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2018, Italy

Bilderberg 2018: Turin, June 7-10

The influential Bilderberg policy summit is this year being held in Turin, from June 7th to 10th.

Taking part in this year’s conference are a large number of senior politicians and public figures, including the Secretary General of NATO and the Prime Ministers of Holland, Belgium, Serbia and Estonia.

Also attending are the King of Holland, the Deputy Prime Ministers of Spain and Turkey, the German Defence Minister, and the Secretary of State of the Vatican.

Top of the conference agenda for these politicians is “Populism in Europe”, the rise of which is obviously troubling for the intensely pro-EU Bilderberg group. They will also be discussing such geopolitical issues as “Russia”, “Saudi Arabia and Iran”, and “US world leadership”.

With the world on the edge of war, the US is sending the Director of Net Assessment at the US Defence Dept., James H. Baker, whose job is to weigh up the military capabilities of America and its ‘competition’.

From the world of finance, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, is heading to Turin, along with his Dutch counterpart, Klaas Knot. They’ll be discussing “Free Trade” with the President of the World Economic Foundation, Børge Brende, and the Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy.

The former UK Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, is invited, along with the former UK Chancellor George Osborne, in his capacity as Editor of the Evening Standard. Osborne recently took a senior advisory role at Exor, the holding company for the Agnelli billions.

The Chairman of Exor, John Elkann, is on Bilderberg’s steering committee, which is run by the Vice-Chairman of Nestlé, Henri de Castries. It is big year for Elkann, as he is effectively hosting this year’s conference in Turin.

Corporate leaders invited to Turin include the CEOs of Shell, Airbus, Vodafone and Total, billionaire financiers such as Henry Kravis of KKR, and the CEO of ICONIQ Capital — the silicon valley investment fund linked to Mark Zuckerberg.

High tech is high on the agenda, with “Artificial intelligence” and “Quantum computing” being discussed by leaders from the sector, such as Demis Hassabis the head of Google’s DeepMind project, and AI expert Tim Hwang.

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2018, Italy

Bilderberg and the Agnellis

The official Bilderberg website has a list of current and former members of the Steering Committee.  However, there is no mention in the list of the flamboyant billionaire industralist Giovanni ‘Gianni’ Agnelli (1921-2003). The absence of L’Avvocato is absolutely extraordinary, given the central role that he and FIAT have played within the history of Bilderberg.

The links between FIAT and Bilderberg date back to the Group’s origins in the early 1950s. Vittorio Valletta, who was president of FIAT for two decades from 1946 until 1966 was part of the Italian delegation that participated in the first transatlantic meeting, in 1954. Valletta attended again in 1955, and helped organize, on behalf of FIAT, the sixth Bilderberg Conference, held at the Hotel Palazzo della Fonte, in Fiuggi, in 1957, which he did not attend for family reasons.

Enter Gianni

The 1957 meeting in Italy is the first of the thirty-six Bilderberg Conferences in which Giovanni ‘Gianni’ Agnelli takes part: it is the debut on the international scene of the dashing aesthete with a magnetic charm and a devastating smile. Quickly bored, Gianni lives at a thousand miles per hour, fascinated by art, women, architecture, cars, football and politics —  especially international relations.

His assiduous interest in the Bilderberg Group’s activities ensures that Gianni Agnelli is soon identified as the ideal candidate to take one of the two Italian chairs in the Steering Committee. Shortly after the 1958 conference, Gianni was invited to a meeting of the ‘Enlarged Steering Committee’ — the first time that Agnelli had access to the backstage of Bilderberg.

But it is not until the early years of the next decade that Giovanni Agnelli finds himself fully involved in the activities of the International Steering Committee. On 20 November 1962, he is invited him to a meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Group aimed at defining the agenda of the Bilderberg Conference of 1963 in Cannes. The Cannes conference is the first at which Agnelli took part as a full member of the Steering Committee.

Before long, Gianni became a business partner and friend of one of the most influential people in the history of Bilderberg, the American banker David Rockefeller. The two shared many ideas besides the love of sailing and the same conception of world order, and were instrumental in making Bilderberg more business oriented. He also became enamoured of young strategist and intellectual, a protégé of the Rockeller brothers — Henry Kissinger. Over time, they formed a friendship that became an anchor of stability in their respective lives. As Henry Kissinger wrote, in a foreword to a book on his friend:

“During the last two decades of his life, no one was closer to me than Gianni Agnelli. We spoke on the telephone three or four times a week and whenever something interesting happened in either of our lives. We spent time together when either of us traveled to the other’s country, which was every month or so.”

In 1981, Gianni Agnelli was co-opted in the Advisory Board (a sort of Bilderberg Hall of Fame), reflecting his commitment to the Group.

