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CONTENTS BUSINESS 18 GLOBETROTTER
38 REFUGEE CRISIS
62 FINANCE
20 LEADERSHIP
42 PHILANTHROPY
SPECIAL REPORT: GLOBAL CITIZEN FORUM
22 INVESTMENT DESTINATION
44 PHILANTHROPY
24 GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
48 ARCHITECTURE
26 COVER INTERVIEW
52 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR
30 WEALTH
54 BUSINESS
34 WEALTH
56 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
36 FAMILY BUSINESS
58 INTERVIEW
66 About GCF 70 Join the discussion 72 Agenda 74 What people said 75 Venue 76 Introduction to Global Citizen tax 80 Speaker biographies 86 The Curator 88 Global Citizen Foundation 90 GCF in numbers 92 Global Citizen Forum Award 95 Registration
Calendar
Robin Sharma
Ireland’s comeback Saint Lucia
Boyko Borissov
Billionaire travelling habits Economist Sam Wilkins Tod’s CEO Diego Della Valle
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Syria’s lost boys
Building a center for hope Cindy Crawford’s Orbis journey Chad Oppenheim Omar Danial
Fashionable bulletproof jackets Bilbaal founders Guy Richie
The real wolf of Wall Street
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CALIBER RM 07-01
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LIFESTYLE 110
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98 LIFESTYLE
108 HANDMADE
120 TRAVEL
100 AUTO
110 DESIGN
126 FASHION
102 YACHT
112 HOTELS
128 HOROLOGY
104 ART
116 DINING
Gadgets
Range Rover SVR
Pearl 65
Artscoops online platform
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Ettinger leather
Sleek Marsala
Hot boutique hotels
Monaco guide
Back to school
Timepieces
New in your locale
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Slim d’Hermès watch in rose gold, Manufacture H1950 ultra-thin movement.
SLIM D’HERMÈS, PURITY IN MOTION. Abu Dhabi Bahrain Dubai Kuwait Lebanon Qatar 2015 SEPHermes.com / OCT 11
CHAIRMAN’S LETTER GLOBAL CITIZEN PUBLISHER Armand Peponnet EDITOR Natasha Tourish - nt@global-citizen.com SUB EDITOR Tahira Yaqoob - ty@global-citizen.com LIFESTYLE EDITOR Nausheen Noor - nn@global-citizen.com ART DIRECTOR Omid Khadem - ok@global-citizen.com FINANCE MANAGER Muhammad Tauseef - mtauseef@reachmedia.ae CONTRIBUTORS Simon de Burton, Daniel Bates, Georgina Wilson-Powell, Amanda Fisher, Peter Allen, Ben Flanagan, Ryan Young PRINTED BY FOLIART LLC, Bulgaria
igration has always been a defining factor of the human experience. Migration has and continues to touch all nations, cultures and regions no one is immune from it. Accelerating the dissemination of knowledge and ideas and forming the backbone of prosperous societies. Today we are more mobile than ever, planes are bigger and faster than ever… our thoughts can be shared in the speed of light across the globe through social media and our businesses are global, with billions and trillions of transitions happening across continents in seconds, yet human mobility is more restricted than any other time. We created 196 countries and raised borders, created passports to tell strangers who we are and where we were born. As useful as these documents are, they limit our access to the world - the one thing a man cannot change about himself is the place he was born – it’s the one thing that can limit a person the most from birth. We’re currently witnessing one of the most devastating refugee crises of all time - the largest movement of people since World War Two - where millions of people are risking their lives to escape one country for a chance at a better future in another. Governments are now faced with a harsh reality: continue to uphold borders or allow freedom of movement. A restriction on migration is a restriction on the flow of ideas, and much the same way we don’t tolerate censorship or the burning of books, we should consider the ways in which restricting the free movement of people can be equally detrimental to the progression of creativity and human achievement. The concept of Global Citizenship will be discussed at the Global Citizen Forum in Monaco on October 8th and 9th and we invite you to become part of the discussion. A community of like-minded professionals will come together to listen, debate, innovate and design a plan for how the one cent of wealthy economic migrants can contribute to improving the lives of the 99 per cent of refugees through the Global Citizen Tax initiative.
www.global-citizen.com www.issuu.com/global-citizen www.facebook.com/GlobalCitizenMag MEDIA REPRESENTATIVE Fierce International Dubai Internet City Business Central Tower A - Office 2803 T: +971 4 421 5455 - F: +971 4 421 0208 tarek@fierce-international.com
REACH MEDIA FZ LLC CHAIRMAN Armand Arton CEO Armand Peponnet - apeponnet@reachmedia.ae ADVERTISING sales@reachmedia.ae SUBSCRIPTION subscription@reachmedia.ae Dubai Media City, Building 8, Office 87, PO Box 502068, Dubai, UAE T: +971 4 385 5485 - Email: info@reachmedia.ae Copyright 2015 Reach Media. All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the permission of Reach Media. Where opinion is expressed it is that of the author and does not necessarily reflect the editorial views of the publisher or Global Citizen. All information in Global Citizen is checked and verified to the best of the publisher’s ability, however the publisher cannot be held responsible for any mistake or omission enclosed in the publication.
Armand Arton Founder of the Global Citizen Forum
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Photo by Svetoslav Karadjov
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CONTRIBUTORS
Simon de Burton
Daniel Bates
Georgina Wilson-Powell
is a UK-based journalist and author who covers a variety of subjects ranging from high-end cars and motorcycles to luxury watches and international auctions. He is a contributing editor to the Financial Times How To Spend It magazine.
is a British freelance journalist based in New York. He is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Daily Express in the UK and has covered major stories in his decade as a reporter, from the BP oil spill to the Boston Marathon bombing.
is a travel journalist and editor living in London. She contributes to the Times, the Daily Telegraph, Conde Nast Traveller, Monocle and Gulf News. She takes us to Malmo in Sweden to sample its laidback style.
Amanda Fisher
Peter Allen
Ben Flanagan
is a Dubai-based freelance journalist from New Zealand. She worked at the Philippine Star and Radio New Zealand before taking up a post as special correspondent at the Khaleej Times. Amanda has reported from the Philippines, Yemen, Bosnia and Iraq.
is a British journalist and author based in Paris. He writes for a variety of international media, including the Daily Mail, London Evening Standard and Sunday Telegraph. He has covered major news stories all over the world from Afghanistan to Yemen.
writes primarily about Arab affairs in the UK and Middle Eastern business. He writes for outlets including The National and the Al Arabiya News Channel, drawing on 14 years’ experience in journalism. He started his career at the Observer newspaper in London.
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THE BIG PICTURE REFUGEE CRISIS 3,000 migrants are crossing into Macedonia from Greece each day according the UN, as the region continues wilting under the pressure of its worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.
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TogeTher WE SOAR
Since 1977, Boeing has been proud to play a role in the development of Qatar’s aerospace sector and looks forward to continuing this association into the future. Leading through partnership Discover more at boeing-me.com/together
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GLOBETROTTER SEPTEMBER
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Venice International Film Festival Lido of Venice, Venice
Arab IPO Summit Taj Dubai, Dubai
Global Citizen Festival 2015 Central Park, New York
From the opening film, Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Robin Wright, to Charlie Kaufman’s crowd-funded animation Anomalisa and Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl, the 72nd edition of the Venice Film Festival promises to serve up the big stars.
The Arab IPO Summit, themed gateway to capital, growth and value, will take place in Dubai this year with organisers hoping to bring in some of the biggest companies and investment banks across the region to assess the current state of Arab companies and advise on growth and how they can continue to raise capital.
The Global Citizen festival, which coincides with the UN General Assembly, is a critical lever for achieving policy and financial commitments that will shape the success of the ‘Global Goals’ over the next 15 years.
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Monaco Yacht show Port Hercules, Monaco
Global Citizen Forum 2015 Monte Carlo Bay, Monaco
The Monaco Yacht Show is the one and only occasion in the year - and in the world - to showcase the best of superyachting in the glamorous setting of Monaco. Every year there are 40 new launches unveiled at the Monaco yacht show.
Now in its third edition, the Global Citizen Forum will this year be held in Monaco with speakers including the former Secretary – General of the United Nations Kofi Annan and director-general of Unesco, Irina Bokova. The two-day event will explore migration trends as well as the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe and present a new global citizen tax to ease the plight of refugees.
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A B R E ATH -TAKI NG CA R IB B EA N I S L AND DREAM IS N OW WI TH I N REACH In a unique partnership with the government of Antigua & Barbuda, Callaloo Cay offers one of the most attractive Citizenship by Investment programs in the world. As an independent Commonwealth state in the Eastern Caribbean, citizenship of Antigua & Barbuda enables visa-free access to more than 134 countries, fast tracked processing, dual citizenship and inclusion of family. A range of lucrative investment options along with a team of global experts, world-renowned developers and first class operator assure a sound investment. A world of prestige on the horizon
Visit www.callaloocay.com or contact us on contact@callaloocay.com for the full range of benefits 2015 SEP / OCT
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LEADERSHIP
EXPONENTIAL PRODUCTIVITY FOR LEADERS Author and leadership expert Robin Sharma explains how to get more out of your day
e live in the age of dramatic distraction—many shiny toys to chase every waking moment yet so few of those pursuits create real value and grow a life brilliantly lived. Too many of us are overscheduled, overconnected and overstimulated by all the noise, interruptions and complexity of current society. The cost of this way of operating? You will arrive at the last hour of your final day and realise you spent your highest potential on your lowest leverage activities. Epic performers, A-players and world builders play a very different game. The Elon Musks, Mark Zuckerbergs, great artists and top scientists all run their days under completely different mindsets and rituals than those who get trapped in the groove of “being busy being busy”. Please remember: to have the results those at the top have, you must think and do only what that top percentile are willing to think and do. As a private coach to many of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet and founder of the annual Titan Summit—which
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brings together ultra-performers from 43-plus nations for four days of elite training on productivity, business acceleration and lifestyle optimisation—I have observed firsthand how human beings who get more done in a week than most get done in a quarter achieve their results. I have also developed a complete methodology for exponential productivity that I teach participants at this event. Here are the game-changing elements of my approach: The 20/20/20 formula. The way you start your day powerfully shapes how productively you live it. Reserve the first 60 minutes for personal preparation. As the Spartan warriors said, “Sweat more in training and you will bleed less in war”. Spend your first 20 minutes in intense exercise. Sweating releases BDNF, a brain chemical that actually grows neural connections. Working out also releases dopamine (the neurotransmitter of motivation) and seratonin, which makes you feel happy. For the next 20 minutes, review your annual plan and reflect
LEADERSHIP
The way you start your day powerfully shapes how productively you live it office is the start of showtime. They understand that developing a monomaniacal focus on their vital few priorities unleashes legendary results. The 60/10 method. Good research confirms what makes top athletes the best in the world was not what they did in their sport but how effectively they recovered. For example, it was the rituals that star tennis players did in between points that made them stars. What made the Russian weightlifters so undefeatable was their work-rest ratios. Set a timer for 60 minutes and during those intervals, turn off your technology, shut your door and dive—with massive intensity—into the project that matters. Then recover with a break like walking, listening to music or reading. Just try this protocol for a month and witness the gains.
deeply on your quarterly goals. Clarity precedes mastery and this practice will deepen your focus through the day. Invest the final 20 minutes of this morning routine on learning. Read autobiographies of great humans or listen to a leadership podcast or download the lessons of yesterday into your journal. The 90/90/1 rule. This habit alone has delivered vast value for my clients. Simply stated: for the next 90 days, dedicate the first 90 minutes of your work day to your single most important opportunity, the one thing that if you executed flawlessly would cause everything to rise. Average performers get to work and check emails or surf the net. For the true leader, reaching the
Find your circle of genius. Behavioural scientists have discovered the phenomenon of “emotional contagion”. This describes the fact that unconsciously, we adopt the beliefs, feelings and behaviours of the people we spend most of our time with. Want to get ultra-fit? One of the finest ways is to join a running group or make friends with athletes. Ready to be happier? Then remove the energy vampires and complainers from your life. Set to build a truly world-class company? Then start spending far more time with those who have been there and done it. Their mindsets and ways of being will automatically influence you over time. Associating with people whose lives you want to be living shows you what is possible. And once you know more, you can achieve more. Finally, please allow me to remind you about the shortness of life. Even the longest one is a relatively short ride. You owe it to the talent you were born into, the team you lead, the family you love and the world that longs for you to display your greatness to do whatever it takes to reach exponential productivity. Hopefully you will embrace the methodology I have shared to fulfil your leadership potential. Robin Sharma is one of the world’s top leadership experts and the founder of the Titan Summit. For more information visit TheTitanSummit.com
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IRELAND’S COMEBACK After a successful exit from its bailout programme, Ireland’s economy is booming once again BY AMANDA FISHER
he global financial crisis spelt disaster for Ireland, which teetered on the brink of collapse, but the country is emerging from the legacy of those dark days. Stringent austerity measures and an exit 20 months ago from its $76.3 billion bailout programme has meant a strong recovery for its economy. Experts say its annual output last year was more than $215 billion, greater than its pre-crash levels. European Commission forecasts have put the country’s GDP growth rate at the top of the table at 3.5 per cent this year, higher than second-placed Britain at 2.4 per cent. Last year, growth topped five per cent with the upturn continuing steadily this year. Ireland’s manufacturing sectors are growing while its capital Dublin has been dubbed “Europe’s Silicon Valley” in some quarters. Yet it has one of the highest debt rates in the EU, according to Trading Economics, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of nearly 110 per cent last year, a figure which reached an all-time high of 123.2 per cent in 2013. So what does that mean for potential investors? David Norton, head of investment services at financial advisory
firm AES International, says much of the renewed growth in Ireland’s gross domestic product is thanks in particular to several industries that allow the developed country to maintain a manufacturing sector in an age where a great deal of production takes place in cheaper offshore locations. “There are specific opportunities in Ireland which have performed very well and continue to look attractive, even though the economy at large is still recovering from the financial crisis,” he says. “Much of the growth has come from the boom in its manufacturing of technology and biopharma and the exporting of these goods to strong-performing markets like the US and the UK. Its continuing success and attractiveness to foreign investors will depend heavily on the strength of these economies.” Norton says the weak euro boosts the cachet of Irish products with a number of “specific high-growth opportunities amid a backdrop of Eurozone economic struggle”. Over the past five years, the Axa Framlington Biotech Fund delivered returns of 380 per cent while several other similar
Images courtesy of Getty Images
Dubbed Silicon Docks, the newly developed Dublin docks are where tech giants like Google and Facebook have their European headquarters.
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INVESTMENT DESTINATION
funds returned rates in excess of 100 per cent. House prices might have dipped across Ireland but Dublin has rebounded robustly and Norton anticipates returns in the “high teens” this year, thanks to soaring demand and a shortage of residential and commercial property. A lot of that is thanks to Ireland’s burgeoning tech hub, dubbed Silicon Docks—Dublin’s answer to Silicon Valley. Ireland is the European headquarters for the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter, which have flocked in recent years to take advantage of various government incentives and a corporate tax rate of 12.5 per cent. A Colliers International report from last year said US tech giants alone had invested $130 billion in Irish commercial property between 2008 and 2012, equivalent to “all of developing Asia”. Norton says the “huge success story” of Silicon Docks, which has attracted more than 7,000 workers, is down to a handful of important factors underpinning the country’s appeal to outside investors. “Dublin’s success in attracting many of the world’s largest multi-national and internet-based firms lies in its numerous natural advantages, as well as government policy encouraging foreign investment. It has a highly-educated workforce and the youngest population in Europe. “A low corporate tax environment has provided an attractive gateway to Europe and Ireland is the only English-speaking member of the Eurozone.” Still, its detractors say Ireland is far from being in clover. They claim the GDP is misleadingly high as it is artificially boosted by more than 1,200 international companies who channel out profits while the country will not be immune from Eurozone woes. It is also estimated a quarter of Ireland’s personal loans are non-performing, factors which could give concern to the future stability of the Irish economy. Sean Davis, the regional director for Enterprise Ireland, the government agency tasked with helping Irish-based companies grow and develop internationally, says lessons have been learned from the recession. “Like many countries, Ireland went through a period of robust but ultimately unsustainable growth. In the Irish context, one of the key drivers was an overheated construction sector,” he says. He adds the country became reliant on personal debt from the domestic market, forgetting about export growth. “These variables have now largely been turned around, thanks to robust economic jurisprudence, a keen focus on export-
led growth and job creation by all of the state development agencies.” He says this makes Ireland a suitable and sound location for Middle Eastern investors, many of whom are already familiar with the country, given the large numbers who head to Irish universities. “Ireland is a safe, family-friendly environment. Friendliness and hospitality are also strong features of both cultures.” UAE investors in Ireland include Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who has several horse stables in the country, Etihad, which owns a 4.9 per cent stake in the country’s national carrier Aer Lingus and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, rumoured to be backing a US bid to buy a $170 million plot of land in Dublin. Bernard Smith, the international business development manager at IDA Ireland, which is responsible for foreign direct investment, says the organisation has recently experienced “the most successful six months of any year in recent memory”. That means 110 investments in the first half of the year from existing or new international companies starting up new activities in the country, with the potential to create up to 9,000 jobs. The top four industries in Ireland are ICT, life sciences (which encompass pharmaceuticals and food industries), financial services and the content industry, which includes gaming and e-learning. “These sectors are thriving. A lot of companies who come in to invest are from overseas but there is also a very vibrant indigenous sector—young Irish companies developing solutions that are at the forefront of biotechnology research. “Ireland has shown itself in recent years to be very attractive for [people] investing in property portfolios, the hotel and leisure industry and thoroughbred horse breeding.” Smith says the recession was a harsh reminder for Ireland to remain “competitive”. Salaries and rental prices came down, benefiting international business. The government is bringing in policies to ensure as Ireland’s economic recovery accelerates, that ability to compete in a tough market is not lost. Measures include capping mortgages at 80 per cent. Officials are also introducing other tax streams outside property, which they had previously relied upon, to safeguard the economy against another property bubble bursting.
