SPEAKER: JACQUES ATTALI

Professor, writer, special adviser to François Mitterand (1981-1990), founder and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1991-1993), Jacques Attali is now chairman of A&A, an international consulting firm based in Paris, and Founder and President of PlaNet Finance, an international non-profit organization using the Internet against poverty focusing on structuring the microfinance sector.

Jacques Attali is a man of action and reflection. An economic theorist with degrees from the elite French “grandes écoles,” he has taught economics at several leading French universities.

He is the author of over thirty books on topics ranging from mathematical economy to music to novels, songs, short stories and theater plays, translated into more than twenty languages. His main work in economics and sociology has been on the main trends in human history and their use to forecast the future. He did that for music, measure of time, medicine, property and other dimensions of human activities.

In his book “Millenium, published in 1990, Jacques Attali created the concept of “nomad society” to characterize the nature of future civilization. This theory of “nomadism” was not only a spark for the creation of the Java programming language by Bill Joy and John Gage at sun Microsystems, but also for the titanium-clad Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain, designed by architect Frank Gehry.

In 1984 Jacques Attali created “Eureka,” the main European program on new technologies, and in 1989 he launched an international action program against massive floods in Bangladesh.

He founded PlaNet Finance in 1998, and is also currently Chairman of A&A, an investment bank and private equity vehicle specializing in the development of European IT start-ups, from software to genomics.

Jacques Attali is a brilliant and emotive speaker. A true “Renaissance Man,” he addresses a wide range of subjects, whether they be economic, political or philosophic. He is fluent in English and French.