The St. Gallen Symposium (formerly also known as the ISC Symposium) is an annual symposium

Symposium

In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...

 on the campus of the University of St. Gallen

University of St. Gallen

The University of St. Gallen is a public research university located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is specialized in the fields of business administration, economics, law, and international affairs. The University of St. Gallen is also known as HSG, which is an abbreviation of its former German...

, Switzerland which brings together distinguished leaders from business, science, and politics as well as some of the most talented youngsters from around the world. They come together to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing the world in the fields of management, the entrepreneurial environment and the interfaces between business, politics and society. The St. Gallen Symposium is organised by the International Students' Committee (ISC) St. Gallen a non-profit student initiative at the University of St. Gallen

University of St. Gallen

The University of St. Gallen is a public research university located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is specialized in the fields of business administration, economics, law, and international affairs. The University of St. Gallen is also known as HSG, which is an abbreviation of its former German...

. The first International Management Symposium took place in May 1970.

Annual Symposium

The annual symposium at the University of St. Gallen takes place in May. Each year, it attracts around 600 leaders from business, science, politics and society. It brings them together with 200 of the most talented students of the world which have to qualify via the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award. They are completed in the dialogue by around 100 selected representatives of the media. Participation at the Annual Meeting is by invitation only. The around 1,000 participants come together for three days and participate in around 40 different sessions. These sessions are set up in different structures. There are Plenary Sessions with the whole plenum, Work Sessions with groups as intimate as 20–30 participants, and Background Sessions, which provide insight into current affairs and theories by experts. All sessions focus on the interaction either being based on discussion or at least including an intense Q&A section. All the sessions deal with issues in regard to each year's topic which itself tackles burning issues fundamental questions "concerning management, the entrepreneurial environment and the interfaces between business, politics and society". The topic itself is structured into four major clusters (A-D), with each session being clearly categorised among these clusters, thus aiding participants in finding the sessions they're most interested in.

All plenary debates from the St. Gallen Symposium are available on the Symposium's website. The St. Gallen Symposium is also present on Facebook and Youtube. CNBC

CNBC

CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...

 & n-tv

N-tv

n-tv is a German television news channel owned by the Bertelsmann AG Media's RTL Group and an affiliate network of CNN since the networks creation in 1992....

 have broadcast a series of interviews from St. Gallen in recent years and Spiegel Online (German magazine) has published a series titled "St. Galler Gespräche".

The 41st St. Gallen Symposium will take place from 12–13 May 2011.

Leaders of Today

Every year, the St. Gallen Symposium draws highly distinguished personalities to join the dialogue on the campus of the University of St. Gallen. In recent years this included public figures such as: Josef Ackermann, nobel prize laureates Robert John Aumann

Robert Aumann

Robert John Aumann is an Israeli-American mathematician and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel...

, Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...

, Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Peace Prize...

 and Gary Becker

Gary Becker

Gary Stanley Becker is an American economist. He is a professor of economics, sociology at the University of Chicago and a professor at the Booth School of Business. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992, and received the United States' Presidential Medal of Freedom...

, Brady Dougan

Brady Dougan

Brady W. Dougan is an American businessman. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Credit Suisse. Prior his current position, Dougan was Chief Executive Officer of Investment Banking and acting Chief Executive Officer Credit Suisse Americas .-Education:He has served on the Executive Board since...

, Samuel A. DiPiazza, Joseph Hogan, Fujio Chō

Fujio Cho

is chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation. In the Japanese system, that puts him in charge of the country's and world's largest automaker. Chō is only the second "outsider" to head Toyota Motor Co. since the members of the founding Toyoda family stepped aside in 1995....

, Hans-Rudolf Merz

Hans-Rudolf Merz

Hans-Rudolf Merz is a Swiss politician of FDP.The Liberals and member of the Swiss Federal Council . He is the head of the Federal Department of Finance and President of the Swiss Confederation for 2009...

, Heinz Fischer

Heinz Fischer

Heinz Fischer GColIH is the President of Austria. He took office on 8 July 2004 and was re-elected for a second and last term on 25 April 2010. Before he took office, Fischer was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria...

, Misha Glenny

Misha Glenny

Misha Glenny is a British journalist who specializes in southeastern Europe and global organized crime.-Biography:Glenny is the son of the late Russian studies academic Michael Glenny...

, Parag Khanna

Parag Khanna

Dr. Parag Khanna is an Indian American author and international relations expert. He is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Research Fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. and Director of...

, Mohammad Khatami

Khatami

-Politicians:* Mohammad Khatami , Iranian reformist President, former President of Iran * Mohammad Reza Khatami , Iranian reformist politician, Vice Speaker of Iranian Parliament and brother of Mohammad Khatami...

, Jeannot Krecké

Jeannot Krecké

Jeannot Krecké is a Luxembourgian politician. A member of the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party, Krecké has been a member of the Juncker-Asselborn Ministry, holding the positions of Minister for the Economy and Foreign Trade and Minister for Sport.Krecké is a former Luxembourgian football ...