A lot of Ireland’s success is thanks to its burgeoning tech hub, dubbed Silicon Docks— Dublin’s answer to Silicon Valley
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GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
A STAKE IN THE SUN
Images courtesy of Corbis / ArabianEye.com
Saint Lucia is set to offer foreigners citizenship in return for investing in the island
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GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
he picturesque Caribbean island of Saint Lucia is the latest country to join the global citizen industry by offering foreign investors the opportunity to own a stake in the island and receive citizenship. Besides its white sandy beaches and bath-warm waters, Saint Lucia is famed for its drive-in volcano—where you can drive right up to the edge of its sulphurous springs—and its lush Pitons, dramatic volcanic peaks which frame the tropical landscape, making it one of the most popular Caribbean holiday destinations among the jetset. Until recently, the country’s citizenship had not been used to generate income, even though it has been part of the Commonwealth since the British secured the island in 1814. Saint Lucia has relied heavily on tourism and foreign investment for its economic development. Whilst tourism has fared well, there has been a significant decline in foreign direct investment as a consequence of the present global economic recession. This has forced the government to look for alternative ways to source funding. Saint Lucia introduced a value added tax in 2012 of 15 per cent, the last country in the eastern Caribbean to do so. In 2013, the government introduced a National Competitiveness and Productivity Council to address Saint Lucia’s high public wages and lack of productivity. The latest attempt, however, is expected to be the most beneficial yet at generating cashflow. Saint Lucia’s government is offering wealthy foreign investors the chance to buy their own slice of paradise and as an added bonus, receive citizenship without having to live on the island. The Saint Lucian passport allows holders to travel visa-free throughout Europe and the UK. The Saint Lucian government is expected to announce its Citizenship by Investment Programme (CIP) at the annual Global Citizen Forum in Monaco on October 8. While admitting they are latecomers to the industry, the high commissioner for Saint Lucia, Ernest Hilaire, says the island is already more competitive than its Caribbean counterparts, adding the introduction of a CIP would only enhance its edge over its neighbours. He says: “The citizenship by investment option has become quite attractive as it makes the financing of projects easier and cheaper for investors and provides that added incentive of a passport.” When asked why the country has been late to the party, Hilaire says its approach “as a country has never been a rush for numbers but instead to search for quality. We intend to be guided by that principle”. The government will present an overview of the programme and the requirements for citizenship through investment at the forum in Monaco, which gathers together immigration experts and industry leaders from European and Caribbean countries offering immigrant investment programmes. The opening date for applications is also expected to be announced during the forum.
“The citizenship by investment option has become quite attractive as it makes the financing of projects easier and cheaper” Saint Lucia’s parliament passed legislation for the CIP last month and published a list of regulations after installing a national task force to undertake a detailed study of CIPs, which later presented a report to cabinet ministers with a list of recommendations, followed by a public consultation period. “We are at a critical point in the region where we need to find new ways to attract foreign direct investment and finance development projects but we also need to convince the public that we have considered all the aspects of implementing such a programme,” Hilaire says. “We believe we have done the necessary work and have sufficiently prepared to implement a highly successful programme.” Saint Lucia’s prime minister, the Hon Dr Kenny Anthony, says the new CIP would help the government attract loans to fund the construction of roads and schools and sustain health management programmes, including the opening of two upto-date hospitals, as well as catering for the young and sports industries. “The cost of government borrowing is becoming unbearable,” he says. “A successful CIP will assist tremendously in this regard. “Of course, the attraction of more developers in the hospitality and property sector will immediately create more jobs for our unemployed. Increasing our hotel stock will strengthen our tourism sector and have multiple spin-offs in the economy.”
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Photography by Svetoslav Karadjov
COVER STORY
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COVER STORY
SECOND TIME AROUND
In an exclusive interview, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov talks about his country’s accession to Schengen and why re-establishing old relationships in the Middle East is the key to securing future investments BY KONSTANTIN VULKOV
oyko Borissov cuts a formidable figure. Bulgaria’s prime minister might be approaching his sixth decade but he is in impeccable shape - little surprise as he once served as a bodyguard and black belt champion, not to mention still playing professional football for a local team. He was once nicknamed Batman for his reputation for getting things done, although the title was tarnished after he was ousted from the prime minister’s office in 2013 after a four-year term. Days of street protests about high electricity prices, widespread poverty and alleged government corruption put paid to his ambitions then but he is now back for a second term in office, having shaken off critics who complained after his centreright GERB party’s failure to win a majority in the October 2014 parliamentary elections. Today, the 56 year-old prime minister is cast as more of a white knight determined to bring economic prosperity to Bulgaria. The first step on that road, according to Borissov, is to enter the Schengen zone. Although it is still considered one of the EU’s poorest states, Bulgaria is a stable, democratic country that continues to liberalise its economy despite an unstable banking sector. Given its neighbours’ recent troubles — Greece is in financial turmoil and Turkey has problems with security and political instability — Bulgaria is seen as a relatively safe haven in the region.
For Borissov, every day presents a new opportunity for change and he has little time to waste. As Bulgarians rush around outside his office in the capital Sofia, preparing to finish the working week and head off to the mountains or Black Sea resorts to enjoy the summer climes, Borissov is bracing himself for a busy weekend of official engagements. His schedule is filled with “work—just work. I do not have a free week”. In a few hours, he plans to head to the Bulgarian-Greek border, the first of a round of engagements. “Today we are opening a new road, tomorrow making a new building for the state attorneys,” he says. “A politician should do things that have immediate impact on people and they should feel that. I do not have time to waste. Actions are what counts.” Borissov’s route into politics was an unusual one. After leaving the police force in 1990, where he worked as a lecturer at the Higher Institute for Officer Training and Research in the Ministry of Interior, he founded a security company and worked as a bodyguard for King Simeon II of Bulgaria, who had renounced his title and become prime minister. When King Simeon returned from exile in 2001 and became prime minister, he appointed Borissov as secretary general of the Interior Ministry. Borissov quickly gained popularity and won Sofia’s mayoral race in 2005. Since being elected as prime minister for a second time in October last year, Borissov’s popularity has steadily soared, no small feat considering his party got only 32 per cent of the vote in
“I do not have time to waste. Actions are what counts”
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COVER STORY
reaching the EU and we are aware of the pressure from the international community,” says Borissov. So far, the country has not been winning this battle. Its efforts to build a new border fence have been subject to criticism from the international community and officials have been accused of the mistreatment of Syrian refugees. Borissov, a savvy media man, knows unless he deals with this criticism, his country’s accession into Schengen is unlikely to happen, despite him claiming it has “met every required criteria” for entry. Borissov is quick to brush off any negativity and insists the country’s “enormous efforts to facilitate the migration process and install border protection” would pay off. He adds, “There is not a single obstacle in our way” in reference to Schengen and says he hopes the issue will be discussed in an EU Council meeting in October. “Millions of Bulgarians live and work abroad already,” he says. “Hundreds of thousands travel frequently. When the weekend comes, you can see many cars heading to Greece and Turkey. People in our former socialist camp, who were not allowed to travel, now travel a lot. There are many Bulgarian companies with foreign partners. This is a truly global country operating in a global world.” Before the fall of communism in 1989, Bulgaria looked beyond the Cold War countries and expanded its political and economical ties to the Middle East and parts of North Africa. Many Bulgarians went to work in these regions and as a result,
Images courtesy of Getty Images
the last parliamentary election and was previously ousted from government. With a sharp decline in foreign investments in recent years and the ongoing blockade of millions of EU funds because of corrupt practices during the previous socialist-led government, Borissov says he is “on a mission” to restore stability and secure a positive outlook for Bulgaria’s future. His approach is two-fold and involves “meeting ordinary Bulgarians on a regular basis and expanding Bulgaria’s foreign relations at the same time”. “Few things are of greater importance for the country right now,” he says. “[In terms of] financial discipline, we managed to achieve our target of a budget deficit below three per cent. Secondly, our fight against smuggling and corruption is something that is praised in Europe by our colleagues at [the European Anti-Fraud Office] OLAF.” Less than a year ago, he presented his right-of-centre second cabinet, formed by his party GERB and the Reformist Bloc, an alliance of five parties. The coalition was supported by the former president’s left-wing party ABV and the far-right Patriotic Front. Borissov knows without international support, this fragile coalition is unlikely to last long. Like many EU countries at the moment, Bulgaria finds itself at the centre of an immigration crisis. Until a Europe-wide solution is found, it is trying to stem an influx of Syrian refugees who are determined to reach Europe via Bulgaria’s borders. “We have a great responsibility as the last border post before
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov meets US President Barack Obama at the White House
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COVER STORY
good business relations blossomed. In recent years, Bulgaria “We had huge trade volumes between our countries in several has been focusing on renewing those relationships. Borissov sectors like meat production and agriculture. We have to regain says he wants to re-establish economic ties with Gulf countries good market positions that were once occupied by Bulgarian which have shown interest in its transport, agriculture and contractors. As a result of Bulgaria’s transition in the last twenty energy sectors. years, we have lost access to some of He is keen to make this region a these markets but I am confident we will He wants to re-establish priority: “Bulgaria’s connections with regain these good business connections. the Arab world go beyond 1989. We I am sure foreign investors are noticing economic ties with Gulf the changes already.” have good relations with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait. Thousands of Borissov is convinced Bulgaria is countries which have Bulgarians worked in Algeria, Morocco, emerging from its foreign isolation — shown interest in its Tunisia, Libya, Iran and this helped us but will his cabinet be up to the challenge to maintain our durable ties.” and bring in cash from foreign investors? transport, agriculture and Borissov is banking on significant “This was Bulgaria’s biggest problem energy sectors investment from these countries in in previous years. Now there is a the future. “These countries have difference. We are having meetings in expressed interest in collaborating in Paris, Berlin and Brussels and we are everything from our nuclear energy to traditional sectors,” expecting the British prime minister in November and the he says. “However, we cannot accommodate nor satisfy the president of Germany this fall,” he says. “These are high-profile demands of such huge markets. visits and a sign of the support we are receiving.”
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GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
THE BILLIONAIRES’ TRAVEL CLUB Where do billionaires like to relax and mingle with one other? GC charts the travelling circuit from Cannes to St Barts—but it’s not all fun and frolics Friedman says global citizens are accustomed to being asked for things by other people, which creates a “wall of scepticism” fuelling a desire for isolation. “I believe this migratory pattern we see among billionaires is basically where this whole tension gets played out. [It says], ‘On the one hand I want to be around other people in a community but on the other hand, everyone is always asking for something’.” Holidaying with those with similar means and status neatly sidesteps this issue. Billionaires seek out others who are “at the same status and level”, Friedman says. The Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census 2015, possibly the most comprehensive insight into the habits of the endowed, shows the average billionaire has relationships with another nine ultra high net worth individuals and a “social graph”—the total net worth of a billionaire’s known associates—of $16 billion.
Images courtesy of Getty Images
he seasons of the year are marked by a swell of beasts swarming across great tracts of earth and sea. High above, the skies are also full of migratory animals. But unlike the wildebeests of the Serengeti or a flock of birds, this particular herd is more likely to reach its destination in a private jet with a glass of champagne in hand. David Friedman is the co-founder and president of Wealth-X, a wealth intelligence firm that provides expert analysis on the habits of the super-rich. Speaking from his office in New York, Friedman says there is an established annual migratory pattern of ultra high net worth individuals. They are usually after two things: privacy and company. “The impulses may seem conflicting,” he says. “The desire [is] to be with other people and on the other hand, they value their privacy.”
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SEP / OCT 2015
GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
HE WORLD’S BILLIONAIRES
THE WORLD’S BILLIONAIRES
9.9%
US$2,371
0.3%
billion
2014 TOTAL WEALTH US$ BILLION
2,325
7,291
9.9% billion
10.3%
1.2%
2014 TOTAL WEALTH US$ BILLION
2013 NUMBER OF BILLIONAIRES
2013 TOTAL WEALTH US$ BILLION
2,325
7,291
2,170
6,516
2,170
6,516
EUROPE
-1.9%
16.7%
US$413
16.7%
billion
billionMIDDLE EAST
3.0%
154 US$114
153 LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN
7.1%
11.9%
10.2%
11.9%
US$1,410 18.7% billion
US$1,410
10.2%
billion
560
ASIA
560 ASIA
billion MIDDLE EAST
153
40
12.9%
-4.8% LATIN AMERICA
& THE CARIBBEAN
12.9%
-4.8%
US$511 billion
billion
TOTAL WEALTH CHANGE %
18.7%
154 US$413
US$511
POPULATION CHANGE %
7.1%
775 -1.9%
37.8%
TOTAL WEALTH CHANGE %
12.0%
EUROPE
3.0%
POPULATION CHANGE %
billion
NORTH AMERICA
37.8%
2013 TOTAL WEALTH US$ BILLION
1.2% US$2,375 US$2,375 billion
775
NORTH AMERICA
2013 NUMBER OF BILLIONAIRES
2014 NUMBER OF BILLIONAIRES
12.0%
US$2,371
609
09
2014 NUMBER OF BILLIONAIRES
US$114 billion
40 AFRICA
The global circuit
But where do they like to party? Each year, the calendar is a mix of both annual events and one-offs, like the Cricket World Cup in Australia and Rugby World Cup in the UK this year.
-2.0%
0.0%
US$97
AFRICA
billion
34 PACIFIC
0.0%
-2.0%
US$97 billion
34 PACIFIC
But in general, the dizzying schedule looks a little bit like this: • January: Davos Economic Forum, the Snow Polo World Cup in Switzerland and Art Stage Singapore. • February: Berlin Film Festival and fashion weeks in the US, UK, Italy and France. • March: Dubai World Cup, the most expensive horse racing event in the world and Art Basel Hong Kong. • April: A “shift back to more serious issues” with the high profile Milken Institute Global Conference, the US Masters golf tournament at Augusta and the Singapore Yacht Show. • May: Cannes Film Festival and the Monaco Grand Prix • June: the G8 Summit • July: the UK puts on the Henley Royal Regatta and Wimbledon • August: Venice Film Festival and the US PGA golf trophy • September: Monaco Yacht Show, Clinton Global Initiative, Global Citizen Festival • October: Global Citizen Forum 2015, Monaco (location rotates annually) and Rugby World Cup, UK
David Friedman, co-founder and president of Wealth-X data analysis firm
• November: Melbourne Cup • December: Imperial Ball in Austria and St Barts’ new year celebrations. The list alone is exhausting reading so attending all is downright unrealistic, Friedman says. “Most of these people have their whole other lives going on. Attending six is probably a full calendar.” Choices would come down to interests, invitations received and who else is attending.
2015 SEP / OCT
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GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
New money, old money But is it not strange the wealthy all seem to have passions for yachts, horses and expensive wine? “There are new tech billionaires and many of their interests are really driven by friends and education,” he says. “They never cared about wine or private aviation but when someone explains to them the deeper cultural aspects and heritage, they start to engage with it.” Friedman says when the uber-rich attend these events, they are generally not on the clock. “These people can do business with whoever they want. Does it naturally emerge from conversations? Absolutely. Is that the driver? No. These guys don’t need to get business.” New faces are starting to emerge at the usual haunts, Friedman says, with the emergence of rapid Russian and Asian self-made wealth. Last year broke records with the number of billionaires growing seven per cent to hit 2,325. “There’s an internationalisation that is happening in all of these hotspots,” says Friedman. But that might be having an impact on the likelihood of the traditional crowds to keep attending, he says. “The new billionaires from different places in the world are probably causing some of your typical billionaires to avoid them. “If all of a sudden there are a lot of people you do not know going, it can become unsettling.”
Social causes Philanthropy factors large. Friedman says: “There is a broader narrative right now in the world about the haves and have-nots and the economic gap. People’s sensitivities are heightened around these kind of issues.” About 200,000 global citizens are responsible for 18 per cent of all non-corporate philanthropy, he says. In fact, philanthropic events are the second most popular on the billionaire’s annual travel circuit (behind sporting events), with 52 per cent attending at least one such event. The Wealth-X survey shows the average billionaire will donate $100 million over a lifetime, equivalent to about three per cent of their net worth. The most popular causes are education, which attracts nearly 30 per cent of total funds and health at 12 per cent. Just over one third of the world’s billionaires even have their own private foundations, although Friedman notes it is not always necessary to reinvent the wheel. “I think the biggest challenge billionaires face from a philanthropic side is that they are used to seeing a problem, building a company to address a market issue and being successful. “The temptation is to create a new initiative [but] with philanthropy, there are already so many non-profits addressing an issue.”
Billionaires in Numbers Billionaires, on average, are involved in five different professional entities. Overseeing these business commitments, in addition to fulfilling responsibilities to family and maintaining relationships with friends, means that the typical $ billionaire lifestyle can be demanding and global. $
$
Billionaires form bonds and relationships with individuals who share their interests and abilities. As a result, billionaires tend to have large social circles, and often associate with other billionaires or other ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals. The typical billionaire has a social graph* of $16 billion.
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Official launch: October 8th, 2015 at the Global Citizen Forum in Monaco. www.globalcitizenforum.org
2015 SEP / OCT
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PROFILE
HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH British economist Sam Wilkin gives the inside track on how the world’s billionaires get to the top BY BEN FLANAGAN
t is the obvious – and essential – first question to the author of any get rich guide: if you have written such a book, you must already be a billionaire, or at least have a few million stashed away, surely? In Sam Wilkin’s case, I already suspect the answer is no, partly because I have just footed the bill in the London coffeeshop where we meet one summer morning. Wilkin’s book, Wealth Secrets of the One Percent: A Modern Manual to Getting Marvelously, Obscenely Rich, gives an economics-orientated, entertaining take on how the world’s super-rich amassed their fortunes, from well-to-do Romans to
the Mark Zuckerbergs of the internet age. It is aimed squarely at people who want to join the billionaires’ club - although the author himself admits that is not something that interests him. “To become super-rich with a billion-dollar fortune you have to be pretty merciless. You usually have to choose a market that is structured in such a way that there is only going to be one winner,” he says. “It means being untroubled by the prospect of wiping everyone else out. “It is a certain type of person who can do that. And that is not me. I think it won’t be a lot of people.” To become a billionaire, he says, you must forget the idea
Sam Wilkin, economist and author of Wealth Secrets of the One Percent
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PROFILE
“To become super-rich with a billion-dollar fortune you have to be pretty merciless” of competing in the open market. What you actually need is a barrier to competition – often a legal or political one – that will give you a natural monopoly. And that is where things can get a bit nasty. “I think most people would be shocked by the kind of things you need to do to earn a vast fortune,” he says. “People tend to think that to be super-rich, you want to go out and compete in the open market and be the best. That really isn’t [the case]. You need a huge barrier to competition.” Bill Gates is one of dozens of billionaires referenced in Wilkin’s book. The Microsoft co-founder did not amass his billions because of technical prowess or programming genius. Gates’ trump card, says Wilkin, was that his father was a lawyer. That legal influence and know-how helped him establish intellectual property rights for software. Previously, software was copied freely but Gates changed that, creating a legal barrier to copying and therefore competition. “Microsoft was late to pretty much every major software innovation,” says Wilkin. “But it is not about innovation, it is about getting this legal barrier that works.” The 42-year-old was born in Buckinghamshire in the UK but grew up in the “absolute middle of nowhere” in South Dakota in the United States. His day job is as head of business research at Oxford Economics, a research consultancy, which sees him split his time between New York and the UK. Wilkin’s background as an economist informs the premise of the book – that it should not be possible to get rich in a truly competitive free market. “A billion-dollar fortune is kind of a gaping hole in economic reality. It is a catastrophic failure of markets,” he says. “It is also an economic puzzle that is just inherently fascinating.” His observations about the super-rich include how some have become billionaires by taking risks with other people’s money and that many – like Mexico’s Carlos Slim or the late John Rockefeller – were aided by their mastery of, and absolute dedication to, numbers.