Bilderberg and FIAT

In an article La Repubblica in 2013, Giuliano Balestreri observed that most of the Italians who have been co-opted in the Steering Committee from 1960 to today have at one point or another seen their personal interests allied with those of FIAT:

  • Paolo Zannoni had most of his career in FIAT, holding important positions including: president of FIAT Washington Inc.; representative of FIAT in the Soviet Union; and senior vice-president for the development of international affairs of the FIAT group.
  • Career diplomat, Gian Gaspare Cittadini Cesi became CEO of FIAT France after going to rest.
  • Renato Ruggiero was responsible for the international relations of the FIAT group between 1991 and 1995, after having held the position of Minister of Foreign Trade and before becoming Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
  • Mario Monti was co-opted on the Board of Directors of FIAT Auto SpA in 1988, at the age of 45.
  • Franco Bernabè debuts his career in the private sector in FIAT, where he joined in 1978 as chief economist at the planning office. He then became director of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCA).
  • Tommaso Padoa Schioppa was co-opted on the board of directors of FIAT Industrial on December 15, 2010. Three days later he died as a result of cardiac arrest.

After Gianni, John

Gianni’s younger brother, Umberto, was invited to his first Bilderberg Conference in 1983, and ended up joining Gianni on the Group’s Steering Committee. Umberto died in 2004, a year after Gianni, forcing the then 28-year-old grandson of Gianni, John Elkann, to oversee the family’s investment in FIAT. Elkann was invited to attend his first Bilderberg Conference in 2005, in his capacity as Vice President of the FIAT Group. To quote a Reuters article from 2012:

When he inherited Fiat, Elkann got much more than a company. Just as General Motors and Ford have shaped America, Fiat’s history is tightly entwined with Italy’s transformation from a poor agricultural nation to a top industrial power.

John Elkann was invited to joined the Steering Committee in 2015, the same year as the journalist Lilli Gruber. And it is Elkann who is acting as the principal host of the 2018 Bilderberg conference in Turin, the longtime home of Fiat and the Agnellis.

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conference

Bilderberg and public opinion: “they must try to think the same way”

Part of the Bilderberg Group archives are deposited in the National Archives of the Netherlands. Only the documents older than fifty years are available to view, so only archives from 1952 to 1968 can currently be accessed. In spite of this restriction, these documents are an extraordinary source of information for any researcher who aspires to answer the questions: who founded the Group? When? How? And above all, why?

“The Bilderberg Conference is a private initiative aimed at building popular support for the Atlantic Alliance and its policies”.

This is how the Group defines its activity in a 1954 preparatory document for the first transatlantic meeting. The document sets out the method it is hoped will achieve this goal of “building popular support for the Atlantic Alliance and its policies”:

“The Conference will not aim to elaborate solutions to different problems faced by the Atlantic Alliance. This work is up to governments. The Conference will study the repercussions of these problems on public opinion, and the ways in which this can be favorably influenced (…). We believe that at the current time (…), the task of the individual (participants) is to act on the public opinion of their country to help it tune in as much as possible with those of the other countries of the Atlantic Alliance.”

The key phrase is “public opinion”, and the primary task of participants is to influence it. On the occasion of his inaugural speech at the first Bilderberg Conference, the President of the Group, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, reiterated this idea in a broader sense:

“Because the free countries of Europe, the United States and Canada must act as a unit, they must try to think the same way. This is a long-term process. But in the meantime, we must strive to eliminate the friction and misunderstanding that exists in the Western world.”

Likewise, during a meeting of the Steering Committee that took place in Paris on December 6, 1954, the leading Italian politician Amintore Fanfani drew the attention of his colleagues to the “acute need to lead public opinion, which, in some countries, is particularly confused”.

This desire to nurture a unity of thought within the transatlantic community is talked about in the minutes of the second Bilderberg Conference, which took place in Barbizon, France, in March 1955. Participants are reminded that their goal is to give life to “a unity of conception between the United States and Western Europe”, and that:

“more necessary than anything else is a better organization of contacts between America and Western Europe at all levels where public opinion is formed: government, parliamentary bodies and the press”.

Again, the overriding concern is the shaping and unifying of “public opinion” by nurturing a “unity of conception” amongst the kind of people that are known nowadays as ‘thought leaders’.

It appears, from the archives, that the Group was also conceived as a kind of prototypical business incubator at the service of the Western Alliance. In the final report of the third transatlantic meeting, which took place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in September 1955, one can read:

“The Bilderberg Conferences do not intend to define a policy or recommend any type of governmental action. However, when a consensus emerges among the participants on a positive action that could and should be carried out to strengthen the objectives of Western unity, the group is obliged to take any action that will allow it to be concretized by any other more appropriate organization.”

The following year, Retinger reiterated this principle in a pamphlet entitled ‘The Bilderberg Group’, in which he narrates the genesis of the project and paints its purposes. In this, the Group’s Godfather wrote:

“We have found that an exchange of views is very helpful, and may sometimes produce new ideas, and that in a way the group may be a factory of initiative. We decided, however, that none of the new ideas and initiatives would be developed by the group, but that they should be passed on to some persons or organization who could further develop them.”