, Christine Lagarde

Christine Lagarde

Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde is a French lawyer and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund since July 5, 2011...

, Didier Lombard

Didier Lombard

Didier Lombard is a French businessman. Between February 2005 and March 2010 he was Chairman and CEO of France Télécom. In 2010 he resigned as CEO, retaining the chairmanship....

, Sergio Marchionne

Sergio Marchionne

Sergio Marchionne is an international manager best known for his turnaround of the Italian automotive group Fiat and, more recently, for managing the US automotive group Chrysler from bankruptcy to profitability...

, Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi

Lubna Khalid Al Qasimi

HE Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi is the Minister for Foreign Trade and was previously Minister of Economic and Planning of the United Arab Emirates . She was appointed on 1 November 2004. Sheikha Lubna holds the distinction of being the first woman to hold a ministerial post in the...

, Nuguib Sawiris

Naguib Sawiris

Naguib Onsi Sawiris is an Egyptian businessman and politician. He was executive chairman of the telecommunications companies Wind Telecom and Orascom Telecom Holding before turning to politics in May 2011...

, Boris Tadic

Boris Tadic

Boris Tadić is the President of Serbia and leader of the Democratic Party. He was elected to a five-year term on 27 June 2004, and was sworn into office on 11 July. He was re-elected for a de facto second five-year term on 3 February 2008 and was sworn in on 15 February...

, Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Toomas Hendrik Ilves is the fourth and current President of Estonia. He is a former diplomat and journalist, was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in the 1990s and later a member of the European Parliament...

, Dieter Zetsche

Dieter Zetsche

Dieter Zetsche is a German businessman and the Chairman of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars since 2006 as well as member of the company's Board of Management since 1998....

.

Leaders of Tomorrow

Half of the 200 students attending the St. Gallen Symposium are selected from among more than 1,000 contributions to the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award each year. The other half, the St. Gallen "Knowledge Pool", are selected by the ISC directly based on previous accomplishments in business and academia relevant to the annual topic. They then are invited to take part in the exchange of ideas just based on their skill. The ISC's sponsors cover the expenses for transfer, accommodation and boarding. Also, the student participants take an active part in session by leading Work Sessions and taking part in Keynote Sessions such as the traditional Award Ceremony for the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award. These contributions are arguably the highlights each year. Many students continue to develop into outstanding personalities and return to the St. Gallen Symposium as members of the faculty (such as CAI Shiyin, William Devine or Werner Wenning).

Press

Among the 100 press participants there are representatives from the national and international written press as well as international television stations. In recent years, camera teams from ARD

ARD (broadcaster)

ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

, Bloomberg

Bloomberg Television

Bloomberg Television is a 24-hour global network broadcasting business and financial news. It is distributed globally, reaching over 200 million homes worldwide. It is owned and operated by Bloomberg L.P...

, CNBC

CNBC

CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...

, ORF

ORF (broadcaster)

Österreichischer Rundfunk, ORF, is the Austrian national public service broadcaster.Funded from a combination of a television licence fees and revenue from limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media...

 and SF

Schweizer Fernsehen

Schweizer Fernsehen is the German language division of SRG SSR, in charge of production and distribution of television programmes in German for German-speaking Switzerland...

 were among those videoing the event.

Awards

The St. Gallen Symposium is home to the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award. In the years from 1979–2003, it was also home to the Max Schmidheiny Freedomprize.

St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award

The St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award is the biggest quality student competition of the world. It receives contributions from over 60 nations each year. The around 1,000 contributions are assessed by a preliminary jury consisting of doctoral candidates of the University of St. Gallen

University of St. Gallen

The University of St. Gallen is a public research university located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is specialized in the fields of business administration, economics, law, and international affairs. The University of St. Gallen is also known as HSG, which is an abbreviation of its former German...

 and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich. After passing the preliminary jury, the contributions will be evaluated by the jury and the winners are selected. In 2009, the jury was led by Prof. Dr. Georg F. von Krogh who replaced Prof. Dr. Gilbert J.B. Probst who had headed the jury for many years. Other members of the jury were Peter Day

Peter Day (broadcaster)

-Early life:He attended Lincoln School, at the time a boys-only grammar school, from 1957-64 as a boarder. His father was a manager with Midland Bank in Lincolnshire . He studied English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford....

, Christophe R. Gautier, Prof. Dr. Odd Gisholt, Charlotte A. Gubler, Barbara Kux, Prof. Dr. Günter Müller-Stewens and Sushil K. Premchand. Past winners of the with EUR 20,000 endowed prize include Marcelo Ber (2011), Kanan Amal Dhru (2011), María de los Ángeles Lasa (2011), Ainur Begim (2010), Shofwan Al-Banna Choiruzzad (2009), Christoph Matthias Paret (2008), Benjamin Block (2007), Maximilian Freier (2006), Fabien Curto Millet (2005) and Ravi Rauniyar (2004).