But it is taking advantage of legislation and regulation – what Wilkin calls “spinning laws into goals” – that is the key theme of the book. And that is a major factor behind why the number of Middle Eastern billionaires is set to grow above the worldwide average, he says. “As regulation gets better and better in these Middle Eastern countries, it gets harder to just use straightforward political influence to increase your wealth. What happens is that you start to use incredibly complicated law that is open, transparent, but just so complicated that nobody bothers to pay attention to it,” he says. “Increasingly, that is where the money is going to be.” In the early 1990s, there were just a few hundred billionaires in the world. There are now 2,325 billionaires globally, according to wealth analysis firm Wealth-X. That means it is easier than ever to become a billionaire, despite the devastating impact of the recent financial crisis. But Wilkin expects the current boom in billionaires to come to an end, possibly due to a “regulatory backlash” – something that also happened in the wake of the Great Depression in the US. For example, social media networks could start to be regulated in the same way telephone companies are, eroding their monopolies and the bank balances of their billionaire founders. But can Wilkin’s book really help? Has anyone ever gotten rich by reading a guidebook on how to? “Certainly billionaires say books have been influential,” says the author. “I would expect if it influences somebody and makes them a billionaire, it would be somebody who reads it when they are young.” His first job after leaving college was at a political risk consultancy firm that went under. Many of his former colleagues ended up in the financial sector, earning small fortunes. Would he have liked to join them? “I do think, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a private jet?’,” he says. “But it is more interesting doing the research and analysis. I was never really that interested in making a ton of money.”
2015 SEP / OCT
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TOD’S TOWN
f the American dream is about giving everyone the opportunity to get rich, then the Italian dream is about giving everyone the opportunity to live the good life. Rooted in homemade food, delicious wine, hot sun and an effortless sense of style, the Italian dream is propped up by the unbreakable bonds of family and community. For Diego Della Valle, the owner of the luxury leather brand Tod’s, famous for its driving shoes studded with distinctive rubber nipples, the Italian dream is not just a way of life. It is also a way of doing business. The 61-year-old luxury titan is one of Italy’s most dynamic businessmen. With his swept-back white hair and signature upturned shirt collars, he is as recognisable to Italians as Richard Branson is to Brits. Della Valle has built a billion-dollar footwear and fashion empire, flies everywhere in his private jet or helicopter (one passenger likened its interior to the inside of a handbag), owns the Fiorentina football club, has an enviable contemporary art collection, is the custodian of John F Kennedy’s mahogany motor yacht, Marlin, sits on the board of Ferrari and LVMH and is funding the restoration of the Colosseum. Forbes estimates his wealth at more than $1.7 billion and yet there is no place he would rather be than the eastern Italian town of Casette d’Ete. In the Marche region, it nestles on a fertile plain overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The area is known for its shoemaking, with
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more than 600 leather factories producing the kind of handmade designer shoes that have made Italy a global fashion powerhouse. “The market is everywhere in the world,” Della Valle once told an Italian journalist, “but life is in Casette d’Ete.” Casette d’Ete is unofficially known as Tod’s Town: 900 of its 4,000 inhabitants work in the Tod’s factory and those who do not still send their children to the immaculate primary school Della Valle built. He also refurbished the community centre and built a free creche for his workers, which is unusual in Italy. He sees his utopian approach as natural: “We are in the community and the people support us a lot. It is the nature of our family to do that. It is not a big sacrifice. We move one finger and we support a thousand people who struggle.” Della Valle grew up in Casette d’Ete. His home and gleaming white marble state-of-the-art headquarters, designed by his architect wife, Barbara, are also in the town and it is where he raised his two sons, Emanuele, 40, and Filippo, 17, because he wanted them to have the same kind of childhood as he did. “It was an easy and happy life because for us the village was like Disney World,” he says of the warm days spent playing football with friends and fishing in the river. Della Valle’s grandfather Filippo started his shoemaking company in the 1920s. When Diego’s father Dorino took over, he began producing shoes for the big American department
Claudia Croft / The Sunday Times / The Interview People
The titan of Tod’s fashion empire believes in staying grounded. He still lives and works in the village where he grew up
BUSINESS
stores, turning the small artisanal business into a flourishing success. Della Valle remembers growing up in the factory, his childhood perfumed by the fragrance of leather. “I close my eyes, I remember the smell,” he says as we sit at a vast oval table in his glass-walled office. Even when he went away to Bologna to study law, he spent much of his time with a local cobbler. “Every afternoon, I would sit down close to him to watch what he did. He was a very good teacher. I would stay with him and speak about everything—football, life, politics. I loved it.” he says. When, in 1975, it was his turn to join the family firm, he had his own vision. Instead of making shoes anonymously for American stores, he started the Tod’s brand and quickly built a reputation for quality and easygoing luxury. Princess Diana was a fan and Sharon Stone made Tod’s popular in America. Since then, the Tod’s empire has expanded to include Fay, Hogan and Roger Vivier and Della Valle has also reanimated the dormant couture house Schiaparelli. Tod’s is going places but everywhere in the factory there are reminders of where it came from. Filippo’s wooden workbench and tools are displayed in pride of place at the entrance to the factory floor and pictures of Dorino smile down on the employees. Many of them still use the machines he designed to make shoes. The most important thing Della Valle’s parents taught him, he says, is “you win if your product is fantastic” and his role as chief executive, he believes, is to safeguard the DNA of the brand. On the day of our interview, he is holding one of his regular meetings with the company’s womenswear designer, Alessandra Facchinetti. She is showing him her designs for the September show in Milan and without his approval nothing gets made. He sees Tod’s as a lifestyle brand, not a fashion brand. “I want luxury, but also a useful product. It is important to balance the point of view, because many companies make things that are very cool but not useful and many make things that are useful but boring.” Tod’s products might be stitched, glued, polished and packed by hand, but they are comfortable enough to wear every day. Their sporty elegance fits with what Della Valle sees as the modern luxury lifestyle. “It is what I call the light life—light food and houses without too much furniture. Everybody tries to simplify their lives,” he says. His own life revolves around Casette d’Ete. “When I am here, I am the number one,” he says of his vast factory. “But when I am in the small village, I am the number 100. I love that. This is the reason I live here. The balance is precise. If you have dignity, if you are serious, the people will respect you. They do not respect you because you have money.” The town is full of Della Valles, many of whom work for him. He runs the company with his younger brother Andrea and a cousin takes me on a tour of the village, where Diego takes pride in knowing almost everybody. “There is the new generation. Maybe I do not know all of them but I recognise the DNA of their family,” he says. Living in his home town keeps him in touch with reality, but
“If you have dignity, if you are serious, the people will respect you. They do not respect you because you have money”
Tod’s shoes have been handmade by different generations of workers from the Italian town of Casette d’Ete
Della Valle has more unconventional ways of doing that too. He and a close friend — another famous Italian industrialist he will not name — hire movie make-up artists to disguise them. “My mother would not recognise me,” he chuckles. Then the pair go out to their usual haunts, even visiting Tod’s shops in disguise. “It is fantastic. You go along in the city, get a coffee and nobody bothers you. The only downside, he says, was when they visited their favourite restaurant and were given a terrible table. The bill, however, was much smaller than usual. There is no disguising how charismatic this Italian billionaire is. We tour the vast leather room where hides are stored and checked for quality and he poses for a photograph with his workforce. He knows all their names and chats and jokes with them. It is typical of Della Valle. What is Tod’s all about? I ask. “Success, power and solidarity,” he says. And the Italian dream.
2015 SEP / OCT
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SyrianXXXXX children make money by collecting rubbish in the Turkish town of Reyhanli. They have become the lost generation, missing out on an education and a normal childhood.
LOST BOYS Syria’s young male refugees are being forced to choose between classrooms and Kalashnikovs
t just 14 years old, Mahmoud Jehad Omar al Burges is a typical example of how hardship drives so many Syrian boy refugees back to fighting in their country’s seemingly endless civil war. He is getting treatment for the infected sandfly bite on his face but it hurts. There is little protection from bugs in the emptiedout garage in southern Turkey where he sleeps with his family on a mat on the concrete. School is a distant and costly dream. By day, he scours the streets for waste plastic and metal to sell for a few cents per kilo so he can buy groceries. “Sure, we want to be educated but the schools here are oversubscribed and we cannot afford to go,” he says on a dusty, desolate road outside Reyhanli. “When I am old enough, I will go back to fight. “In my area, there is a group linked with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). They are civilians, like us. They have got some checkpoints under their control and managed to chase the regime away from our region. My friends have the same idea.” 38
SEP / OCT 2015
Three years ago Mahmoud and his family fled from Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city, when it became the brutal epicentre of clashes between rebels and forces loyal to the Syrian president Bashar al Assad, who are suspected of bombing civilians and using chemical weapons. His family are among the 3.9 million Syrians who have fled the country. Another 7.6 million refugees remain within Syria’s borders. Many share tents, shacks and homes in Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere. Turkey hosts the most refugees with 1.8 million in towns and camps. Mahmoud’s dilemma of whether to forge a new life in Turkey or return home and risk being recruited by the extremist militant organisation Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra Front, the FSA or another militia, is a terrible Hobson’s choice faced by many young male Syrian refugees. In Reyhanli, aid groups do not offer enough support and selling cigarettes by the roadside barely covers the $93 monthly
Photography by Celia Peterson
BY JAMES REINL
REFUGEE CRISIS
rent, says father-of-nine Ali Ahmed, 37, who headed for Turkey after his home in Hama was blown up by government forces in an airstrike. “Only the rich and those who have money can send their children to schools,” he says, standing in front of his shabby, overcrowded home and pointing at the homes of wealthier Syrian refugees across the street. Ahmed is disabled so his 14-year-old son Mohamed has to work instead of attending school. In a few years, when the family has built up some savings, Mohamed plans to return to Syria to continue the fight against Al Assad. “Until I am 18 I will live here. After that I will go and join
jihad,” he says, leaning against the door of the family’s oneroom dwelling. “Bashar is rotten, he is dirty. He killed women and children. He destroyed the whole of Syria.” It is not the same for all Syrian refugees. Some have found work as translators with aid groups or secured jobs. They wear trendy clothes and revel in the nightlife of Gaziantep, Sanliurfa and southern Turkey’s other economic hubs. But many more struggle to make ends meet and bide their time, hopeful for a big shift to the gruelling conflict that might see peace return to Syria. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and elsewhere have chanced often-deadly sea crossings to Europe.
14 year old Mahmoud Jehad Omar al Burges, makes small change by collecting rubbish. He wants to go back to Syria to fight the regime.
2015 SEP / OCT
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REFUGEE CRISIS
Ahmed Seflo, an 18-year-old student, is among the Syrian refugees who are carving out a life for themselves in Turkey. His family from Idlib have been in Reyhanli for nearly four years and are better established, have more money and share a villa with other families. He studies at a school for Syrian refugees and has applied to study media at Turkish universities. Thanks to his relatively comfortable family life, Seflo says higher education is a better alternative to heading back to fight in Syria. “There are different concepts of jihad [spiritual struggle] and for some people, studying is a kind of jihad because it is struggling,” he said. “People are doing these two sides to jihad. Some people choose to fight, some people choose to study. I’m the type who chooses to study.” More higher education places are set to open for Syrian refugees in Turkey. With only slim chances for peace in Syria on the horizon, Turkish and Qatari officials have made plans for a university for Syrian refugees in Turkey’s southeast province. Turkish education chiefs have yet to confirm the location of the new institute but last month the region’s mayor, Fatma Sahin, said they had identified a number of potential sites for construction of an international university. Khaled Abu Mahmoud, a Syrian refugee in Turkey who worked in Aleppo’s education department before fighting broke out, is acutely aware of the need to get young refugees into classrooms and offer them career paths. He has opened 11 schools for refugees in Kilis, another Turkish town alongside Syria’s border, since December 2012
Ahmed Mahmoud Khatib from Marea, Aleppo, shows a picture of his son, taken by the Syrian regime more than two years ago.
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and currently has about 5,000 pupils enrolled. They study in shifts to maximise the number of children who see the inside of a classroom. “It is not a standard education, it is an emergency education,” he says. “We have 11 schools but it is not enough. Another 6,000 or 7,000 youngsters in Kilis cannot come to school. “Some live too far away and cannot pay for transport. Others must work to get money for their families.” The stress of a war back home can lead to classroom tensions, says Abu Mahmoud, who uses an alias to protect his identity. Teachers and students struggle with cash; arguments flare up over allegiances to militias back home. “Some children are influenced by the ideology of the Islamic State,” he says. “Sometimes they draw ISIL mottos and logos on their hands or notebooks, so they are very affected. “But there are only a small number of them. Most students support the Free Syrian Army.” For Abu Mahmoud, the classroom is perhaps the best alternative to returning to fight in a civil war that has already claimed more than 230,000 lives. “The purpose of this is to have the seeds of hope planted in the coming generation. “We need to clear students’ minds of discrimination, sectarian ideologies and violence. This generation will build Syria’s future,” he says. “One day, the war will end. We will forget about what happened and strike deals with the people we fought against.”
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PHILANTHROPY
BUILDING A CENTER FOR HOPE The Amal project, which means ‘hope’ in Arabic, has delivered its first set of recreational caravans to children in Jordan’s second refugee camp
he Global Citizen Foundation (GCF) in collaboration with ASmallWorld Foundation joined the AMAL Project initiated by Dubai-based fashion brand GlamOnYou and visited the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan to deliver its first charity project in mid-August. Under the scorching summer sun, GCF and its partners delivered two caravans as part of the Amal project, each will function as recreational play centers for children. The caravans have been customised to offer optimum light with additional windows added, and the exterior has been wrapped with playful stickers to add a hint of colour to an otherwise uniform camp. The new “educational playrooms” are filled with books, stationary and toys for the children who make up fifty per cent of the camp’s population. Paid volunteers from the camp will supervise the children and make sure it remains a safe environment. Mr Armand Arton, co-founder and trustee of the Global Citizen Foundation said that the new facilities where much more than physical structures offering shelter to the children of the camp. He said, “We hope these interactive spaces will become part of anongoing rehabilitation process to help these kids deal with the horrific experiences they have already witnessed in their young lives. “We hope that these spaces encourage children to interact and express themselves and, essentially, let children be children.” Most of the families living in Azraq camp left everything behind when they fled Syria, expecting the war to be temporary. With little-to-no savings and few belongings, they are surviving on the bare minimum, and over two years on their lives continue
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SEP / OCT 2015
to be on hold. Unlike Jordan’s largest camp Zaatari, which accommodates more than 80,000 refugees and is located 12km from the Syrian border, Azraq is highly decentralised. It is divided into four districts or “villages” that each can house 10,000 to 15,000 refugees. The rows of white metal cabins that make up the “villages” and house around five people in the 24 square meter space, provide little shelter from the elements - in summer temperatures reach up to 50 degrees and in winter they dip to minus five degrees. Each district has a medical clinic and there is a central hospital run by the Red Cross and even two schools with capacity to teach up to 10,000 pupils. However, families have only one supermarket to shop in and often complain that its “too expensive”, it accepts the vouchers handed out by the World Food Programme to each family, equivalent to $28 per month per person or less than $1 per day. Acknowledging that the Amal project is only a drop in the ocean, Armand Peponnet, co-founder and trustee of GCF, said he was pleased with the “positive impact” the caravans had on the children. “I’ve been told by the volunteers that the very same children I witnessed playing and laughing at the opening of our caravans couldn’t even talk when they reached the camp as they were so traumatised by the terrible experience they had back in Syria and their journey to the camp.” “I really believe that the social activities offered within these child-safe areas like ours and others will prove to be the most efficient way to get children back on their feet and to bring back a sense of normalcy in their life again,” said Peponnet.
