it has provoked conspiracy theories from both the left and right.
The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973, principally by American banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller, an internationalist who sought to address the challenges posed by the growing economic and political interdependence between the U.S. and its allies in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. The leadership of the organization has since focused on returning to "our roots as a group of countries sharing common values and a commitment to the rule of law, open economies and societies, and democratic principles".
Eric Emerson Schmidt is an American businessman and former computer engineer who was the chief executive officer of Google from 2001 to 2011 and the company's executive chairman from 2011 to 2015. He also was the executive chairman of parent company Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017, and technical advisor at Alphabet from 2017 to 2020. As of December 2024, he was 45th wealthiest according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index with an estimated net worth of US$37.8 billion.
António Manuel de Carvalho Ferreira Vitorino is a Portuguese lawyer and politician of the Socialist Party (PS).
Robert Bruce Zoellick is an American public official and lawyer who was the 11th president of the World Bank Group, a position he held from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2012. He was previously chairman of international advisors at Goldman Sachs from 2006 to 2007, United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006, and U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005. Prior to those posts, from 1985 to 2001 he served in a variety of capacities in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, in addition to positions in various think tanks and academia.
Josef Meinrad Ackermann is a Swiss banker, former chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, and former chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank. He has also been a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.
The Munich Security Conference is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich, Bavaria, Germany since 1963. Formerly named the Munich Conference on Security Policy, the motto is: Peace through Dialogue.
Donald Edward Graham is the majority owner and chairman of Graham Holdings Company. He was formerly the publisher of The Washington Post (1979–2000) and later was the lead independent director of Facebook's board of directors (2009–2015).
Børge Brende is a Norwegian politician and diplomat, and has been the president of the World Economic Forum since 2017. A member of the Conservative Party, he previously was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2017, Minister of the Environment from 2001 to 2004 and Minister of Trade and Industry from 2004 to 2005. He was also a member of the Norwegian Parliament from Sør-Trøndelag between 1997 and 2009.
Harald Norvik is a former chairman, president, and chief executive of Norwegian oil firm Statoil, a former chairman of telecommunications company Telenor and a director of ConocoPhillips.
Anne Lauvergeon is a French businesswoman who was CEO of Areva from 2001 to 2011. According to The Wall Street Journal, she is known internationally as one of the most prominent defenders of nuclear power.
Henri de La Croix de Castries is a French businessman. He was chairman and CEO of AXA until retiring from both roles on 1 September 2016.
The Russia Forum was an annual event held in Moscow, hosted by Troika Dialog from 2008 to 2013. From 2012, The Russia Forum was jointly presented by Sberbank of Russia and Troika Dialog.
The Hamburg Summit: China meets Europe is a biennial high-level conference on Sino-European economic relations held in Hamburg. The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce initiated the first "Hamburg Summit" in 2004 to set up a platform for an open dialogue between Europe and China and to improve their economic relations.
The Georgetown Leadership Seminar (GLS) is an annual gathering of selected rising leaders from around the world for a week of intensive discussion on major international issues. The program was established in 1982 by Georgetown University in order to promote dialogue among individuals who would shape the futures of their countries. GLS attracts individuals from government, corporations, law firms, financial institutions, the military, international organizations, NGOs, the media, universities, think tanks, and elsewhere who occupy positions of influence and have the potential to move up to greater leadership roles. The selected participants are then exposed to the major global issues and the Washington foreign policy-making process through direct contact with top level policy makers and experts. The program is derived from Harvard’s “international seminar” conducted by Henry Kissinger in the 1950s and 1960s. The GLS is now administered by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. Original committee members included Zbigniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger, and Peter F. Krogh.
The 2013 Bilderberg Conference took place June 6–9, 2013, at The Grove hotel in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. It was the first Bilderberg Group conference to be held in the United Kingdom since the 1998 meeting in Turnberry, Scotland.
The 2015 Bilderberg Conference took place between 11 and 14 June 2015 at the Interalpen-Hotel Tyrol in Telfs-Buchen, Austria. The hotel had previously held the Bilderberg Conference in 1988.
The World Policy Conference (WPC) is an independent organization whose aim is to contribute to improving all aspects of governance, with a view to promoting a world that is more open, prosperous, fairer and more respectful of the diversity of States and nations. It was launched in 2008, by Thierry de Montbrial, Chairman and Founder of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
