A new experience at the Concordia Annual Summit

Dear friends,

On Monday morning, we will officially open the 11th Concordia Annual Summit in a hybrid format at the Sheraton Times Square New York. After nearly two years of moving to a purely digital agenda, it is with immense excitement to bring together our community in person in a safe environment. This year’s Annual Summit will of course feel different. The emergence of the Delta variant and ongoing travel restrictions mean that we’ll be missing many members of our community, who will be joining us digitally instead of in person. But, for those of us able to come together in person, I couldn’t be more excited about the power of the human-to-human encounter.

I am honored that we will be joined by world leaders, innovators, executives of some of the largest corporations in the world, and—yes—even students, activists, and those on the front lines. We’ll be joined by the Lego Group CEO Niels B. Christiansen, Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez, Merck’s Arpa Garay, CEO of Intel Pat Gelsinger, former U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, UAE Minister of State for Government Development and the Future Ohood Al-Roumi, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, Mexican Secretary of Economy Tatiana Clouthier, UN Secretary General António Guterres, former U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of State Brian Hook, Vanity Fair Editor-In-Chief Radhika Jones, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, Palantir Co-Founder Joe Lonsdale, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry, former U.S. State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, Columbia University’s Professor of Surgery, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Partner and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute General (Ret.) David Petraeus, Rolling Stone Editor-in-Chief Noah Shachtman, Florida Congressman Michael Waltz, Sesame Workshop President Sherrie Westin, among others.

Thank you to our 2021 Programming Partners: AARP; Americares; Berggruen Institute; CARE; The Global Fund; MIT Solve; Organization of American States; Purdue University, Center for Tech Diplomacy; Taipei Cultural & Economic Office in NY; The Policy Circle; U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; The Rwanda Development Board; The Rockefeller Foundation; U.S. Global Leadership Coalition; the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Institute for Business in Society; and the U.S. Department of State Office of Global Partnerships.

Thank you to our 2021 Programming Sponsors: AT&T; ExxonMobil; Google; Hologic; Horizon Therapeutics; Libra Group; Merck; Rubicon; Salesforce; Uber; USANA; Veracity Worldwide; VISA; Walmart International.

I am extremely proud of the Concordia team. Through very challenging times, they have proven that we can indeed come back together in a safe way. There is nothing that can truly replicate the in-person experience, and I could not be more pleased with our commitment to doing so safely.

If you’re not already registered to attend and would like to join us either in person or digitally, please email me.

Warm regards,

Matt