Children in Zaatari camp
The Amal Project caravan in Arzaq camp
2015 SEP / OCT
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PHILANTHROPHY
Giving back comes naturally to Cindy Crawford. As a child, she lost her younger brother to leukaemia and has been volunteering with sick children ever since. Her most recent effort has been captured in a documentary, Hospital in the Sky, in which she visits Peru with her daughter to campaign against avoidable blindness By Craig McLean
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SEP / OCT 2015
By Craig McLean / The Daily Telegraph / The Interview People
MODEL BEHAVIOUR
PHILANTHROPHY
2015 SEP / OCT
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PHILANTHROPHY
elebrity and brand partnerships by their nature do not last forever. And then there is Cindy Crawford and Omega. She has been an ambassador for the Swiss watch brand for 20 years. That is longer than even her first career, which spanned most of the eighties and nineties, when she was one of a handful of golden girls who heralded the arrival of the supermodel. But Crawford, 49, has always been a woman with staying power. She is an elite fashion star turned entrepreneur, with a business portfolio that includes a top-selling skincare line and a home furnishings range with a $350million annual turnover in the US. In her role as Omega ambassador, the glamazon girl from small town Illinois has travelled the world, opening stores and supporting Orbis International, the sight-saving nongovernmental programme supported by the watch firm. I meet her at a London hotel, where Crawford is in town to
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open the brand’s new swish boutique in Oxford Street in the West End. She is meticulously on time, immaculately turned out and firmly focused. You have been with Omega a long time, I volunteer. “It is incredible,” she acknowledges with a smile. “I am very fortunate.” The deal was sealed, she recalls, after an initial introduction via an advertising campaign – “just a regular job for a young model. We liked working together. It’s about quality and I think Omega has a real history. Also the brand is very international and that was a great thing for me. Through our relationship, I have been around the world with them several times.” Stephen Urquhart, the president of Omega, has worked with Crawford since the beginning and is a genuine fan: “She is so hardworking. Cindy has contributed a lot to the profile of our women’s watch offering. People like her and her presence has undoubtedly boosted sales.” Most recently, Crawford was in Peru, visiting the Flying Eye
PHILANTHROPHY
hospital run by Orbis International. She was invited to watch an eye operation but admits she was not sure she could handle it. “It was pretty intense,” she says. “I had to step out at one point. But I did get to meet the children who were going in for operations beforehand. We were hanging out in the waiting room with them while they were being prepared for surgery.” Her daughter Kaia, 14, accompanied her on the trip. The “handing over” of meaningful experience obviously matters to her mother. “I want her to see that I do work for my money. It is glamorous in a way but you do not really understand the work that is involved, especially with a long-term relationship like this. It is not all fabulousness,” she adds with a smile. As easy as it would be for Crawford and her businessman husband Rande Gerber to give their two children – they also have a 15-year-old son Presley – a gilded existence in Malibu, California, it is important to the couple that their children are engaged with the real world. “Rande and I try to reiterate to our kids that when you are given a lot, a lot is expected of you too,” she says. “We started a charity bank account for
them. Each Christmas they have to decide where they want to give the interest. They have to make compelling arguments. It gets them thinking at a young age.” These are busy times for the Crawford-Gerbers. Presley turned 16 this summer, an event Crawford considered auspicious enough to warrant his first “man watch”. Kaia, meanwhile, took part in a fashion shoot for Teen Vogue. And Gerber launched another business brand last year, a sipping tequila called Reposado, with his liquor business partner, George Clooney. The pair reportedly developed the drink over “late night research sessions”. “Oh please!” Crawford says, with a roll of her eyes. So was it just a couple of guys sitting around drinking? “Yeah,” she replies. “It is because we have houses in Mexico right next to each other and that is kind of where the idea was born. “They just developed a house tequila for us. They called it research but I think they had a lot of fun doing it. You can drink it on the rocks and you don’t get a hangover,” she beams. Even when it comes to drinking, Cindy Crawford is a professional.
“ Rande and I try to reiterate to our kids that when you are given a lot, a lot is expected of you too”
Omega ambassador Cindy Crawford with her daughter Kaia during a trip to Peru with the flying eye hospital Orbis International
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House on a Dune in the Bahamas represents Oppenheim’s mission to create environmentally conscious architecture Three-tower Net Metropolis commercial centre in Manila, Philippines
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A private home Oppenheim created in Andermatt, Switzerland
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DESIGN OF THE TIMES Celebrity property designer Chad Oppenheim has only one mission in mind—to make buildings which will last for centuries and leave a legacy BY RYAN YOUNG
had Oppenheim has only been speaking for 30 seconds but the celebrity names are already coming thick and fast. There is the singer Robin Thicke, who was shooting a music video at Oppenheim’s Miami home a day earlier, Nicki Minaj, the guest rapper who never showed up to the shoot and Elle Macpherson, the model who posed for Harper’s Bazaar at House on a Dune, an idyllic, sunkissed private home he designed in the Bahamas. She loved the house so much, she promptly asked Oppenheim to design her a property. It might sound like a collision of worlds for the celebrated American architect but there are plenty of high profile names
who take a keen interest in architecture - not least because designing their own homes to be as private and aesthetically pleasing as possible is intrinsic to their lifestyles. Oppenheim designed the $100 million Bel Air Villa for Transformers director Michael Bay, a 3,000sq m Bond villainesque lair built into the hillside looking down on Los Angeles. Michael Mann shot chunks of 2006 blockbuster Miami Vice in his Villa Allegra. And Pharrell Williams, the singer-songwriter behind the tune Happy, has commissioned Oppenheim to design a church to be called the Altar of Sound and an eco treehouse-themed resource centre, both in the superstar’s hometown of Virginia Beach. “Pharrell is a renaissance man,” says Oppenheim. “He is just
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this amazing creative force. It is not hype—the guy is a genius in every aspect of existence.” Close friends for several years, the pair are also working together on Ice Cream City, a citywide masterplan to give a holistic redesign to the Overtown Miami neighbourhood. Oppenheim, who holds an honorary post teaching at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, called on the musician to deliver a lecture. “Without any preparation or prior thought, he just riffed for 30 or 40 minutes. It was the most mind-boggling talk,” says Oppenheim. “My students’ mouths were a-gasp, as was mine. These are some of the most intelligent and intellectual design minds in the world and they were just blown away.” Oppenheim was just seven years old when he decided he wanted to build houses for a living. He was inspired by his father, a self-made businessman, who wanted to build a dream home for his family. “I just became really engaged in the design process and from that point on, it really compelled me to do this for the rest of my life,” he says. At 29, after studying at New York’s Cornell University and Boston’s Harvard University, he founded his firm Oppenheim Architecture and Design in Miami within a year of graduating. A year later, he landed his first three awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA), including the outstanding young
A rendering of the new Marina and Beach Towers planned for Dubai
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“To me it is not just about architecture, it is about the whole sensibility of how life can be lived” architect of the year trophy. Fifteen years on, he has clocked up another 50 accolades—including 33 from AIA—and is recognised as one the most distinctive architectural voices of his generation. The 44-year-old is responsible for groundbreaking ecocentric designs in 23 countries as well as building celebrity homes. He was behind the 50-storey Ten Museum Park, a futuristic, luxury condo block with 12 private vitality pools complete with water jets and hydromassage. He also designed the headquarters of landscape architecture firm Enea, set on the Obersee shores of Switzerland and Manila’s three-tower Net Metropolis commercial centre, the Philippine government’s first ever sustainable design. In the Middle East, his work includes the forthcoming Wadi Rum Desert Resort, an eco-resort of 47 desert lodges carved into the sandstone cliffs of the Jordan desert and Isla Moda, a planned 100,000sq m three-hotel complex on Dubai’s World islands, designed in partnership with celebrity fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld—although the latter plan has yet to leave the drawing board. “Working with Karl was one of the greatest experiences I have had in my life,” he says. There is little to link these eclectic designs but environment is always key, both aesthetically and ethically. “To me it is not just about architecture, it is about the whole sensibility of how life can be lived,” says Oppenheim. “It has to exist and engage with all the senses. It is not only what it looks like but also how it sounds, smells, the taste and the texture – these things are all critical.” With offices in Miami, Los Angeles and Basel, Switzerland, he is in demand from both high profile names and high net worth individuals. Oppenheim says he does not have a style but bases his design on “a very deep understanding of the site and the client”. “I would like to say we create works that are timeless— something connected to the culture, history, climate and sensibilities of the place in a very abstract and powerful way, something that will be eternal and transcend passing styles. We are thinking of how things will look 500 years from now.” The fact many regional projects are yet to see the light of day underlines the hard truth about architecture—it remains a necessary collision of creativity and commerce. “It is definitely a business. We treat it as art but it is something that is very much part of the business world,” says Oppenheim. “We pride ourselves on making our clients successful, making sure they enjoy a great return on their investment, whether it be an office building, a residential tower, a hotel or a house.”
‘Witness from Baghdad’ by Halim Al-Karim, 2010 Sovereign Asian Art Prize finalist
‘Witness from Baghdad’ by Halim Al-Karim, 2010 Sovereign Asian Art Prize finalist
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Abu Dhabi, Bahamas, Bahrain, British Virgin Islands, China, Curaçao, Cyprus, Denmark, Dubai, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Isle of Man, SEPKingdom / OCT 51 Malta, Mauritius, Portugal, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turks & Caicos Islands,2015 United
ENTREPRENEUR
A SWISS SCHOOL OF THOUGHT Social entrepreneur Omar Danial tells how his new multilingual school could change the face of education in the UAE BY AMANDA FISHER
ocial entrepreneur and investor Omar Danial must be looking for a ‘world’s best dad’ plaque to stick next to his five offshore powerboat world titles. The father-of-six is so committed to his children, he is building them a school. The Swiss entrepreneur, who moved to Dubai in 2010, has founded the Swiss International Scientific School, a multilingual school that will cater to 1,400 children aged between three and 11 when it opens its doors for the first time this year. “When I looked at alternatives for my own children, I found there weren’t many. Languages were a problem, curriculums were UK or US mainly and there were very few international baccalaureate-type curriculums at the time,” he says. “I was surprised to see there weren’t Swiss international-type schools established here.” He says he began discussing the idea of starting a school that would teach alternate weeks in English, then French or German, with some partners in his home country. Switzerland invented the IB system and currently ranks ninth worldwide in a table assessing international student standards from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). “My wife told me, ‘That is what you should do. You should build a school for our kids,” he says. It is not the first time the 46-year-old has managed to pull off the seemingly impossible. Danial ran several investment
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companies while maintaining a successful but intermittent powerboat career that spanned a quarter-century before he retired last year. “I think I have learned a lot about myself through racing,” he says. “It has been probably one of the best schools I have had in life. Managing pressure, objectives, performance and when the green flag drops, you do not go back to the pits if you are tired— you go through it with the intention of finishing. Stamina and energy are really at the core of any successful entrepreneur.” But he does not claim to have done it alone. Like powerboat racing, investment projects are a team sport, he says. “I don’t get in a cockpit or [start] a project without the right people. It is the team that wins, not one individual that makes it all. That just does not happen in life.” The state-of-the-art school will be built on a 700,000sq ft campus with fees ranging from $16,400 to $26,000 a year with boarding facilities for 350 students. One of the investors in the project is the Emirati family watch firm Ahmed Seddiqi and Sons, which has long ties to Switzerland. Danial admits he has few educational credentials. He has taught some high school courses relating to hotel management but aside from that seems to be armed with little other than determination and a belief in social causes. “Finance is something that has brought a lot to me and taken
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The Swiss International Scientific School (SISS), a pioneering multilingual school, will open its doors this month for the first time
a lot out of me as well—but that is what made me a social entrepreneur,” he says. “Being in finance too long and seeing everything I have seen, I now refuse to get involved in projects if they do not have a social implication.” Danial says he has learned in business that making a quick buck leaves little legacy. “I have seen a lot of companies just disappear through time without leaving any traces of all the energy and effort they put into doing things. When you have been working 25 years or so, the last thing you want is to look back and say, ‘Where have my 25 years gone?’. “I have been in trading and finance and the things I am most proud of are my kids and the things that I have contributed to that have made a difference.” That legacy includes backing an in vivo fertility company, an alternative to IVF where fertilisation takes place inside the woman’s body, and investing in a paddle steamboat firm. The school is equally expected to yield returns to investors, particularly given that Dubai’s seven other IB schools are at more than 90 per cent capacity. “My battle is balancing the good for society yet offering returns to investors—if not, I will most likely never raise the money for it,” says Danial. “The role of the social entrepreneur is to profit but it has to be reasonable and sustainable.” A core aspect of the school, which has been given an energy efficiency certification by the Swiss government—a first in the Middle East—is an environmentally friendly design and build with low energy consumption. Danial says the school’s buildings are commercially viable and could be emulated across the region. The school will also have a range of scholarships, some of which will go to the Al Jalila Foundation medical research centre and which are partly funded by savings made by its energy conservation. Danial, the son of a Syrian migrant to Switzerland and a SwissGerman mother, is hoping to see Dubai and its multicultural environment become a hub for education in the Middle East, one that could draw the children of wealthy foreigners away from traditional centres like the UK and Switzerland. “I want Dubai to look back at this school in five or 10 years from now and say, ‘These guys have really contributed to the education landscape in a big way’, whether it is through the excellence of the teaching, new building standards, scholarship programmes or boarding, putting Dubai on the educational map. All these things matter to me more than, ‘Did we make 15 or 25 per cent?’.”
“When you have been working 25 years or so, the last thing you want is to look back and say, ‘Where have my 25 years gone?’”
Omar Danial founded SISS so his children could benefit from a multilingual teaching experience
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BUSINESS
UNDER COVER With terrorist attacks and violent home invasions on the rise, a French entrepreneur tells us why he is the go-to man to help the wealthy feel protected BY PETER ALLEN
t’s a dangerous world out there but if Nicolas Bert is involved in your wardrobe, you are going to find it a whole lot safer. The Frenchman is the entrepreneur behind Furtiv—a highly sophisticated garment best described in layman’s terms as the trendiest bulletproof jacket in the world. Style might not be a word you normally associate with personal armour designed to absorb the impact of bullets and shrapnel but in fact, the market is booming. “There are plenty of people all over the world looking for this kind of protection and we provide the very best,” says Bert, a slim and extremely fit-looking 47-year-old. “We have all kinds of clients and they need bulletproof vests for all kinds of reasons.” His slick showroom is in Le Marais, the historic and now ultra-cool district of central Paris associated with high fashion and art. More sombrely, it is also just a few blocks away from the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices, around which terrorists
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murdered 12 people in January. Despite its beauty, the area has seen some terrible atrocities over the decades, many of them carried out by gunmen. The French capital may be primarily associated in the public imagination with the good things in life—romance and food among them—but, as with almost everywhere else in the world, violence can and does happen with alarming frequency. There is a James Bond feel to the Furtiv operation: Bert is of course accompanied by a glamorous assistant and has a dashing charm about him. He describes how and why he became the go-to man for those who want to survive a gun attack—while continuing to look as sharp as possible. “It all began in 2013,” says Bert, whose company, Inventive Citi, started out providing top-of-the-range motorbike clothing. “I was approached by a corporate lawyer working in Paris who said he needed protection but also had to stay looking elegant.
BUSINESS
He wanted security and discretion. This meant integrating a bulletproof pack into one of our jackets. “It was a very difficult challenge and research and development took 18 months. We worked with Protecop, the French company which provides armour to government agencies and the police, and with Italian fashion designers. Ready-to-wear luxury clothes had to be combined with ballistic protection and both elements had to be perfect. Now our clients range from bodyguards to princes.” As one might expect from someone in his line of work, Bert is extremely discreet about all his clients. If you are scared someone is trying to shoot you, you clearly don’t want to advertise the fact and Bert knows all about protecting identities. “I am a former journalist so protecting sources is very important to me,” he says, explaining that he started out as a reporter for France Inter and France Info, two of the best-known radio stations in France, close to his home city of Grenoble in the French Alps. He was a brilliant athlete who represented France at long jumping when he was a teenager. As befitting a businessman who has moved into security products, Bert also trained as a police commissioner at the celebrated St Cyr au Mont d’Or academy near Lyon. However, he wanted a complete change of direction from journalism and, as a keen motorcyclist, originally spotted the
gap in the market for kit which was not just practical but looked good. He did not want to look “like a cosmonaut” is how he sums it up. His jackets with anti-ballistic capacity sell for between approximately $3,200 and $4,800 each (in line with such specialist products, individual orders are between the client and the supplier following on-demand inquiries and costs necessarily change). Not only are they remarkably light and easy-fitting, they certainly do not look like they have plates in them designed to stop bullets. The company’s designer Fizal Khan, a graduate of St Martin’s art college in London, operates out of a workshop in La Rocca in Italy and has got every component exactly right. The attention to detail is spot on; there is even a hollow pocket – the kind that would allow a bodyguard to fiddle with a revolver underneath the jacket without anyone knowing. The colours might seem a bit conservative – mainly black and dark blue – but it seems unlikely anyone fearing for their life would be looking for anything which stands out too much. It is heartening to think of the good guys being well protected—but could the jackets ever fall into the wrong hands, such as the mafia, who traditionally value sartorial elegance almost as much as organised crime? “Absolutely not,” is Bert’s firm reply. “We get to know our clients very well and criminals would not be able to buy them.”
