In June, we gathered some of our favorite thinkers and doers in two global hubs. First, at the Northside Festival, founders and VCs dropped knowledge in Brooklyn, the U.S. capital of hipster cool. Days later, the sixth annual Most Powerful Women International Summit kicked off in London, covering everything from geopolitical upheaval and Brexit to hacking and space travel. While the confabs were an ocean apart, they did share a common thread: We live in an age of disruption. Let’s embrace it.
Most Powerful Women
“I know something about ego.” —Supermodel Naomi Campbell
Naomi Campbell spoke about how she persuaded some of the biggest names in business, including Donald Trump, to donate to Fashion for Relief, the charity fashion show she launched to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. Pop icon Annie Lennox also talked philanthropy—her nonprofit, The Circle, helps women in developing countries—and how an interview with Charlie Rose reminded her that “there’s something more important than my fashion sense” and inspired her to use her fame for good.
Social Network to Social Pariah?
London Bridge terrorist attack, British Prime Minister Theresa May lashed out at big Internet companies for giving extremist ideology “the safe space it needs to breed.” Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice president of EMEA, responded to the charge on the London stage, saying that the company plans to add 3,000 employees to scrub offensive content: “We want to be a hostile environment for terrorists.”
Northside Festival
“We bought a whiteboard—it was the most business-y thing I’d ever done.” —Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler,telling the Northside crowd about his transition from music journalist to entrepreneur
“The only way you combat a strong idea is to come up with a stronger idea.” —Ian Schrager, on the hotel industry’s underwhelming reaction to the rise of Airbnb
A version of this article appears in the July 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline “Fortune on the Global Stage.”
