Keynote Speakers

Kaspar Villiger, Chairman UBS,

former Federal Counciller of Switzerland

Kaspar Villiger was appointed Chairman of UBS Group in 2009. He was elected as Federal Councilor in 1989 and consecutively served as Defense Minister and as Finance Minister until he stepped down at the end of 2003. He was President of the Swiss Confederation in 1995 and 2002. As co-owner of the Villiger-Group, he managed the parent firm, Villiger Söhne AG, from 1966 - 1989. He graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1966.

David Blood, Senior Partner,

Generation Investment Management

David Blood is the Senior Partner of Generation Investment Management, a fund management business dedicated to long term investment and integrated sustainability research. Prior to co-founding Generation, he served as the CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management until 2003. He is a member of the Investment Committee of the Acumen Fund and serves on the Advisory Board of Bridges Ventures. He received a B.A. from Hamilton College in Clinton (NY) and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Sean J. Egan, founding partner & managing director, Egan-Jones Ratings Company

Sean J. Egan is founding partner and managing director of Egan-Jones Ratings Company, which was organized for the purpose of providing timely, accurate credit ratings. Previously, he worked in KPMG’s risk-assessment business and in structured finance at Chemical Bank of New York. Mr. Egan has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He holds a degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an MBA from Harvard University.

Bill Emmott, formerly with The Economist

Bill Emmott studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and was the editor of The Economist from 1993 until 2006. He is now an independent writer, speaker and consultant. He has published ten books, the latest one - "Rivals: How the Power Struggle between China, India and Japan will Shape our Next Decade" – was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber prize for books and for the Duke of Westminster Medal. He has won many journalism awards, including in 2006 the "decade of excellence" prize from the World Leadership Forum in London and in 2009 a "lifetime achievement" award from the Gerald Loeb programme at the Anderson School of Management, UCLA.

James Surowiecki, Financial columnist, The New Yorker

James Surowiecki has written a well-received book on the theory and practice of The Wisdom of Crowds - Why The Many Are Smarter Than The Few And How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies And Nations. He is the foremost authority on how to harness the collective wisdom of organisations for competitive advantage in order to arrive at superior decisions - often better than those that individuals would make, even if they are experts.
Jim writes a twice-monthly financial column for The New Yorker that is typically pegged to current events and incorporates the kind of insights from economics, sociology, and business history that make The Wisdom of Crowds so valuable.
He has written for a broad range of other publications on a wide variety of topics. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and The Wall Street Journal and other major publications.
He wrote “The Bottom Line” column for New York magazine, and was a contributing editor at Fortune.