There is a James Bond feel to the Furtiv operation: Bert is accompanied by a glamorous assistant and has a dashing charm about him
Furtiv provides bulletproof jackets that are discreet and fashionable for their wealthy clients
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CONNECTING THE DOTS Two Dubai-based women have launched a social network linking NGOs and Palestinians BY AMANDA FISHER
ana Salloum and Rasha Kashkoush both describe themselves as Palestinian but neither has ever visited their home country. They are not alone. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the Palestinian diaspora numbers almost 10 million, many of whom were born and raised overseas. This is a crucial aspect of Bilbaal, the non-governmental organisation the pair launched recently to unite different NGOs working to help Palestinians. “The whole objective of Bilbaal is to connect the disconnected community. There are 10 million people out there but they are not very well connected. “There are communities in Chile, Australia, Dubai and New York who do not know about each other and do not know they can work remotely and support each other. We figured, why not create that platform?” says Kashkoush. Both Salloum, 34, who has a Palestinian mother, and Kashkoush, 35, with a Palestinian father, grew up in Kuwait. But while their parents had long been friends and part of the
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large Palestinian and Arab community in Kuwait, the two women were busy studying and travelling the globe to escape the First Gulf War. They finally met when they both arrived in Dubai for work. Now they have come together to use their experience in the professional world to bring together, under one umbrella, the sizeable number of NGOs dedicated to helping Palestinians and those looking for an opportunity to contribute outside the usual methods of fundraising or building schools. “It is a social network—a sort of matchmaking service for volunteering opportunities and pro bono professional services. We have gone beyond the regular way of volunteering to look at how you can use your professional skills to contribute to something you care about in a way that is not political [and where] you do not need to risk your life,” says Kashkoush. Salloum describes the service as a sort of “LinkedIn for volunteers” where participants can search for NGOs in need of their skillset and vice versa. “You have job seekers and employers there. There is also an
SOCIAL BUSINESS
event calendar and ratings,” she says. Kashkoush adds: “The idea was to maintain quality control. How do you know that a volunteer is good or how do you know an NGO is responsible? “As a volunteer I can rate my experience with an NGO: were they responsive, did they give me feedback, did they give me good instructions? Or as an NGO I can rate the quality of the contribution of a volunteer—was it timely, what was it like?” This is an important aspect in establishing the validity of voluntary organisations. “We have a criteria set to look at whether the NGOs exist or not. We make sure they are registered within Palestine, the UK or the US. There are systems like charity navigator which we check to ensure legitimacy [and] we do our own searches online to make sure there has not been any controversy about those organisations.” Salloum adds: “We also explain to users they need to do their due diligence and that is part of the reason why we make the NGO register a lot of its information [such as] when it started and a point of contact.” The women say they are trying to create a virtual Palestine that cannot be thwarted by geographical borders and conflicts. Salloum says neither she nor Kashkoush have been able to visit the home of their ancestors given the political complications and Israeli border control. “My mother is Palestinian but she has not been back since she was five. I have never been. There is no right of return once you have left. “I identify as Palestinian. I want to find a way to connect to others who identify like me. This is a way to create a community without geography.” If just one per cent of the diaspora was able to contribute an hour of professional services each year at an average $50 an hour, that would equate to free professional advice worth $5 million a year, they say. Not that Bilbaal, which means ‘on your mind’
in colloquial Arabic, is seeking exclusively Palestinian recruits. Kashkoush says the duo, who so far have about 19 organisations on board and 90 volunteers from around the world – all before any advertising or marketing has taken place – are hoping to appeal primarily to young professionals and retirees. “We realise a lot of people want to volunteer but do not know how, which is why we have done the research on everybody’s behalf.” Bilbaal has taken up a substantial amount of time and energy in the lives of the two working professionals. Kashkoush works as the Europe and Middle East corporate responsibility manager for international law firm DLA Piper while Salloum is manager for government, industry and community engagement at Boeing Middle East. Kashkoush says their extracurricular NGO work takes a varying amount of time each week, from a couple of hours to more than 25 hours. When the women were crowdfunding for the start-up capital, which amounted to about $35,000 in two months, it took over their lives. “Crowdfunding was a full-time job. I do not think either of us expected it to be that way. You have to constantly be on top of it, pushing it, networking,” says Kashkoush. Despite the long hours, collaborative approaches are offering new alternatives to the old models of NGO work, the pair say. Bilbaal has not yet started generating funds, although the women intend to go down that path eventually. In the meantime, they rely on a network of volunteers, many of whom were unknown to them before launching. But the pair have faith their NGO will stand the test of time and if it does prove successful, they intend to launch globally. “If we have proof of concept, it works well and there is an opportunity for us to take this to different causes in different regions – why not?” says Kashkoush.
“We have gone beyond the regular way of volunteering to look at how you can use your professional skills to contribute to something you care about”
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Image courtesy of Getty Images
INTERVIEW
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INTERVIEW
A FINE BROMANCE Newlywed Guy Ritchie is putting his spin on a Sixties TV series in the slick big screen adaptation of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. He talks about his influences, why he still struggles to choose between the music and film business and why he will always be a man’s man BY SUSAN GRIFFIN
n the days leading up to Guy Ritchie’s recent nuptials, social media allowed a candid insight into his stag do, where he and his friends were seen lounging on a private jet and sampling wine in Bordeaux. And on the big day itself, with guests including Brad Pitt, David Beckham and Jason Statham, one newspaper hailed him the ‘king of bromance’. The director admits he finds male relationships fascinating. “The way men interact with each other,” he explains. “Even going back to [1998’s] Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, I am drawn to that male-to-male dynamic as kind of a genre unto itself.” He is at it again in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., a big screen adaptation of the Sixties spy TV series, which he has directed and produced as well as co-writing it with his close friend and producing partner, Lionel Wigram. The two are so close, LA-based Wigram even lives with Ritchie, his new wife, the model Jacqui Ainsley, 33, and their three children Rafael, Rivka and Levi, for a large portion of the year. (Ritchie also has sons Rocco, 15, and David, nine, with ex-wife Madonna). “The main reason Lionel and I write and we are still together as partners is because we are both practical and like to see films manifest,” explains 46-year-old Ritchie, dressed in a cream tweed suit. “Neither of us are frightened to make fools out of ourselves when it comes to writing, as long as it allows the process to move forward.” The pair worked together on the 2009 and 2011 Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law and created the production company Ritchie/Wigram in 2011.
Unlike actors, who can easily make three or four movies a year, “you commit two years of your life to making one of these films, so you have to be cautious”. Ritchie adds: “But we do like to see films actually become films and it is all about the writing.” Their close living quarters are conducive to this. “You spend three or four hours locked in a room, then spend two or three hours in the pub and then another few hours over breakfast and you realise you have done about 16 hours of writing in a day through sheer proximity.” Not that they work in Ritchie’s pub, mind you - he sold his London pub The Punch Bowl a few years ago. “Pubs weren’t enough for me. Now I want to make craft ales and whatnot,” he says, laughing. In The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the British star and current Superman Henry Cavill plays elite CIA operative Napoleon Solo, who encounters his formidable KGB counterpart Illya Kuryakin, portrayed by Armie Hammer, best known for playing both twins in The Social Network. They have both been sent to extract the same vital German asset (Gaby, played by Alicia Vikander) from behind the Berlin Wall at the height of the Cold War. But a few days later, they are informed by their respective handlers that they will be working together on the case. “What we found so irresistible was taking these polar opposite agents and forcing them together. So they start out trying to annihilate each other and end up cooperating but maybe still not entirely trusting each other. The story is largely the evolution of their collaboration.”
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Set in 1963, we are introduced to a wonderfully slick world that is reminiscent of the early Bond movies, with a beautiful cast, clothing, cars and locations - but that is all secondary to the music for Ritchie. “My first job in 1984 was as a tea boy for Island Records and it was always a toss-up whether I was going into the film game or into the world of music. I am still having that wrestling match so I have got the best of both worlds in a sense,” he says. “I feel very strongly about music and spent a lot of time on this score, trying to impress on the composer [Daniel Pemberton] that the film should be subservient to the score. I want people to go, ‘Do I like the music more than I like the film?’ It is a fundamental element of my style of filmmaking.” While Ritchie sounds like he is from the East End, he was actually born in Hertfordshire. His parents separated when he
was a child and he lived with his model mother and her new husband, Sir Michael Leighton, until their divorce. After leaving school, reportedly with just one qualification, he worked at Island Records before deciding to pursue a career in films. “I used to make music videos in Soho at a place called Spidercom. It was the worst production company in the history of music video production companies,” recalls Ritchie, who describes a small room filled with ambitious young filmmakers. “They were killer-aggressive, because you had to be—you were competing with each other. Then someone would come in and go, ‘Right, who wants this job?’, and it would be some terrible German rave band and you had to strangle one another to get it. And the irony is, in the cigarette break, everyone would talk about Fellini.”
(Front to back) Henry Cavill as Solo and Armie Hammer as Illya in Warner Bros Pictures action adventure The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Credit: Daniel Smith 60
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INTERVIEW
Director Guy Ritchie (R) with his new wife Jacqui Ainsley at the New York Premiere of ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’
Images courtesy of Getty Images
“I’m drawn to that male-tomale dynamic”
Bromance: Richie and close friend Lionel Wigram reunited in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. to co-write, direct and produce the movie
Apart from Ritchie, that is. “I remember thinking, ‘Who the f*** is Fellini?’,” he exclaims, with a big laugh. The irony now is people have suggested the prolific Italian director’s influence on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. “Yeah, I am wary of Fellini, because of all the potential that comes with it and the danger of being pretentious.” In 1995, Ritchie wrote and directed his first short film The Hard Case about four East End lads raising money to enter a card game. His first feature film, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, was released three years later. Made on a modest $1.5 million budget, it became a huge hit and was nominated for best British film at the Baftas. This was followed by 2000’s Snatch, starring Brad Pitt, which was also favourably reviewed. Less so was 2002’s romantic comedy Swept Away starring Madonna and the 2005 heist movie Revolver. But Ritchie rediscovered his mojo, returning to more
familiar ground in the gangster-based RocknRolla in 2008. “I start to cringe when I see anything [I have made],” admits Ritchie. “But I am quite good at completely forgetting. You know, you will flick through channels, start watching and five minutes later go, ‘Oh f***, I made this film!’ If I don’t forget then I will become a bit self-conscious.” His next big project is Knights Of The Roundtable: King Arthur, a sweeping fantasy adventure starring Charlie Hunnam, Eric Bana and Jude Law. As someone who detests “a headless committee”, Ritchie believes “it is important you have a point of view and then commit to it”—in filmmaking and in life. “I am aware, like all of us, there are moments when you feel confident and moments you are not but I find you can fake it until you make it, like most things.”
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John LeFevre
THE REAL WOLF OF WALL STREET Ex-banker turned author John LeFevre gives a wild account of his days at the top of the finance world BY DANIEL BATES
f even a quarter of what John LeFevre says is true, the banking industry is completely out of control. He spent nine years trading bonds for Citigroup in Hong Kong, New York and London and says his life makes the film The Wolf of Wall Street look tame. It was not just the rampant decadence, hedonistic lifestyles, infidelity, criminal conduct or misogyny; it was a mixture of all those elements at the same time. There was the time he and his colleagues threw thousands of dollars over a shopping mall balcony in Manila in the Philippines, laughing as they watched people scoop up the cash until the police told them to stop.
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Or the time he claims they took drugs in a church at a banker friend’s wedding and broke in a young banker by getting him to take a poll of the male executives about how attractive they thought the women in the office were and then give a presentation to them. Even for a certain kind of alpha male, it might sound like extreme high jinks until you realise these men are the modern day Masters of the Universe. The ones who run the world. The ones who caused the 2008 financial crash. LeFevre says: “Within the world of banking, that is how they view themselves—as different and better than everybody else.
BUSINESS
“Everyone is pretty aggressive, focused on money and that is the genesis of how the culture is just so far removed from reality in terms of how you live, how you think. “The excess, how you spend your money, the deviant sense of humour—it is a game of one-upmanship.” LeFevre, 36, has published an account of his time in finance called Straight To Hell—True Tales Of Deviance, Debauchery And Billion-Dollar Deals. The book has caused a stir not only because of its warts-and-all depiction of the world of finance but also because critics have questioned the truthfulness of his stories. Even its publication was mired in controversy after the original publishers Simon and Schuster dropped the book and cancelled a lucrative contract because of details which were not shared by LeFevre when the deal was signed. A new publisher, Grove Atlantic, stepped in but questions were raised about the veracity of his account. For example, Manchester United football team has flatly denied an episode where he claims to have gotten into a brawl with striker Wayne Rooney in a Hong Kong nightclub. LeFevre bats away such criticism, despite quoting his own Twitter post between chapters in which he says, “If you can be good at one thing, be good at lying … because if you’re good at lying, you’re good at everything”. He adds now: “All of the stories in the book are me and me alone living each and every one of those moments.” It is hard to gauge how trustworthy he is, let alone feel any sympathy for him, but what is undeniable is that he is one of the few people who have given us a glimpse into what the world of finance is really like. Born in Britain, LeFevre moved to America when he was young and joined Citigroup in 2001 straight out of university in New York. He recalls how he told his first boss he was going to save his $75,000 bonus only for the manager to laugh in his face and tell him to spend it by next week. Another boss when he was working in London was revered by his colleagues for having a secret apartment in Mayfair where he saw his mistress after telling his wife he was away on fictitious business trips. In 2004, LeFevre relocated to Hong Kong on the fixed income syndicate desk, where the worst of the excess described in the book takes place. What also took place on a regular basis was, as LeFevre describes it, outright criminality. He says there are “systemic conflicts of interest in the way bonds are allocated” that are impossible to regulate. All of the trading phone lines were recorded so anything
questionable was done on mobile phones. LeFevre says: “We had Bloomberg chat rooms with all of our competitors where we would share information. “We would have weekly lunches and weekly dinners. It is very different from the banking world in the US and the UK because it is expat-driven and all of my friends were either colleagues, clients or competitors. “The lines are so blurred you are very friendly with all your competitors. You work together even when you’re competing.” As LeFevre sees it, the only way to stop this would be to send bankers to jail because they would realise it was “just not worth it”. But that would not put an end to the lifestyle that comes with banking. For LeFevre, it became too much in 2009 when he says life became “soulless”. He recalls how the partying became “empty” and left him wanting to do something “more fulfilling and beneficial to society”. He would no doubt by then have earned enough to set him up for life. Then there was the small matter of the 2008 global financial crash. Around that time LeFevre started up his hit Twitter account @GSElevator, which he began anonymously in 2011 and which allegedly reported macho sayings overheard in the lift at the Wall Street offices of Goldman Sachs. He never worked for the investment banking firm but when LeFevre was unmasked, he decided to write a book. Today his plan to save the planet appears to have been shelved. Instead, he spends his days playing golf and being a house husband to his two young children at his suburban home in Houston, Texas. LeFevre says his friends who are still in finance tell him things are not as raucous as they once were, although the lifestyle is still not for the fainthearted. On a personal level he claims to have had a number of “epiphanies”, though he adds he has no regrets for his past misdemeanours. His wife and mother have read the book and do not even recognise the man depicted as the loving husband and son they know. “Maybe it is just a coping mechanism to make them think I am not totally insane,” says LeFevre. Could the book lead to an overhaul of the industry or lead to some soul searching among his friends who are still in finance? “By and large people find it kind of funny,” he says. “All the bankers who I have spoken to have loved it. Even the ones portrayed negatively think it is hilarious.” It seems the answer—for now—is a firmly resounding no.
“Everyone is pretty aggressive, focused on money... the culture is just so far removed from reality”
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Inspire change. Provoke innovation. Encourage evolution. Empower results.
OCTOBER 8-9, 2015
CURATED BY ARTON CAPITAL
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THE FORUM The Global Citizen Forum is an annual gathering of global leaders, visionaries, philanthropists and global citizens to engage, exchange and empower the future of Global Citizenship.
The 2015 Global Citizen Forum takes place in Monaco on 8th and 9th October. Curated by Arton Capital, the Global Citizen Forum is an annual non-profit gathering that enables discussions on what it means to be a citizen of the world. Global investor migration is a growing economic sector, which has attracted an estimated €50 billion of foreign direct investments to countries.
The event aims to foster dialogue with policymakers as they look to evolve political, social and economic responses to migration; to inspire change and uncover solutions to global causes; and to explore new ways that global citizens can contribute to society. It provides delegates with the opportunity to interact with visionaries, politicians and public figures and enjoy world-class entertainment at a gala dinner for the benefit of the Global Citizen
Considered as the “Davos” of the industry, the Global Citizen Forum seeks to inspire change, provoke innovation, encourage engagement and empower future generations during two days of debates and idea sharing.
Foundation.
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THE FORMAT Hosted over two days, the forum will feature dynamic presentations, panel discussions and breakout sessions involving world-class speakers, panelists, moderators, government representatives, and business leaders from different backgrounds that will exceed delegate expectations.
ENGAGING PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSION PANELS
GLOBAL CITIZEN GALA
Notable speakers, respected panelists, government representatives and industry professionals from different countries will address delegates on the latest issues and trends in global citizenship, seen from different angles.
The forum will wrap up with the inaugural Global Citizen Gala - a first-of-its-kind celebration of Global Citizenship. The black-tie cocktail dinner will feature unique magical performances by musicians, acrobats and other artists, who will transform the space into a global landscape.
MEANINGFUL BREAKOUT SESSIONS
CHAIRMAN'S COCKTAIL
Being a platform for exchange, the forum will provide a series of breakout sessions, which will encourage discussions, live Q&A sessions and overall dialogue between panelists and delegates. It will be a great opportunity to express opinions, share visions, and have your voice heard.
The forum will feature ample networking opportunities and the Chairman's Cocktail will give us a chance to raise a glass in celebration of attained goals, discovery of new opportunities, new relationships established, and much more.
Your personal concierge Upon registration, every delegate will be assigned a personal concierge, who will be your local contact before, during and after the event. The concierge's responsibility is to make your experience at the forum as rewarding and enjoyable as possible. They will have all the answers you are looking for and will be your connector to everyone and everything that is happening on site and in the city.
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JOIN THE DISCUSSION, EMPOWER OUR FUTURE It is challenging to quantify emotion or experience, but by joining us, you will: BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS
RAISE AWARENESS
Turn promising contacts into promising opportunities and share your expertise with new friends by joining discussions and entending your reach.
Discover sustainable practices and how you can make a difference by being the difference. WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
SHAPE GLOBAL POLICIES
Participate in and contribute to discussions on global issues concerning residency and citizenship and help shape future policies and best practices. EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Learn about global migration trends, government policies, second residence and citizenship planning strategies, and how to better serve high net worth individuals. ENRICH YOUR OFFER
Discover new products and services that can enrich your current portfolio and increase new client engagement and longer client retention.
The Global Citizen Forum is of interest to: Government representatives, European and international lawmakers and lobbyist lawyers, NGOs, foreign diplomatic corps, UN agency representatives, refugee goodwill ambassadors, immigration consultants, industry regulators, global citizens, ultra high net worth individuals and philanthropists, financial planners, estate planning practitioners, asset managers, investment advisors, portfolio managers, life insurance directors, mutual fund managers, offshore bankers, family offices, offshore providers, private banking group managers, product and service providers to high net worth individuals, professional investors and advisors, senior wealth/ trust executives, trust advisors/senior trust officers, trustees, wealth management advisors, and others.
CONNECT WITH DIVERSITY
You will have a chance to meet and exchange with a plethora of experienced professionals, wealth and estate managers, due diligence providers, banking and finance sector specialists, immigration and citizenship planning consultants, and many more.
