German Chancellor Angela Merkel discusses the critical points of a potential economic charter that would help resolve the global economic crisis.
Bio
Chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany. Merkel, elected to the German Parliament from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since April 9, 2000, and Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary party group from 2002 to 2005. She leads a Grand coalition with its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), formed after the 2005 federal election on 22 November 2005.
In 2007, Merkel was also President of the European Council and chair of the G8. She played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. In domestic policy, health care reform and problems concerning future energy development have thus far been the major issues of her tenure.
Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany. She is considered by Forbes Magazine to be the "most powerful woman in the world at the present time". In 2007 she became the second woman to chair the G8 after Margaret Thatcher.
Chancellor Merkel is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.
In 2008 Merkel received the Charlemagne Prize "for her work to reform the European Union." The prize was presented by Nicolas Sarkozy.
Klaus Schwab
Dr. Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman and Founder of the World Economic Forum, has been dedicated for more than thirty years to improving the state of the world. He is the recipient of numerous international and national honors for initiatives undertaken in the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest and for peace and reconciliation efforts in several regions.
His work at the World Economic Forum has been providing a collaborative framework for leaders of the world to address global issues, engaging particularly its corporate members in global citizenship.
Dr. Schwab holds numerous positions of civic, academic and editorial leadership. He currently serves as Trustee for the Peres Center for Peace, Israel and the Ibrahim Hussein Museum and Cultural Foundation, Malaysia. His academic activities include: Professor for Business Policy, University of Geneva, Member, Overseers’ Visiting Committee, JFK School of Government, Advisory Board Member, Center for International Development, Harvard University, Member of the Corporate Visiting Committee, MIT and Member of the Royal Academy of Morocco. He is a Member of the Editorial Board for Foreign Policy, Chairman of the Editorial Board for World Link Magazine and author of the annual Global Competitiveness Report, in addition to numerous articles and several books.
Previously, Dr. Schwab was a member of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Sustainable Development, Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Committee for Development Planning and member of the Earth Council when it was located in Costa Rica.
Dr. Schwab holds a Doctorate in Economics (summa cum laude) from the University of Fribourg, a Doctorate in Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a Master’s of Public Administration from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Additionally, he has been the recipient of six honorary doctorates, the most recent granted by the London School of Economics.
Born 1938 in Ravensburg, Germany, he is marred to Hilde Schwab, with whom he co-founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which supports social innovation projects around the world. He has two children, a son, Oliver and a daughter, Nicole.
