Doing business globally is excruciatingly difficult in the 21st Century. Companies face all sorts of challenges: fast changing technology, stiff competition in countries where none previously existed, and, of course, political upheaval.
Fortune Global Forum, a three-day conference that kicks off Monday, will explore it all through the eyes of the top CEOs, business experts, and political leaders who eat and breathe global business every day. They will share their insights about navigating this new and complex reality along with the lessons they learned the hard way.
The conference, held in San Francisco, takes full advantage of its proximity to Silicon Valley, the epicenter of innovation and (in modern parlance) disruption. CEOs hailing from the technology industry’s biggest companies like Google, Salesforce, and Yahoo will be a major presence on stage along with those from upstarts like Airbnb who are trying to upend incumbents.
Indeed, it’s not just young tech companies that must find a way to manage the tumult 0f global business. It’s also the corporations founded decades ago (or more) that must resist complacence and tradition to evolve.
CEOs from venerable manufacturing, retail, and financial companies including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Levi Strauss will appear at Global Forum to discuss how they fight, adapt, and plan for what’s next. They’ll also talk about the new technologies they’re adopting to remain relevant—”big data,” anyone?—and how they push to innovate.
Here’s just a sampling of the speakers at Global Forum: Google co-founder Larry Page, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, Cisco executive chairman John Chambers, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly, Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh, Charles Schwab CEO Walt Bettinger, California Gov. Jerry Brown, Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, former defense secretary Leon Panetta, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
If you’re in business (or would like to be), an investor keeping an eye open for what’s hot, or just someone who cares about technology and the future, you should be intrigued.
Visit Fortune.com for reports from Global Forum by our reporters and editors on the ground. You can also catch much of what happens on stage on our livestream (see schedule below). For a full conference schedule, click here.
Monday, Nov. 2, 2015
3:00 pm IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf
4:15 pm California Gov. Jerry Brown, L1 Executive Chairman John Browne
4:40 pm Tanium Co-founder Orion Hindawi; FireEye Chief Operating Officer Kevin Mandia
5:05 pm Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes; Human Longevity CEO Craig Venter; David Agus, MD, professor of medicine and engineering, director, USC Center for Applied Molecular Medicine, Univ. of Southern California
Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015
8:45 am Ram Charan, author and consultant, Charan Associates
9:05 am Paul Tudor Jones, chief Investment officer and co-chairman, Tudor Investment
9:15 am Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh; Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini; Charles Schwab CEO Walt Bettinger
9:50 am Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO, XPRIZE Foundation
10:00 am Andreessen Horowitz Co-founder Marc Andreessen; Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg
11:10 am Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson; Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser; Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison
11:55 am McKinsey & Company Global Managing Director Dominic Barton; GE Vice Chairman John Rice; Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, minister of commerce & industry, Government of India
2:15 pm Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
2:40 pm Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff; Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer
3:20 pm GE Vice Chair Beth Comstock; SV Angel Founder Ron Conway; Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015
9:00 am Eurasia Group Founder Ian Bremmer; Allianz SE Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian; Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, former minister of defence and federal minister of economics and technology, Germany
9:45 am Moisés Naím, author, The End of Power
10:05 am Leon Panetta, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
11:00 am Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO, Airbnb
11:25 am Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase