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DAY 1
GLOBAL CITIZEN FORUM MONACO OCTOBER 8, 2015
8:00 - 9:00
Registration, Breakfast
9:00 - 9:05
Welcome Address Monaco welcomes the Global Citizen Community
By appointment from the Principality of Monaco
9:05 - 9:20
Introduction and vision of the Global Citizen Forum
Armand Arton, Founder, Global Citizen Forum
Keynote address on Global Citizenship
Irina Bokova, Director-General, UNESCO
10:15 - 10:30
I am a refugee, I am a global citizen
Wyclef Jean, Grammy award winning musician, record producer, actor and philanthropist
10:30 - 10:45
Coffee Break
9:20 - 10:15
10:45- 11:45
Conversation on Global Citizenship
Tyler Brul茅, Founder, Monocle
11:45 - 12:30
Leadership 2.0 Becoming a Changemaker in the Global Citizenship Community
Robin Sharma, Best Selling Author and Leadership Expert
12:30- 13:30
Networking Lunch
The Economist Intelligence Unit Report Launch
13:30-14:45
Plenary Session Global Perspectives: Outlook on Peace and Security
General Wesley Clark, US Army (ret.) Mario David, Member of the European Parliament John Prendergast, Philanthropist and Entrepreneur Nikolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Hon. Eric Schultz, US Ambassador to Zambia Moderated by Mark Dubowitz, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
14:45 - 15:00
Coffee Break
15:00 - 15:45
Industry Working Session: Evolution of Global Citizenship and the role of the Industry
Dan Wachtler, CEO, IPSA International Mykolas Rambus, Chairman, Global Investor Immigration Council Moderated by Elaine Dezenski, Arton Capital Board of Advisors
15:45 - 16:45
Industry Working Session: Attracting Foreign Direct Investments Part One: Europe
Government perspectives from Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro, Portugal, Cyprus Moderated by Julia Onslow-Cole, Head of the Global Immigration Team, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Closing of Day 1
Armand Arton, Founder, Global Citizen Forum
17:00 19:00- 20:00
Global Citizen Cocktail
20:00 - 23:00
Global Citizen Gala
Cocktail reception in honor of the Association des Consuls Honoraires de Monacoc
Wyclef Jean and guests Global Citizen Forum Award Ceremony
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DAY 2
GLOBAL CITIZEN FORUM MONACO OCTOBER 9, 2015
8:30 - 9:30
Registration, Breakfast
9:30 - 9:45
Welcome Address
Nick Clooney, Television Journalist and Personality
Keynote Address followed by Q&A
Kofi Annan, 7th Secretary-General, United Nations Foreword and introduction by Nick Clooney
9:45 - 10:45 10:45 - 11:00
Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:15
Plenary Session: Philanthropy in the Global Citizenship movement and the Global Citizen Tax initiative to combat the refugee crisis.
12:15 - 13:30
Networking Lunch
13:30 - 14:15
Nation branding and the power of media in the Global Citizenship Movement
Tyler Brulé, Founder, Monocle Benedikt Taschen, Founder and Publisher, Taschen Books Moderated by Richard Griffiths, Squire Patton Boggs
14:15 - 15:00
Industry Session: Attracting Foreign Direct Investments Part II: the Americas
Hon. Kenny Anthony, Prime Minister, Saint Lucia Hon. Gaston Browne, Prime Minister, Antigua & Barbuda HE Javier Carrillo Silvestri, Minister of Migration, Panama Moderated by Mykolas Rambus, Chairman, Global Investor Immigration Council and CEO of Wealth-X
15:00 - 15:30
Coffee Break
15:30 - 16:15
Industry Session: Enabling Global Citizens
16:15 - 16:45
Borders, Schengen and Global Governance
16:45 - 17:00
Closing Observations
17:15
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Irina Bokova, Director-General, UNESCO John Prendergast, Enough! Foundation Armand Arton, Founder Global Citizen Forum Nikolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Christopher Catrambone, Entrepeneur, Humanitarian, Adventurer Moderated by Jacques Attali, Founder Positive Planet
David Friedman, President, Wealth-X David Dunn, Partner, Squire Patton Boggs Dan Wachtler, CEO, IPSA International José Manuel Barroso, Prime Minister of Portugal (2002-2004), 11th President of the European Commission (2009-2014) Closing observations from key speakers throughout the program Armand Arton, Founder, Global Citizen Forum
Chairman’s Cocktail
GLOBAL CITIZEN FORUM 2015 · MONACO · OCTOBER 8-9, 2015
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WHAT PEOPLE SAID Here are a few of the comments we received after the 2013 edition of the Global Citizen Forum in Dubai. “ A really, “Really, really really well well planned planned and and executed executed event, event, which which was was beyond my expectations. I was happy to be a part of it and share my experience and vision as a Global Citizen.” JOSEPH GHOSSOUB, CEO, MENACOM GROUP
“I think it’s exciting. I think the angle that Arton Capital has taken with this forum is different. A lot of times it’s a very heavy industry specific type of program and this one seems to be a far more open forum with genuine discussion taking place of what it means to be a Global Citizen.” VAL KEMPADOO, FOUNDER, KITTITIAN HILL
“A real global tour de force! A forum Forumfor forour ourtimes.” times.” HON. SERGIO MARCHI, FORMER MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION CANADA
“The movement has started. Well done, team Arton.” NASEEM JAVED, AUTHOR AND FOUNDER OF ABC NAMEBANK
“Armand, in you we trust to make this world a better one! See you next year!” PATRICK LIOTARD-VOGT, CHAIRMAN, ASMALLWORLD
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THE VENUE
www.transrivieratour.com
MONTE CARLO BAY HOTEL & RESORT The Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & resort is a spectacular resort with 334 rooms and suites, set on a garden peninsula. Cultivating a chic but casual ambiance, with four restaurants, three bars, a Cinq Mondes spa and a casino, it offers a new approach to a legendary destination, blending lightness, enjoyment and an aura of festivity. www.montecarlobay.com
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GLOBAL CITIZEN TAX Addressing key global challenges and risks through a global residence and citizenship investor community partnership
BACKGROUND
CASE STUDY: THE GROWING REFUGEE CRISIS
Since its birth more than 30 years ago, the Global Residence and Citizenship Investor community has matured and is now playing a major role in building economies and attracting talent and innovation around the globe, offering viable paths to investment, residence and citizenship in countries as diverse as the US, UK, Canada, Antigua, Malta, Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria, Granada and Portugal.
The refugee crisis emanating from the MENA region continues to exact a large toll on those who flee for a better life for themselves and their families, the nations who are receiving them, and the international institutions and NGOs charged with providing basic humanitarian assistance during the most vulnerable periods of migration. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “the combined number of refugees and internally displaced persons protected/assisted by UNHCR in 2014 increased by 11 million persons, reaching
With the industry’s development, many risks and challenges have presented themselves, calling for new forms of collaboration and public-private engagement. For example, the industry must work closely with governments to address a range of issues: from security and transparency of programs to maximizing economic benefits, and even addressing misperceptions and reputational concerns over the industry and its role. Moreover, investor programs can also play a role in addressing broader global challenges. The current refugee crisis is one relevant example, and forms the basis for the idea for a special tax/assessment on investor applications that could immediately aid international organizations in their goal to care for refugees in a more humane, safe and secure environment.
a record high of 46.7 million persons by year end”. UNHCR indicates that in Europe more than 219,000 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea during 2014, and it is estimated that the global resettlement need will increase by 22 percent in 2016- or 1,150,000 people. Though the problem is not confined to Europe, the impact of the crisis in MENA is most strongly felt there. UNHCR estimates that the average time a refugee from Syria will remain in that status is 17 years - a generation of families and children who may spend their formative years in limbo. This could result in an unacceptable loss of opportunity for sustained health, welfare and opportunity for many thousands of people. In addition, the number of people who have lost their lives at sea is devastating – an estimated 6,570 people since 2011, half of whom were women and children.
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HOW CAN THE GLOBAL RESIDENCE AND CITIZENSHIP INDUSTRY CONTRIBUTE? The global residence and citizenship industry must be part of the solution, joining hands with partners in industry, governments and international organizations to address such challenges. Various European countries that are welcoming refugees are also in many instances attracting foreign investors through their Global Residence and Citizenship Programs for investors, including Cyprus, Bulgaria, Malta, Spain, and Portugal. In Europe such programs have attracted more than €5 billion in capital over the past 18 months, including investment programs in the UK, Lithuania and others. As a starting point, Arton Capital calls on the industry and participating governments to support a special assessment on all Residence and Citizenship applications received one to five per cent, to be assessed on top of the current investment required for the purpose of addressing the most pressing needs - for example, alleviating the global refugee crisis emanating from the MENA region and affecting many parts of Europe. HOW WOULD IT WORK? The special assessment could be administered through a joint program established by a group of governments with a joint plan for its distribution; or alternatively it could be assessed by the industry on behalf of governments and subsequently channeled to an independent fund for distribution to approved international organizations. Based on the quantity of residency/citizenship applications and investments made in the past, Arton Capital estimates
The potential for transforming this tax as a permanent and universal feature of all investor programs is a game changer and could be applied to multiple challenges, depending on the region and issues at hand. The effort would showcase the generosity and willingness of the Global Citizen community to take an active role in addressing key global challenges. The concept of the Global Citizen Tax could also be applied in a similar way to regional challenges, for example aiding participating Caribbean nations in addressing the impact of natural disasters. A specific purpose for the funds should be in line with addressing a global issue, ideally with a link to the broader concerns over migration/ movement of people. WHO COMPRISES THE GLOBAL RESIDENCE AND CITIZENSHIP INVESTOR COMMUNITY? At the core of the Global Residence and Citizenship Investor industry are individuals who choose to contribute to a third-country economy in exchange for a better future, a better life, or for extended economic opportunities for themselves and their families. Many of these investors are entrepreneurs - those who achieved their success through hard work, innovation and persevering through much adversity. They know that giving back to society is what seals the collective consciousness of our Global Citizen community and helps all people to follow their dreams to a better life.
that up to €1 billion could be raised within 60 months of creation.
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www.pwc.com.cy
Wealth Management Services
At PwC Cyprus we have integrated our experiences under one offering, providing a flexible approach to High Net Worth Individuals and business owners for protecting their personal wealth and structuring it for growth in the future. We help clients test if their portfolios give them the right return. We provide a personalised service for the investors and their families. Our services include Citizenship Services whereby our large dedicated cross-functional team provides solutions with a 100% success rate.
For more information please contact: Theo C Parperis Partner Head of Tax and Legal theo.parperis@cy.pwc.com T: +357 22 555 000 Tony Hadjiloucas Partner In charge of Wealth Management Services tony.hadjiloucas@cy.pwc.com T: +357 25 555 000
PwC Cyprus Julia House, 3 Themistocles Dervis Street, CY-1066 Nicosia, Cyprus P O Box 21612, CY-1591 Nicosia, Cyprus T: +357 - 22 555 000 F: +357 - 22 555 001 www.pwc.com.cy
Phryni Yiakoumetti Mina Director Consulting phryni.yiakoumetti@cy.pwc.com T: +357 22 555 000
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CONFIRMED SPEAKERS
KOFI ANNAN
JOHN PRENDERGAST
IRINA BOKOVA
Seventh Secretary-General of the UN Founder and chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation
Human rights activist, author, and former director for African Affairs at the National Security Council
Director-general of Unesco
Kofi Annan was the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations and is the founder and chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation. In 2001, he and the United Nations were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Since leaving the United Nations, Annan has been actively pressing for policies that will meet the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly in Africa. He continues to use his experience to mediate and resolve conflict. In early 2008, he led the African Union’s panel of eminent African personalities, which mediated a peaceful resolution to post-election violence in Kenya. From February to August 2012, he was the UN–Arab League Joint Special Envoy for Syria, mandated to seek a resolution to the conflict there.
John Prendergast is a human rights activist and best-selling author who has worked for peace in Africa for nearly thirty years. He is the cofounder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity affiliated with the Center for American Progress. Prendergast has worked for the Clinton administration, the State Department, members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has served as a Big Brother for over 25 years, as well as a youth counselor and a basketball coach.
Irina Bokova is the first woman and the first Eastern European to lead Unesco As director-general of Unesco, Bokova is actively engaged in international efforts to advance gender equality, quality education for all, and combat terrorist financing. Bokova was formerly Minister for Foreign Affairs, ambassador of Bulgaria in France, and Unesco and personal representative of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria to the “Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie” (OIF). She has always advocated for European integration.
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GEN. WESLEY CLARK
JOSÉ MANUEL BARROSO
MARIO DAVID
Clinton Global Initiative’s Energy & Climate Change Advisory Board member , Former NATO supreme commander Former US democratic presidential candidate
Prime minister of Portugal (2002-2004) 11th President of the European Commission
Vice president of the European People’s Party Member of the European Parliament from Portugal
Gen. Wesley Clark has served 34 years in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of four-star general and being named director for Strategic Plans and Policy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is the recipient of numerous U.S. and foreign military awards, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. In August 2000, Clark was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. In 2003, Clark joined the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, won Oklahoma state primary but later endorsed and campaigned for John Kerry. Clark serves on the Clinton Global Initiative’s Energy & Climate Change Advisory Board and is a trusted advisor to various organizations around the world.
Former Portugese Prime Minister (2002-2004), Barroso was elected President of the PSD political party, which won enough seats to form a coalition government in 2002. In 2004, following his nomination by the European People’s Party, Barroso became the 11th President of the European Commission, and was reelected again for a second five-year mandate in 2009.
Mario David is a vice president of the European People’s Party and a member of the European Parliament from Portugal. A medical doctor, he joined the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in 1979 and was elected to the European Parliament for the first time in 1989. He was previously the Secretary General of the EPP in the European Parliament. In 2002 he became political advisor to Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso and in 2004 he was appointed Secretary of State for European Affairs. In 2009 he was elected again to the European Parliament.
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HON. GASTON BROWNE
HON. KENNY ANTHONY
JAVIER CARRILLO SILVESTRI
Prime Minister of Antigua & Barbuda
Prime Minister of Saint Lucia
Director of Panama’s National Immigration Service
Hon. Gaston Browne, became the fourth and youngest ever prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda at the age of 47, after his Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ALP) won a landslide victory in the general election in June 2014. His vision is to transform Antigua and Barbuda into a globally competitive, premier tourism and financial services economy, producing well-paying jobs and a higher standard of living for the people. He is an acknowledged advocate of the interests of Antigua and Barbuda at the United Nations General Assembly, CARICOM, the World Bank, the IMF and the OAS.
Hon. Kenny Anthony has been prime minister of Saint Lucia since 2011, a post he held from 1997 to 2006. As leader of the Saint Lucia Labour Party, he was Leader of the Opposition from 2006 to 2011. In the Labour government that led the country from 1979 to 1982, he was special advisor to the Ministry of Education and Culture from August 1979 to December 1980, then Minister of Education from December 1980 to March 1981. During his leadership and his party’s reign, Hon. Anthony led Saint Lucia to record development in tourism, infrastructure and general economic development.
Javier Carrillo Silvestri, director of Panama’s National Immigration Service, was named in January 2009 interim director of the Judicial Police, and has 23 years of experience serving the police. He studied at Peru’s Military School León Poncio Prado.
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JULIA ONSLOW-COLE
ROBIN S. SHARMA
TYLER BRÛLÉ
Head of Global Immigration at PwC Legal LLP.
Best-selling author and leadership expert
Global Citizen, journalist, entrepreneur and publisher
Julia Onslow-Cole is a partner and head of the global immigration team at PwC, which consists of more than 600 practitioners in 116 countries, she has more than 20 years experience in providing specialist immigration advice. She’s also co-editor of several leading textbooks on immigration law and currently represents the International Bar Association as a core stakeholder to the UK Border Agency.
Robin Sharma is a best-selling author and leadership expert. He has penned 15 global best-sellers, including The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and The Leader Who Had No Title. Ranked as one of the top five leadership gurus in the world in an independent global survey of over 22,000 business people, Sharma is a widely-respected CEO advisor having worked with Fortune 500 CEO’s and leaders all over the world.
Tyler Brûlé is the founder and editorin-chief of Monocle, the global media brand distinctive through its mix of smart journalism, international awareness and razor-sharp design aimed at Global Citizens who are locals no matter where they land. He writes the “Fast Lane” column for the weekend edition of the Financial Times, covering his observations on travel, international design trends and high-end consumer goods.
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NICK CLOONEY
BENEDIKT TASCHEN
JACQUES ATTALI
American journalist, anchorman, activist
Founder and owner of publishing house Taschen
Economist, professor, writer
Nick Clooney is an American journalist, anchorman, television host, writer, teacher and actor. Brother of singer Rosemary Clooney and the father of actor George Clooney. Clooney became a strong activist for Darfur, where together with his son they filmed the documentary A Journey to Darfur, with the proceeds from the DVD sales being donated to the International Rescue Committee to help the people of Darfur. Clooney is also a journalism teacher at the American University School of Communication and the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
Taschen began his career with a single store in Cologne, Germany, named Taschen Comics. Soon after that he started publishing his own books. By the end of the 1980s Taschen titles were available in over a dozen languages at prices that made art books affordable to students and collectors. By the late 1990s, he had become a household name in publishing. He published the largest bound book of the 20th century, Sumo written by Helmut Newton, which also became his most successful title of the last ten years.
Jacques Attali is an economist, professor, writer and was the special advisor to the President of the Republic of France from 1981 to 1991. He founded and was the first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London from 1991 to 1993. Attali is the co-founder of PlaNet Finance - today known as Positive Planet - and has been president since 1998. He also founded Action Against Hunger in 1980. He is the author of 65 books, translated into more than 20 languages with eight million copies sold around the world.
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International Sales Executive of theYear OR CORRUPT NEGOTIATOR? We help you decide.
Citizenship by Investment | Anti-Money Laundering | Investigative Due Diligence
Approved and actively engaged vendor to over half of the 10 largest global financial institutions. New York | London | Vancouver | Dubai | Phoenix ipsaintl.com | info@ipsaintl.com 85
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THE CURATOR Arton Capital empowers individuals and families to become Global Citizens. This is accomplished through a high-end service experience, which simplifies complexity and is supported and sustained by long-term relationships. As a global financial advisory firm, specializing in investor programs for residence and citizenship, Arton plays a critical role in helping governments, consultants, legal and financial professionals and investors to meet their goals quickly, efficiently and more effectively. As an industry leader, Arton curates the Global Citizen Forum, where delegates, government representatives and industry patrons meet annually to exchange ideas, build awareness, educate and promote global citizenship. Arton places a high importance on its corporate social responsibility programs and as a co-founder of the Global Citizen Foundation, the company is joined by its team, partners and clients to contribute to the development of the next generation of leaders and enrich education policies worldwide.
