The world's leading forum for negotiations

John Kerry drew from this experience to provide the State Department with global stewardship on issues ranging from nuclear nonproliferation to radical extremists, to humanitarian challenges and the rising threat of climate change. In 2013, Kerry became the first Secretary of State to meet with Iran’s Foreign Minister since the Iranian revolution of 1979. He negotiated a path to renewed talks and cooperation between the two countries. This meeting was the highest-level U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran in more than six years, and a key moment on the journey towards the eventual signing of the landmark 2015 agreement to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon. Kerry was able to maneuver the complexities of such difficult negotiations by leveraging his experience, expertise, and insights from decades of service and diplomacy.

Faced with the rising threat of global climate change, Kerry was also a key architect of the Paris Climate Accord, negotiating on a global platform to finally sign the historic agreement to reduce carbon emissions in 2016. Kerry drew upon a lifetime of public service during his tenure as Secretary.

A best-selling author of A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America and This Moment on Earth, Secretary Kerry released his first memoir, Every Day Is Extra, in 2018.

Kerry was the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 2004.

Richard Quest is CNN’s foremost international business correspondent and anchor of Quest Means Business, the definitive word on how we earn and spend our money. Based in New York, he is one of the most instantly recognizable members of the CNN team.

Quest also serves as CNN Business editor-at-large and often hosts the digital live financial show “Markets Now.”

At our conference he talks about negotiations in business and trends that leaders need to prepare for.

Baroness Catherine Ashton was the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, as well as the European Union common Foreign Minister, and thus the European Union principal negotiator.

She negotiated the rapprochement between the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Kosovo and furthermore, the transitional agreement in the nuclear arms dispute with Iran.

She understands the possibilities and limitations within the field of diplomacy and she knows how negotiations of the future will have to be conducted.

Anders was the negotiator for Denmark on the Maastricht Treaty. As Denmark’s Prime Minister he subsequently negotiated the EU Treaties, and as the NATO Secretary General he was involved in the negotiations around the crises in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Somalia, and Libya.

He knows how to deal with challenges – his new strategic concepts for a European structure encountered strong opposition at the time.  Whatever the challenge, he has demonstrated consistency and strategic negotiation skills, particularly with his approach to Russia.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen currently works on uniting democratic nations and implementing free-trade zones. He is certainly one of the most experienced negotiation professionals at the highest level.

William Ury is an American author, academic, anthropologist, and negotiation expert. He is co-founder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation and author of Getting to Yes , a fifteen-million-copy bestseller translated into over thirty-five languages, and many other books on negotiation. Over the past four decades, Ury has served as a negotiation adviser and mediator in conflicts ranging from boardroom battles to labor strikes to the Cold War, the Colombian civil war, and most recently Ukraine.

He has taught negotiation and mediation to tens of thousands of corporate executives, labor leaders, diplomats and military officers around the world. Ury was educated in Switzerland and received his B.A. from Yale and his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard.

David Petraeus was the Director of the CIA and Commander of the U.S. Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He selected, led, and controlled teams during war times. Petraeus played a major role in developing the new focus of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Today, he serves as chairman of the KKR Global Institute and acts as a political and business advisor.

Martina Hingis was one of the most successful professionals of the 1990s. She won the Grand Slam tournaments “Australian Open” (1997, 1998, 1999) “Wimbledon” (1997) and the “US Open” (1997) in singles, as well as nine titles in doubles. She has also won 43 WTA singles tournaments and 36 doubles titles. Between 1997 and 2001, Hingis spent 209 weeks at the top of the tennis world rankings. This made her (1997) the youngest player to top the WTA Tour world rankings. After retiring at the age of 22, Martina Hingis made a comeback in 2006, leading her to 6th place in the world rankings before retiring from professional tennis in 2007.

Her career match record in singles included 548 wins and 133 defeats.

Rabih El-Haddad leads the Multilateral Diplomacy Division of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.

As the key interlocutor with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries leading international negotiations of the 193 Member States, Mr. El-Haddad adheres, in his daily job, to the purposes and values of the United Nations that aim at developing friendly relations amongst nations by disseminating a culture that celebrates negotiation and enlightened decision-making for the peaceful settlement of disputes.

Mr. El-Haddad was also involved in numerous capacity-strengthening projects that shaped the Organization’s transformative global agenda and enabled member states to foster an environment of collaboration for overcoming challenges on a global scale.

Phil Andrew served 21 years as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) throughout the U.S. and overseas with expertise in violence prevention, counter-terrorism, intelligence, crisis management and hostage negotiation, crimes against children, undercover work, behavioral analysis, and investigative work. He has led complex investigations and deployed regularly on domestic and international kidnappings and hostage-takings and has received numerous FBI and US Department of Justice awards.

He serves as an instructor at the FBI Academy and as an expert in crisis management, negotiation, behavior analysis and undercover work. Phil has keynoted, consulted and trained clients globally. In addition to that, Phil is an Adjunct Instructor of negotiation, business intelligence, leadership, and ethics at DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and Department of Management & Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Santiago Calatrava is one of the world’s most influential architects. Currently working on building the world’s tallest tower in Dubai, the Swiss-Spanish architect is recognized for his iconic, sculptural buildings such as the World Trade Center station in New York, the Olympic Sports Complex in Athens and the University of Zurich Law School’s library.

Calatrava puts emphasis on the fact that he is not only an architect and an engineer, but also an artist. He is known for his futuristic structures and forms that are often inspired by living organisms. His design of Zurich’s Stadelhofen railway station was the starting point of his international career. Calatrava’s designs suggest stylized natural objects—waves, wings, or sun-bleached skeletons, with rows of white concrete ribs curved into distorted parabolic arches.

After his PhD in Engineering from ETH Zurich, Calatrava received numerous honorary doctors from international universities, including those of Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Lima, Liège, Madrid, Atlanta, and Columbia University. In 2004, Calatrava was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects.

Prof. George Kohlrieser negotiated in more than 100 Kidnappings and hostage-takings worldwide. He is a consultant to a number of governments, expert for CNN and the BBC, bestselling author, professor at the IMD, and a renowned expert in his field.