Max Schmidheiny Freedom Prize

Every year, the Max Schmidheiny Foundation (in honor of Dr. h.c. Max Schmidheiny (1908–1991) presented the Max Schmidheiny Freedom Prize at the St. Gallen Symposium. After 2003, the board of trustees decided to cease this tradition and concentrate on other methods of fulfilling its aim of promoting a free economic and social order. Winners of the Max Schmidheiny Freedomprize presented during the symposium each May include Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

, Nicolas Hayek

Nicolas Hayek

Nicolas George Hayek , was a Swiss-Lebanese entrepreneur, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Swatch Group, with principal headquarters in Biel/Bienne.-Life and background:...

, the International Committee of the Red Cross

International Committee of the Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...

 and Jorma Ollila

Jorma Ollila

Jorma Jaakko Ollila is the Chairman and former CEO of the Nokia Corporation and a Member of the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company , UPM-Kymmene , and Otava Books and Magazines Group Ltd...

. Currently, the foundation sponsors a professorship at the University of St. Gallen

University of St. Gallen

The University of St. Gallen is a public research university located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is specialized in the fields of business administration, economics, law, and international affairs. The University of St. Gallen is also known as HSG, which is an abbreviation of its former German...

, holds regular forums and pursues various projects. During all the time, it has held its close relation with the St. Gallen Symposium.

Organisation

The International Students' Committee (ISC) St. Gallen, the organising committee of the St. Gallen Symposium, is based in St. Gallen

St. Gallen

St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...

, Switzerland. The ISC is supported and guided by the St. Gallen Foundation for International Studies, an independent foundation with the focus on international projects at the interfaces between business, politics and society.

International Students' Committee (ISC) St. Gallen

The ISC is an independent initiative of students at the University of St. Gallen. Every year around 25 students set aside their study for 10 months in order to make the St. Gallen Symposium possible. During the time of the symposium the ISC-Team is supported by more than 200 students from the university who invest their time into offering the almost perfect service to the participants. The ISC Support Crew provides the service for the attending leaders of today and tomorrow. The responsibilities range from Catering and Evening Events to Information Technology, Technical Operations and Transport but also include Students' and Participants' Service as well as Media Relations. The ISC-Team also creates and publishes print products including pre, parent and past Symposium Documentation.

Among the more than 500 former ISC-Team Members are distuingished personalities such as Martin Blessing

Martin Blessing

Martin Blessing is a German banker and Chairman of Commerzbank.Blessing is a graduate of the University of Frankfurt and the University of St. Gallen . In addition he holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago. He was born in Bremen, Germany. He is from a family of...

, Stan Brenninkmeijer, Michael Hilti, Bénédict Hentsch, Dr. Konrad Hummler or Walter B. Kielholz.

Funding

The St. Gallen Symposium is funded by financial aid from the members of a so called "Circle of Benefactors" as well as donations in form of goods, services and money. Participants in the symposium pay a participation fee. In addition, a close relationship with the University of St. Gallen

University of St. Gallen

The University of St. Gallen is a public research university located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is specialized in the fields of business administration, economics, law, and international affairs. The University of St. Gallen is also known as HSG, which is an abbreviation of its former German...

 is kept. During the event, this allows the ISC to be supported by students from the University as well as to use the University's infrastructure. In 2008, the Circle of Benefactors included nearly 400 companies from around the world.

St. Gallen Foundation for International Studies

The St. Gallen Foundation for International Studies is a foundation under Swiss Law with its base in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It aims to promote "international projects at the interfaces between business, politics and society". It supports and guides the International Students' Committee in the organisation of the St. Gallen Symposium and at the same time garantuees a responsible use of the resources provided to the St. Gallen Symposium by its Circle of Benefactors.

It was founded in 1974 and was also known as the ISC-Foundation for some years. Former CEOs include Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Schürer and Andreas Kirchschläger.

The current Board of Trustees includes Josef Ackermann (Chairman), Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank AG is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. It employs more than 100,000 people in over 70 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets...

, Walter Kielholz, Swiss Re

Swiss Re

Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd , generally known as Swiss Re, is a Swiss reinsurance company. It is the world’s second-largest reinsurer, after having acquired GE Insurance Solutions. The company has its headquarters in Zurich...

, Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, Trumpf, Gerhard Schwarz, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung is a major German language Swiss daily newspaper based in Zurich.One of the oldest newspapers still published, it originally appeared as Zürcher Zeitung, edited by Salomon Gessner, from January 12, 1780, and was renamed to Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 1821...

. The current CEO is Philip Erzinger.

External links

• St. Gallen Symposium
• University of St. Gallen
• St. Gallen Foundation for International Studies
• Max Schmidheiny Foundation at the University of St. Gallen