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Arton’s global operations are spread across 12 offices around the world and have attracted over $2.5 billion in foreign direct investments to countries such as Antigua & Barbuda, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, Hungary, St Kitts & Nevis, UK and the U.S. Arton Capital is a member of The Arton Group, which comprises of fully- licensed banking, financial advisory and investment consulting companies tailored to the needs of Global Citizens. For more information, please visit: ARTONCAPITAL.COM
Empowering Global Citizenship®
INFO@GLOBALCITIZENFORUM.ORG
THE FOUNDATION Global leaders become Global Citizens as they recognize that global business norms are emerging and that their actions play a vital role in shaping them. Where current practice undermines shared prosperity, we, as Global Citizens, are working to shape it. The Global Citizen Foundation is a result of the strong belief of Mr. Armand Arton that the prosperity of one individual, one company, or one nation are interdependent with the prosperity of others. By giving, we gain - and we help build a sustainable future for the generations to come. OBJECTIVES
APPROACH
The Global Citizen Foundation is committed to making a difference by reaching out to children and young people who are in need. The focus is on education, but also on lending a hand and contributing to the next generation of leaders and education policy worldwide. The objectives are:
Focus on finding at least one project that has immediate traceable impact that can be reported on a short-term basis (six months or less). Higherrisk programming, research and funding pilots of innovations in education will be considered, as well as earlier stage organizations whose success could contribute to the development of the education sector. The Foundation will seek sustainability in the form of a clear exit that will allow the projects to continue with other funding or will successfully complete their funding stage thanks to the support of the Global Citizen Foundation. All gifts will have a connection to education and will go to registered charities/ community organizations.
• • •
•
Develop and implement distinctive philanthropy programs; Involve the Global Citizens’ movement to support selected noble initiatives; Donate to high-impact geographies and programs, in coordination with other donor and government initiatives to deliver integrated outcomes for the community. Support initiatives that can make the biggest difference for the greatest number of beneficiaries.
For more information on the foundation, please visit: GLOBAL-CITIZEN.ORG The Global Citizen Forum will donate all proceeds from the event to the benefit of the Foundation.
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GCF IN NUMBERS The cumulative results of the past Global Citizen Forums clearly show the commitment of our sponsors and our hosting partners, as well as the satisfaction level of our esteemed delegates.
27
550
100%
COUNTRIES WERE REPRESENTED
DELEGATES WERE IN ATTENDANCE
OF THE SPONSORS WANT TO SPONSOR AGAIN
94.5%
7,000+
$600M
OF THE DELEGATES WERE EXTREMELY SATISFIED
NEW CONNECTIONS MADE BETWEEN DELEGATES
OF INVESTMENTS IN REAL ESTATE
$100,000
2
1
WAS RAISED FOR THE GLOBAL CITIZEN FOUNDATION
WERE THE PAST VENUE HOSTING PARTNERS
COMMON GOAL: TO EMPOWER GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
$
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GLOBAL CITIZEN FORUM AWARDS Established in 2014, the Global Citizen Forum Award exemplifies our commitment to empowering Global Citizenship by honoring outstanding individuals who have contributed significantly to the development of global citizenship through their vision, leadership and involvement in the global community. Criteria & Selection Nominated by the Global Citizen Forum board of advisors, honorees are selected based on demonstrated results and sustainability of their work. The awarded individual: • has unique abilities to strengthen civil society and our ability to work and live together, enact true democracies, and to protect the weak as well as the strong; • inspires us all to put words into action and employ innovative approaches and thinking in trying to solve the world’s challenges; • believes in cross-border prosperity, human rights, and cultural understanding; • is an exemplary global citizen, who has directly and positively impacted the lives of others. Ceremony The 2015 Global Citizen Forum Awards will be presented during a special ceremony at the Global Citizen Gala on October 8th, 2015 in Monaco. The Award The 2015 Global Citizen Forum Awards are custom designed by Tom D. Shannon, whose sculptures have been included in numerous international exhibitions around the world. Designer of the TED Prize, the Buckminster Fuller Prize and the Trophee Jules Verne installed at the Musee de la Marine in Paris, his recent outdoor work includes sculptures with variable compositions in China and hovering sculptures at the entrance of Kansai Electric in Osaka and at Chateau La Coste in France.
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WYCLEF JEAN GLOBAL CITIZEN GALA October 8th, 2015 | Monte-Carlo Bay Ticketed and by invitations only fundraising event. 93
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CURATOR
PRESENTING PARTNER
PLATINUM PARTNER
GOLD PARTNER
HOSTING PARTNER
REAL ESTATE PARTNERS
GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES
Government of Antigua and Barbuda
Government of Bulgaria (under invitation)
Government of Saint Lucia
Government of Panama
Invest Saint Lucia
Invest Cyprus
NGO REPRESENTATIVES
RESEARCH PARTNERS
MEDIA PARTNERS
MEDIA RELATIONS
OFFICIAL AIR TRANSPORTATION
OFFICIAL AIRPORT SHUTTLE
Intelligence Unit
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REGISTRATION € 1,500 € 950 € 3,500 DAY PASS / GALA PASS / FULL PASS For a day of your choice. Does not include access to the Gala.
To access the Gala celebration only. Does not include access to the Forum.
Full access to the Forum on both days, Gala and Chairman's cocktail.
+
€ 275 ROOM To book your room, visit globalcitizenforum.org/room 40% OFF standard daily rates.
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● CANCELLATION POLICY
As much as we like to plan ahead, sometimes unforeseen obstacles arise which may prevent you from attending. In such a case, we can refund you the fees paid, minus 20% service and bank charges, provided you cancel no less than 28 days before the event, after which full charges are due.
Attendance at this conference is subject to the Terms and Conditions at http://www.globalcitizenforum.org/terms-and-conditions. Cancellation Policy: You may cancel your registration. You will receive a refund of your fees paid (if any): (i) if you cancel your registration 28 days or more before the Forum, subject to an administration charge equivalent of 20% of the total amount of your fees; or (ii) if you cancel your registration less than 28 days. Global Citizen Forum regrets that the full amount of your fee remains payable in the event that your cancellation is 28 days or less before the Forum or if you fail to attend the Forum. All cancellations must be sent by email to info@globalcitizenforum.org marked for the attention of Delegate Relations and must be received by the Forum organizers. You acknowledge that the refund of your fees is your sole remedy in respect of any cancellation of your registration by you and all other liability is expressly excluded. Changes to the Forum: Global Citizen Forum may (at its sole discretion) change the format, speakers, participants, content, venue location and program or any other aspect of the Forum at any time for any reason, whether or not due to a Force Majeure Event, in each case without liability. Data protection: The personal information that you provide to us will be held by us on a database. You agree that Global Citizen Forum may share this information with other companies related to the Forum. Occasionally your details may be available to selected third parties who wish to communicate with you offers related to your business activities. If you do not wish to receive these offers please contact Delegate Relations at info@globalcitizenforum. org. For more information about how Global Citizen Forum use the information you provide, please see our privacy policy at http://www. globalcitizenforum.org/privacy-policy. If you do not wish your details to be available to companies related to the Global Citizen Forum, or selected third parties, please contact Delegate Relations at info@globalcitizenforum.org.
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“When we see the earth from space we see ourselves as a whole, we see the unity not the divisions. It is such a simple image with a compelling message: One planet, One human race.
We must become Global Citizens. Our only boundaries are the way we see ourselves, the only borders - the way we see each other.”
STEPHEN HAWKING THEORETICAL PHYSICIST, COSMOLOGIST, AUTHOR AND DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AT THE CENTRE FOR THEORETICAL COSMOLOGY WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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the power of Global Citizenship. So should you.
Discover how Investor Programs for Residence and Citizenship can help your clients secure the benefits for generations to come. Whether you are a private banker, family office manager, lawyer, investment advisor or a migration expert, contact us to learn about the available options and become a member of our leading Certified Partner network. Unlock your clients' real potential with the Arton Index , industry's trusted benchmark tool.
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empOWeRiNG GlOBal CiTiZeNsHip®
TORONTO | mONTReal | paRis | lONdON | BUdapesT | sOFia | isTaNBUl | limassOl | BeiRUT | dUBai | Cape TOWN | BeiJiNG | aRTONCapiTal.COm
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Arton Capital is a leading global financial advisory firm providing custom tailored services for immigrant investor programs to government agencies, certified partners and high net-worth individuals and families from around the world. INFO@GLOBALCITIZENFORUM.ORG Become a Global Citizen® and Empowering Global Citizenship® are registered trademarks of Arton Capital.
LIFESTYLE
BEAM SPEAKERS These beautiful speakers are made from reclaimed heart pine from a 19th century Virginia factory so they are as ecologically responsible as they sound. The Beam delivers the dynamics you would expect from a full range speaker while producing the imaging and accuracy of a mini monitor. At just over 90 decibels sensitivity, the Beam is equally at home with moderately powered tube or solid state amplification.
Fernandroby.com, $4,500
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SOLO DRONE The world’s smartest drone is also the easiest to fly. With features like push button flight and computer-assisted smart shots, Solo makes it easy for anyone to get professional aerial photos and video. Solo is powered by two 1GHz computers for the smoothest aerial photography experience imaginable, including many world-first technologies and a host of inbuilt safety and support features. It is the only all-in-one drone to offer wireless video streaming in vivid high definition from your GoPro directly to your mobile device at a range of up to half a mile.
3drobotics.com, $999.95
MUSE BRAIN SENSING HEADBAND Increasingly, busy executives are crediting meditation for keeping their stress under control and ensuring success. The Muse is the first tool in the world that can give you accurate, real-time feedback on what’s happening in your brain while you meditate. It provides motivational challenges and rewards to encourage you to build a regular practice.
Choosemuse.com, $299
TL3 RACING SIMULATOR Developed over five years with a champion Formula One race team, the TL3 racing simulator is the world’s most advanced racing simulator. The cockpit is built to deliver a realistic racing car feel with options for driving a Formula One car, sedan or GT. Its 200-degree spherical display features a dramatic six million pixel seamless image.
Motionsimulation.com, $54,700
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AUTO
A SUBURBAN HERO
Range Rover produces the fastest ever SUV with its Sport SVR BY SIMON DE BURTON
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ack in 2014, Jaguar Land Rover opened its special operations division with a remit to build special-order cars, restore classic models and introduce limited production lines based on existing vehicles. Among the first fruits of the enterprise have been the Jaguar F-Type Project 7, a series of six E-Type lightweight continuation cars - and the decidedly wild Range Rover you see pictured here. Called the Sport SVR, this is the fastest vehicle ever to wear a Land Rover badge - and one which has proved its unlikely sporting credentials by lapping Germany’s famous Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in eight minutes and 14 seconds, a record for an SUV and a time which is faster, for example, than those set by a Porsche Cayman S, a Lotus Exige and a Nissan Skyline. The prodigious performance has been achieved by fitting the same five-litre, 542 horsepower V8 engine used in the searingly rapid Jaguar F-Type R and reducing weight by more than 30kg compared with the standard Range Rover Supercharged Sport. The SVR shares the latter’s powerful Brembo brakes but its suspension has been tuned, making the car 8mm lower and the ride considerably stiffer. As a result, all that power doesn’t have to be reserved for long, straight highways but can also be put to use on the back roads where, perhaps surprisingly, the SVR is at its most entertaining - if only because it seems so unnatural to be able to drive a big,
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tall, heavy SUV at high speed on a twisty route without expecting to have to wrestle the steering wheel at best, or end up on the roof at worst. When a suitable stretch of road does present itself, however, flooring the SVR’s accelerator pedal will see it scorch from standstill to 60mph in just 4.5 seconds (the equivalent, incidentally, of a Maserati GranTurismo Stradale or Aston Martin V8 Vantage) - yet if you really want to, you can still drive up a sand dune and back down the other side in the Range Rover. As standard, the car is even supplied with 21in mud and snow tyres, although a sportier 22in summer option is available. The SVR’s racy nature is echoed in its interior, where you will find an irresistibly tempting switch which enables the quadruple exhaust tailpipes to be opened up in order to provide a groundshaking growl under acceleration, and some attention-grabbing crackles and pops on the over-run - especially when the car’s electronic brain automatically blips the throttle to smooth out gear changes when making fast down shifts using the steering wheel-mounted paddles. The front seats, meanwhile, are of the track-inspired variety, being far lighter and less heavily upholstered than those of the standard car but offering plenty of support in those fast corners. The rears have also been redesigned to provide a sportier look, albeit at the expense of the standard car’s capability to carry
AUTO
five passengers in comfort - in the SVR, that fifth space is for occasional use only. Luxury Oxford leather is used for the trim and can be specified in a various colour options, ranging from plain black to black with white, red or tan, all with the SVR logo stitched in to the seats. The dashboard and centre console, meanwhile, can be ordered with a standard turned aluminium finish or clad in carbon fibre at extra cost. The SVR is not, of course, the only hot SUV on the market indeed, it’s a sector that is growing fast. Neither is it the most powerful, with both BMW’s X5M and X6M and the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S pipping it by 25 and 20 horsepower respectively. But,
with its lightweight aluminium chassis and bodywork and cleverly re-engineered suspension, the SVR is, probably, the most fully realised car in its class and the one that feels least as though it has been adapted from an existing model. How relevant it is in the many countries of the world where the roads are often crowded and fuel prices are astronomically high, one has to wonder. But in the Middle East, where a fuel consumption figure of 15 miles per gallon is simply not a problem and it is possible to cover vast distances without encountering another car, the SUV not only makes sense but seems ideal. Just don’t forget those speed limits. The Range Rover SVR starts at $111,470
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PEARL S A WINNER
The Pearl 65, with its sophisticated design and technological prowess, was designed to appeal to both sexes ince its debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival last year, the Pearl 65 Flybridge has been turning heads on the high seas with its sophisticated design, the result of a collaboration between award-winning naval architect Bill Dixon and celebrity interior designer Kelly Hoppen. The yacht was based on the notion that while exterior styling and technical features attract men’s attention, the interior’s appeal to women is what actually sells the yacht. Hence the interiors with Hoppen’s signature use of texture, tone and neutral colours evoke a soothing calm. The layout includes four luxuriously appointed staterooms with sleeping quarters for an additional two crew members. An open plan area stretches from the inside helm to the transom. The galley in the after starboard-side corner of the saloon, immediately behind the dinette, has a table that adjusts from counter to dining level.
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A luxurious U-shaped lounge allows occupants to relax while watching films on the large flatscreen TV outboard of the dining and seating area. A generous number of windows flood the saloon with light and give occupants a lovely view of the sea. However, the best view from the massive lounge is on the flying bridge, which also sports a huge sun pad, U-shaped sofa and table. For those who like to take control, the pod-drive propulsion incorporating joystick control technology offers the ability to operate the yacht without a crew. Standard features of the Pearl fleet also include a hydraulically operated bathing platform, air conditioning, a hydraulic passerelle or gangway, generator and teak decking. Powered by either triple Cummins Zeus 600hp, twin Volvo IPS 800hp engines or twin Volvo D13 shaft drive, the yacht will have a fuel capacity of 770 gallons (3,500 litres) and can reach a top speed of 32 knots with a cruising range of 350 nautical miles.
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ART
GETTING THE SCOOP
Mother and daughter duo Raya and May Mamarbachi founded Artscoops, a digital platform for art in the Middle East, where you can purchase contemporary and modern artworks directly from artists, commercial galleries and private collectors
They unearth artists who are analytical about the world and the ongoing turmoil and reflect it in their art. The site updates its content on regional artists, gallerists and art collectors. It also features advice on how to collect art and art as an investment. Here, the Mamarbachis reveal the top five Arab artists to watch.
1. Hassan Darsi, Vagues Dorees, 2009 Born in Casablanca in 1961, the artist, photographer and video artist Hassan Darsi has his work in collections such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp
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and Zorlu Art Centre in Istanbul as well as private collections in Morocco. In this series, he explores gold as a symbol of power, wealth and potential danger.
ART
2. Catherine Cattaruzza, Beirut, Year Zero, 1992 Catherine Cattaruzza is a visual artist based in Beirut. She obtained the higher national diploma in plastic arts and communication with honours from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, France. Since 1992, she has created various video installations for personal and collective exhibitions taking place in the Middle East, Europe and North America. Her recent work Body (2009) is part of the permanent collection of the Arter gallery in Istanbul. Her core work tackles themes around the city of Beirut and the falsification of national identity.
3. Salam Omar, Untitled, 2014 Iraqi artist Salam Omar, born in 1960, develops photographs printed on plexiglass and placed on top of each other to create his own three-dimensional interpretation of Beirut. The work is an attempt to narrate the memory of the civil war. The use of mixed media takes the viewer through a city where architecture becomes a symbol of destruction.
4. Joe Kesrouani, Aleppo’s Citadel, 2010 Joe Kesrouani, born in Beirut in 1968, explores issues of intimacy. Each of his photos tell an underlying story and reflect the imaginative world he has built through art. Kesrouani has
participated in solo and group exhibitions in London, Dubai, Paris and Lebanon. In January 2012, he received the Prix du Jury at the Salon D’Automne in Beirut.
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HANDMADE
SUPPLY AND ROYAL DEMAND The British leather goods firm Ettinger has been in business for more than 80 years. Its chief executive says new markets are opening up, thanks to its royal warrant
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HANDMADE
obert Ettinger is the third generation to run his eponymous family leather goods business. Ettinger has become known for its exquisite handmade products, from wallets and key fobs to desk blotters. Its chief executive now has ambitions to take this quintessentially British product to the rest of the globe. Ettinger products are still made by hand using the same methods the company has used since its inception in 1934. Robert’s grandfather Gerard operated out of a workshop near Smithfield Market, the traditional centre of leatherwork in London. Ettinger only abandoned the St John’s Street workshop about a decade ago, one of the last leatherworkers to do so. Currently, most of the manufacturing is done by women in a factory outside Birmingham. “We have always employed women. They do the really fine work because they have a different feel for things. Some of them go on to have families and continue to work from home,” says Ettinger. He joined the business in 1990 after working abroad in Canada and Germany where he “worked for bosses other than my father and where I wasn’t mollycoddled,” including some time in the factories. It is because of that experience that he rotates the workers’ assignments so they do not get bored and “that keeps the quality at 100 per cent”. And although the production might have stayed the same for 80 years, the business has changed immensely and grown steadily internationally. Japan is a huge market with 85 per cent of stock
exported there. The only stand-alone Ettinger store in the world is in the Ginza district of Tokyo. In the Middle East, the product has been on sale in Rivoli stores since October last year and has recently been stocked in Bloomingdale’s and Harvey Nichols. The brand’s popularity is also due to its status as a royal warrant holder, a prestigious designation for tradespeople who supply goods or services to certain royal personages. “After the royal warrant, we looked at building the brand much more,” says Ettinger. “We started to travel overseas and the business grew organically from there. “It means something if the royals buy it. Now when the royals travel, any leather gift they give is an Ettinger gift. So Ettinger has become a sort of cultural export, the best of British heritage.” Ettinger recently found out Prince Harry and Prince William have started using the products as well as their father, Prince Charles. “The boys are young and much hipper so that is good for us as well,” he says. As the business continues to appeal to a new generation, the company makes sure it preserves its roots with little touches, like using the colours of a £10 note on the signature visiting card case. “Sometimes the look is actually quite avant garde and contemporary but there is always a historical basis for why something is produced and we will give it a modern twist,” he says.
