President Bill Clinton has announced that President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will participate in the eighth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative joining world leaders in government, business, philanthropy, and civil society who gather each year to create and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
President Obama and Governor Romney will address separate sessions during the final day of the Annual Meeting to be held September 23-25 in New York City.
“I’m grateful that President Obama and Governor Romney are taking time to join leaders from all parts of society who choose to address our greatest global challenges through the Clinton Global Initiative,” said President Clinton. “CGI is built on the spirit of non-partisan, cross-sector collaborations that drive action and I’m proud that, since we began in 2005, CGI members have made more than 2,100 commitments that are already improving the lives of 400 million people all over the world.”
In addition to President Obama and Governor Romney, President Clinton announced new participants including Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; Felipe Calderón, president of Mexico; Denzil L. Douglas, prime minister of the Federation of Saint Kitts & Nevis; Ralph E. Gonsalves, prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Atifete Jahjaga, president of the Republic of Kosovo; Goodluck E. Jonathan, president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Paul Kagame, president of the Republic of Rwanda; Kamla Persad-Bissessar, prime minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago; Hashim Thaçi, prime minister of the Republic of Kosovo; Timothy F. Geithner, secretary of the treasury, U.S. Department of the Treasury; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, finance minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Regina M. Benjamin, surgeon general, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama; Cheryl D. Mills, counselor and chief of staff, U.S. Department of State; Melanne Verveer, ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, U.S. Department of State; Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women; Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize-winner; Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Group; Tom Golisano, CGI’s founding sponsor, and founder and chairman of the board of Paychex; Muhtar Kent, chairman and chief executive officer, The Coca-Cola Company; Arif Naqvi, founder and group chief executive of Abraaj Holdings; Peter G. Peterson, chairman, The Peter G. Peterson Foundation; Condoleezza Rice, founding partner of RiceHaleyGates LLC; Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; Reeta Roy, chief executive officer of the MasterCard Foundation; Carlos Slim Helú, founder, Fundación Carlos Slim; and Linda Zecher, president and chief executive officer, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will join the CGI Annual Meeting with the theme Designing of Impact.
For the first time, the CGI Annual Meeting is built around the single theme, “Designing for Impact,” which will examine how the Commitments to Action that CGI members make can be structured to achieve the most positive, measurable results. The three-day meeting will focus on designing for individual lives, our environments and the systems we rely on including food, an inclusive economy, and good governance.
CGI will conduct Design Labs facilitated by the following leading design experts: Kate Canales, Director of Design and Innovation Programs, Southern Methodist University; John Cary, Founder and Editor, PublicInterestDesign.org; Krista Donaldson, Chief Executive Officer, D-Rev: Design Revolution; Heather Fleming, Chief Executive Officer, Catapult Design; David Janka, Levinthal Fellow, Stanford University Institute of Design; Patrice Martin, Co-Lead and Creative Director, IDEO.org; Liz Ogbu, Scholar in Residence, Center for Art and Public Life, California College of the Arts; Sandy Speicher, Education Lead, IDEO; Sarah Stein Greenberg, Managing Director, Stanford University Institute of Design; and, Jocelyn Wyatt, Co-Lead and Creative Director, IDEO.org.
Earlier this year, CGI introduced a comprehensive program of year-round opportunities for CGI members organized around eight tracks which will be threaded throughout the programming at the Annual Meeting including Girls & Women, Education & Workforce Development, Energy & Ecosystems, Global Health, Market-based Approaches, Response & Resilience, Technology and the Built Environment.
Previously announced participants at the 2012 CGI Annual Meeting include: Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC; His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, Sovereign Prince of Monaco; Madeleine Albright, chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group; Joyce Banda, president of the Republic of Malawi; Walter A. Bell, chairman of the board at Swiss Re America Holding Corp; Seth Berkley, chief executive officer of the GAVI Alliance; Tony Blair, former prime minister of the United Kingdom; Tim Brown, president and CEO of IDEO; His Majesty King Juan Carlos I, Kingdom of Spain; John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco; Jason Clay, senior vice president of market transformation at the World Wildlife Fund; Chelsea Clinton, board member of the William J. Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative; Hillary Rodham Clinton, secretary of state, U.S. Department of State; Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme; David Crane, president and CEO of NRG Energy, Inc.; Salma Samar Damluji, chief architect at Daw’an Mud Brick Architecture Foundation; Mallika Dutt, president and CEO of Breakthrough; Jay S. Fishman, chairman and CEO of the Travelers Companies, Inc.; Anne H. Hastings, chief executive officer of Fonkoze Financial Services; Fred P. Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States; José Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States; Robert Ivy, executive vice president and CEO of the American Institute of Architects; Antony Jenkins, group chief executive at Barclays PLC; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of the Republic of Liberia; Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group; Klaus Kleinfeld, chairman and CEO of Alcoa Inc.; Kay Krill, president and CEO of ANN INC.; Nicholas D. Kristof, columnist at the New York Times; Sasha Kramer, co-founder and executive director of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL); Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author, journalist, and deputy director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program, Council on Foreign Relations; Elizabeth Littlefield, president and CEO of Overseas Private Investment Corporation; Molly Melching, founder and executive director of Tostan; António Mexia, chief executive officer, EDP – Energias de Portugal, S.A.; Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children; Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank; Jayaseelan Naidoo, chairman of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN); Reema Nanavaty, director of economic and rural development at Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA); Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, Inc.; Denis O’Brien, chairman of Digicel Group; Sally Osberg, president and CEO of the Skoll Foundation; Clarence Otis, Jr., chairman and CEO of Darden Restaurants, Inc.; Stephan Ouaknine, chairman, managing partner, and CEO of Inerjys Ventures Inc.; Johanna Ralston, chief executive officer of the World Heart Federation; Navinchandra Ramgoolam, prime minister of the Republic of Mauritius; Jim Rogers, chairman, president, and CEO of Duke Energy Corporation; Irene Rosenfeld, chairman and CEO of Kraft Foods Inc.; Robert E. Rubin, co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, former secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury; Kiran Sethi, founder and director of the Riverside School, Ahmedabad – India; Luis A. Ubiñas, president of The Ford Foundation; Rajiv Shah, Administrator of United States Agency for International Development; Porfirio Lobo Sosa, president of the Republic of Honduras; Lynn Stout, distinguished professor of corporate and business law at Cornell University Law School; Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson; Daniel Yohannes, chief executive officer of Millennium Challenge Corporation; Kandeh Yumkella, director general of the United Nations Development Organization; and Jochen Zeitz, chairman of the management board and CEO of PUMA AG Rudolf Dassler Sport.
President Clinton will also honor remarkable individuals for their leadership in philanthropy, government, civil society, and the corporate sector at the sixth annual Clinton Global Citizen Awards in a special ceremony with live musical performances and celebrity presenters on Monday, September 24.
The full agenda for the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative can be found at clintonglobalinitiative.org/2012.