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DESIGN
Sofa, Bonaldo, $9,145, Western Furniture, Dubai
RICH PICKINGS
Earthy reds and rich terracottas come under the umbrella of marsala, the shade of the year according to Pantone, the American colour experts
Chair, Minotti, $1,130, Aati, Dubai
Lamp, Armani Casa, $7,088, Dubai Mall Orion Cabinet, Brabbu, $14,350, Castillo Interiors, Bahrain
Sherwood centre table, Brabbu, $5,165, Castillo Interiors, Bahrain
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DESIGN
Walnut cabinet, Ginger and Jagger, $10,715, Nakkash Gallery, Dubai
Nazca sideboard, Brabbu, $12,450, Castillo Interiors, Bahrain
Amethyst vase, Caviat, $603, The Sofa and Chair Company, London
Plates, Armani Casa, $343 and $293, Dubai Mall
Mirror, Ginger and Jagger, $6,713, Nakkash Gallery, Dubai
Coffee table, Ginger and Jagger, $8,135, Nakkash Gallery, Dubai
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HOTELS
BOUTIQUE CHIC
A selection of boutique hotels in some of the globe’s hippest cities
THE NEW YORK EDITION NEW YORK Celebrity hotelier and New Yorker Ian Schrager unveiled his latest property earlier this year. Schrager, the force behind many of the world’s most stylish hotels, first came to prominence with the infamous Studio 54 nightclub in the 1970s. He is collaborating with the Marriott chain with the Edition hotels, which include sites in London, Istanbul and Miami beach with more to follow in China, Iceland and Hollywood. The hotel is inspired by New York’s turn-of-the-20th century private clubs, Fifth
Avenue’s Gilded Age mansions and Stanford White’s architectural masterpieces. Guests are welcomed into a dark oak panelled foyer, like an upscale New York apartment building in the 1920s, anchored by a sculptured spiral staircase. The palette is neutral in shades of taupe, ivory and white and the crowd is beautiful and glamorous. A superior room from $725 per night. See www.editionhotels.com
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HOTELS
THE UPPER HOUSE HONG KONG The multi award-winning Upper House sits among stylish and chic surrounds in the restored Pacific Place complex and Admiralty district of Hong Kong. The design is sleek, slick, modern and smart with brilliant touches of innovation, created to evoke the feeling of a private home. The spacious rooms have a regal air about them with the smallest at a sprawling 730sq ft (not including the
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fabulous expansive bathroom). The Upper House goes one step further technologically too – the whole hotel is entirely paperless. All services can be ordered via an iPod touch while check-in is done via iPad. Rooms from $580 per night. See www.chiccollection.com
HOTELS
HOTEL FASANO RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL Overlooking Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Ipanema beach, which merges into its more famous but less glamorous sister Copacabana, Hotel Fasano is the first hotel in Brazil to be designed by the legendary Philippe Starck. Billed as the most fashionable address in Rio, Fasano pays homage to the golden age of bossa nova, channelling the heyday of Jobim and Gilberto. Favoured by Madonna, Coldplay, Brazilian supermodel Gisele and her NFL star husband Tom Brady, an entire wall of the hotel is devoted to handwritten notes from its celebrity guests. Distinctly Brazilian materials like Ipe flooring and the enormous
piquia tree stump used for the reception desk are mixed with Grecian marble, 19th-century Argentinian brick and Chinese onyx. The guest rooms have Sergio Rodrigues furnishings and ear-shaped mirrors. The hotel’s guest-only rooftop pool offers spectacular views of Rio’s palm-lined golden beaches and surrounding mountains and is so sought after that locals book in just to enjoy sundowners on the terrace. Rooms start at $740. For booking, contact Lightfoot Travel on +971 4 455 8788 or visit lightfoottravel.com
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DINING
NEW IN YOUR LOCALE
Now you don’t have to travel to experience the best of the world’s restaurants - they have new outposts in Dubai
GEALES Dubai is no stranger to the British gastropub but this spot is one that is decidedly more upmarket. Its Notting Hill origins have led to it being dubbed a “posh chippy”. The red letterbox and Union Jack cushions and plates are a reminder of the restaurant’s origin while the herringbone flooring and hexagonal detail on the coffered ceiling and bar echo the seafood-centric menu. A market counter displays the freshest seafood with fish, king crab legs, Caribbean
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lobsters, skate and Dover sole that can be weighed and cooked to your liking. From the a la carte menu, try the seafood gnocchi, delicate pillows of handmade pasta tossed with mussels, clams, calamari and prawns in a light tomato sauce. Le Royal Meredien Beach Resort and Spa, Al Sufouh road, +971 4 399 5555
DINING
ASIA DE CUBA Long before Asian fusion became a buzzword, an Eastern influence on Cuban cuisine began in the 1800s when Chinese and Asian workers were brought to Cuba to work in sugarcane and tobacco fields. Famed restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow has concocted a fusion menu based on what Cuban cuisine would have been, had it not been sequestered from much of the world in the last half century. This delightful venue features whitewashed wood and breezy cotton curtains echoing old-school Havana while the sharing plates
are modern izakaya-style. The ubiquitous miso-glazed black cod gets an update with an avocado and poblano pepper puree. The South American classic dessert, tres leches (a sponge cake made with three different kinds of milk), is enlivened with chocolate Szechuan peppercorn ice cream. St Regis Hotel, Nation Riviera Beach Club, Abu Dhabi Corniche, Abu Dhabi, +971 2 699 3333
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DINING
JEAN GEORGE Celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened his first Middle Eastern outpost in June, encompassing JG Dining Room and the more casual JG Kitchen. Vongerichten stays true to his French roots by offering many of his signature dishes from his three Michelin starred restaurant in New York, including his famous caviar creations in both the three and seven-course tasting menus in JG Dining Room. Start with the classic toast and egg yolk caviar or, if you prefer a little more zest, try the Sorrento lemon jelly and creme fraiche caviar before tucking into supple yellowfin tuna ribbons immersed in a pungent ginger marinade with creamy avocado, or diver scallops with caramelised cauliflower and a caper and raisin emulsion. For meat lovers, the juicy Welsh lamb chops glazed in a spicy chilli sauce are divine. Dessert is a triumph of bold flavours, including sour cherry pudding with thyme and rose sorbet and basil infused pannacotta. However, with Vongerichten’s signature molten chocolate cake on offer, there is really only one option. Four Seasons Resort, Jumeirah, +971 4 270 7777
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TRESIND For those who are afraid, or just plain weary, of molecular gastronomy, fret not. Although this new Indian restaurant is billed as experimental, the chef Himanshu Sainu applies the techniques to make the transition from ancient cuisine to fine dining without losing its traditional soul. The modern chaat trolley, typical Indian street food, is prepared tableside with the same sense of theatricality you would expect from vendors on the beaches of Mumbai - but
the addition of liquid nitrogen and gelled chutneys gives a unique sensory experience with the freeze-dried dhokla. The Malay lobster, perfectly poached seafood enveloped in coconut curry sauce, is a bold mix of flavours that still manages to be perfectly balanced. Radisson Royal Hotel, Sheikh Zayed road, +971 04 308 0440
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TRAVEL
MAGNIFICENT MONACO The tiny principality sets itself up for a very big future BY NAUSHEEN NOOR
Since his father Rainier III died in 2005, Prince Albert II has done much to change the image of his country from a stuffy destination to one with a little more cultural appeal. He has actively supported a flourishing arts scene, from the Monte Carlo Jazz Festival to major art exhibitions at the Grimaldi Forum and the principality’s latest museum, the New National Monaco Museum, which showcases contemporary visual art. He has also pledged to make Monaco cleaner and greener. The country has big plans to transform itself into an international lifestyle destination. Currently, earnings from its famous casino and other gambling outlets only account for four per cent of Monaco’s income. The bulk of the economy is buttressed by money generated by luxury hotels, conferences, multi-million dollar yachts in the harbour and the Grand Prix. The principality wants to capitalise on this. A massive four-year renovation project is underway for the iconic Hotel de Paris. Casino Square will be experiencing a major facelift as the Sporting d’Hiver building is razed to the ground to make way for luxury shops, upmarket residences, offices, recreation and cultural areas. It doesn’t end there. The 20-year plan includes reclaiming land on the coast in an environmentally sustainable manner to create an offshore island for new residential areas complete with lots of skyscrapers, a project estimated to cost $884 million.
Images courtesy of Corbis / ArabianEye.com
onaco is synonymous with the ultra-wealthy. The holiday of choice for Russian oligarchs, race-car drivers, royalty and celebrities alike; the kind of people who would not blink at paying $55 per cocktail and leave their Maseratis parked with the keys still inside. At just a smidgen larger than the Vatican, Monaco is the world’s second smallest state but has long fascinated the world. It is known equally for its tax haven status, glamorous casinos and thriving sports scene with the annual Formula One and international tennis tournaments. The royal family adds to the intrigue with their high jinks perennially appearing in gossip magazines. At first glance, Monaco looks almost comically like something out of a fairytale. The city is full of charming alleyways with belle epoque architecture, replete with wrought iron swirls, perfectly manicured gardens and a prince’s palace set upon a hill. It could be a Disney film set. Those drawn to the thrills of Monte Carlo will be surprised by how small it is. The majority of the high-end luxury shopping is contained within one city block. The opera house and the Monte Carlo Casino are housed in the same building. The close quarters make it ideal for celebrity spotting, whether sipping an espresso at the famed Cafe de Paris or lounging in the lobby of the Hotel Hermitage. Indeed, it seems as if the entire city-state is a see-and-be-seen kind of place where no one feels embarrassed to be caught blatantly checking someone out.
The view from the Jardin Exotique 120
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Monaco Ville
Monte Carlo harbour
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TRAVEL
MUST SEE AND MUST DO MONTE CARLO CASINO AND MONACO OPERA HOUSE
JARDIN EXOTIQUE
Built by the famous architect Charles Garnier, both are contained in the same building. Live out your James Bond fantasies in the casino and then take your winnings for a box seat at the ballet. Don’t forget to look up at the ceiling of the auditorium to be blown away by the superb paintings.
Several thousand rare plants from around the world are presented in a walking tour that is as memorable for its views as it is for the flora and plants. There is also a cave with an impressive display of stalactites and stalagmites,t which can be visited with guides. Evidence of prehistoric human inhabitants have been found in the caves.
OCEANOGRAPHIC MUSEUM
MONACO CATHEDRAL
The cathedral was built in 1875 and stands on the site of a 13th century church. It is a Romanesque-Byzantine design dedicated to St Nicholas and is the burial ground for the remains of former princes of Monaco and Princess Grace. The church square also contains some of Monaco-Ville’s finest restaurants.
Images courtesy of Corbis / ArabianEye.com
Perched on a sheer cliff face, this museum is a worldrenowned attraction. With 4,000 species of fish and more than 200 families of invertebrates, the aquarium gives a comprehensive overview of Mediterranean and tropical marine ecosystems. The spectacular views from the rooftop terrace are unmissable.
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WHERE TO STAY MONTE CARLO BEACH HOTEL
Following a renovation spearheaded by interior designer India Madhavi, this iconic hotel has been given that perfect vintage 1950s Riviera look with just the right amount of quirk and kitsch. The restaurant Elsa, with executive chef Paolo Sari, is the only Michelin starred organic restaurant in the world. Avenue Princesse-Grace, from $1,058 per night
HOTEL HERMITAGE
The pale blue guest rooms, which open out onto fanciful wrought iron balconies with harbour views, are fit for a modern-day Marie Antoinette. The lobby’s art nouveau glass and steel cupola was designed by Gustave Eiffel. Guests are given an exclusive Cercle Monte-Carlo card, which provides access to the private beach, golf, tennis and Spa Thermes Marins Monte-Carlo. Square Beaumarchais, from $650 per night
VILLA LA VIGIE MONTE CARLO
Formerly the home of designer Karl Lagerfeld, this stunning villa with its panoramic view of the Mediterranean, the principality of Monaco and the bay of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin is available for rent year-round. Spread across three floors, it can accommodate up to 12 guests. If the decor doesn’t suit your taste, the furnishings can even be redone at the right price. Route de la Vigie, rates upon request
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LITTLE BLACK BOOK
LITTLE BLACK BOOK MONACO
A luxury travel guide to Monaco
Late night tipple Jimmy’z Sporting Monte-Carlo
At the heart of the Sporting Monte-Carlo complex, Jimmy’z is one of the world’s legendary nightclubs and hosts the Riviera’s most glamorous nights out on the town. Spacious yet intimate, Jimmy’z unique design and location by the sea has created a very special atmosphere, attracting the world’s biggest names to the turntables: Bob Sinclar, Axwell, Martin Solveig, David Morales and Boy George to name a few. 26 Avenue Princess Grace, +377 98 06 70 68
Best for people watching Cafe de Paris, Monte-Carlo
The Brasserie at the Cafe de Paris Monte-Carlo is the most popular venue for a rendezvous in Monaco. A warm welcome in a decor featuring belle epoque style windows, recalling the old Parisian bistros, creates a bright and friendly atmosphere. This is an ideal place for lunch or dinner with cuisine prepared by Chef JeanClaude Brugel, right on the legendary Place du Casino. Place du Casino, +377 98 06 76 23
Meat lovers Born of a European meat importer’s love for all things beef, Riccardo Giraurdi created the iconic Beef Bar and turned it into the world’s most fashionably steakhouse. A minimalist but equally grand space arranged in slatted dark wood panelling with a mix of rounded club chairs and more modern black leather seating that mixes elements of Christian Liagre and Patrick Jouin.Tumbled marble accents extend into the more playful lounge bar and a series of semi-private dining rooms privy to the most elite dining crowd in Monte-Carlo. 42 Quai Jean Charles Rey, +377 97 77 09 29 124
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Images courtesy of Getty Images
Beef Bar
LITTLE BLACK BOOK
For a lazy lunch Bouchon
Bouchon bistro is an archetypical French cafe in the heart of Monaco serving an impressive menu of classical food. There are traditional deep leather banquettes, old wooden chairs, mirrors, large pane windows, a zinc bar and the proverbial daily menu specials scratched on worn chalkboards. It’s located across the street from the Mediterranean and within walking distance of the Grimaldi Forum Monaco convention and exhibition centre. 11 Avenue Princess Grace, +377 97 77 08 80
Fine dining Le Louis XV
Images courtesy of Corbis / ArabianEye.com
tional food is the Elegant decor in which to enjoy some excep is where Alain newly renovated part of Hotel de Paris. This his new culinary ing Ducasse made a name for himself, impos rful skill and a maste ards, classicism, defined by exacting stand homage to the us fabulo A g. talkin the desire to let ingredients do Mediterranean. Place du Casino, +377 98 06 88 64
Sightseeing Heli Monaco
For a bird’s eye view of the tiny principality, take a helicopter ride. Whether for fun or practicality, the luxury ride guarantees the best views of the coastal hotspot. The quickest way to travel to Monaco is with Heli-Air Monaco, which operates helicopter services between Nice and Fontvieille. +377 92 05 00 50
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FASHION
Eyeglasses, Thom Browne, MrPorter.com, $500
BACK TO WORK
Bag, Christian Louboutin, Mall of the Emirates, $2,150
With summer nearly over and a return to the office looming, these looks will take you from the boardroom to the bar Tie, Alexander McQueen, MrPorter.com, $165
Cashmere scarf, Pal Zilieri, $503
Python shoes, Christian Louboutin, Mall of the Emirates, price on request
Jacket, Etro, MrPorter.com, $1660
Cufflinks, Salvatore Ferragamo, $235
Crocodile backpack, Santiago Gonzalez, MrPorter.com, $5,500
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Cotton cardigan, Junya Watanabe, MrPorter.com, $520
FASHION
Gucci
Gucci
Burberry Prosum
Bag, Bottega Veneta, $4,140
Images courtesy of Corbis / ArabianEye.com
Silk tie, Lanvin, MrPorter.com, $165
Cashmere cardigan, Tomas Maier, MrPorter.com, $925 Shoes, Christian Louboutin, Mall of the Emirates, $405
Cufflinks, Monica Vinader, Boutique One, $376
Belt, Salvatore Ferragamo, $353
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HOROLOGY
PIAGET ALTIPLANO
GET SLIM
The sleekest ultra-thin watches
BLANCPAIN VILLERET ULTRAPLATE
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PATEK PHILIPPE CALATRAVA
JAEGER-LECOULTRE MASTER ULTRA THIN
ZENITH ELITE ULTRA THIN
Š Photos courtesy of Aziz Ahmed
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Delivering capacity in Ecology
UNESCO Liaison Office in Addis Ababa with the AU and UNECA Phone: +251 935 40 35 99 Fax: +251-11 551 1414 www.unesco.org/new/en/addisababa UNECA Building, 1st floor, new building P O Box 1177, Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
.Involve. Evolve. Empower
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NICOLE KIDMAN’S CHOICE
Available at:
OMEGA Boutiques - Dubai: BurJuman • Deira City Centre • Dubai Mall • Dubai Festival City • Mall of the Emirates • Mina A'Salam • Mirdif City Centre • Sahara Centre • Wafi and at select Rivoli Stores. Abu Dhabi: Marina Mall • Yas Marina • Toll Free: 800-RIVOLI 130 SEP / OCT 2015