This principle of concretizing “new ideas and intiatives” outside Bilderberg helps explain a number of offshoots from the Group. The best-known of these is probably the Trilateral Commission. But, according to Jean-Louis Gergoring, the same could be said of the EADS industrial conglomerate, now called Airbus Group.

This practice also sheds light on the words of George C. McGhee, the former US ambassador (and unnamed member of the Group), when he stated that the Treaties of Rome, which gave life to the European Economic Community and Euratom, were the fruit of discussions that took place during the first Bilderberg Conferences.

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2018, France

Henri de Castries on Macron

Henri de Castries, who is Vice-Chairman of Nestlé, a director of HSBC, and Chairman of Bilderberg’s Steering Committee, has spoken about Emmanual Macron’s first year in office.

In a report produced by the influential French think-tank the Institut Montaigne, of which he is the President, Henri de Castries declares that Macron has had “a strong start”, and that with Macron at its helm, “France is back on the international arena”.

“It’s good to have for the first time in years, a French president able to articulate a very deep and very structured European vision.”

In a further statement from the report, the Institut Montaigne says:

“The President’s pro-European agenda and his firmness on the aforementioned subjects, which both contrast strongly with the political instability prevailing elsewhere in Europe, have been unambiguous.”

Contributors to this report include the lawyer Nicolas Baverez, who is a director of the Institut Montaigne and a regular at Bilderberg (until recently he was on the group’s steering committee), and the CEO of the institute, Laurent Bigorgne, who attended the Bilderberg conference in 2015.

The relationship between Macron’s party En Marche, the Institut Montaigne and Bilderberg has always been intimate. At the very beginning of Macron’s rise to power,  En Marche was using Laurent Bigorgne’s private house as a contact address and his partner (Véronique Bolhuis) as a contact.

And Emmanuel Macron himself, a few years before becoming President, attended the 2014 Bilderberg conference in Copenhagen, back when he was Deputy Secretary General of the Presidency. Also attending that year were Nicolas Baverez and Monsieur de Castries.

It is also worth noting that among the Institut Montaigne’s impressive roster of Special Advisors, you can a number of Bilderberg conference alumni, including: Jean-Dominique Senard (2012, & ’13); Patrick Calvar (2015) and Dominique Moïsi (1999 & 2002).

Senard, who is the Vice-President and CEO of Michelin, also sits on the board of directors of the Institut Montaigne. Here is Senard, in January 2018, welcoming his young President to the Michelin factory:

Historical note: the Institut Montaigne was founded in 2000 by Claude Bébéar, the head of insurance and finance giant AXA. This was the year that Henri de Castries, Bébéar’s protégé at AXA, took over the management of the company.

In 2015, in a similar passing of the baton, Henri de Castries took over from his mentor Bébéar as president the Institut Montaigne.

Bébéar was a supporter of Macron in the French presidential election. He said that it was the first time ever that he’d revealed his political leanings, and praised Macron for his pro-European vision.

One last thing: Claude Bébéar is also a Bilderberg alumnus. He attended the 1995 conference in Zurich. The ties between Bilderberg, AXA, the Institut Montaigne and Macron run deep.

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2018

Bilderberg & Brookings

One of the oldest and most influential think tanks is the Washington-based Brookings Institution, a “public policy organization” which is committed, in its own words, to finding “practical solutions to the most vexing policy challenges facing society”. And over the decades, the Brookings Institution and its fellow elite policy group, Bilderberg, have become closely intertwined.

The 2017 Bilderberg conference in Chantilly was attended by Leon Wieseltier, a senior fellow at Brookings, and two members of the Brookings Institution’s current board of trustees: the head of Deutsche Bank, Paul Achleitner, and the head of Lazard, Kenneth M. Jacobs. It is the job of the the trustees to ensure the “scholarly independence” of Brookings.

Besides being Brookings trustees and running banks, Jacobs and Achleitner are also members of the inner circle of Bilderberg: the group’s steering committee.

Over the years, a considerable number of Bilderberg steering committee members have also been trustees of Brookings, including Klaus Kleinfeld, James Wolfensohn, Thomas Donilon, Vernon Jordan, Jessica T. Mathews and James A. Johnson (who was chairman of the Brookings board of trustees).

James A. Johnson, who is a director of Goldman Sachs, is also on the advisory board of the Hamilton Project: an economic policy unit at Brookings. Other advisors to the Hamilton Project include Bilderberg steering committee member Eric Schmidt (the former Executive Chairman of Google) and longtime Bilderberg attendees Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin and Timothy Geithner.

Another policy unit within Brookings is the John L. Thornton China Center, which is run by two-time Bilderberg attendee Cheng Li (2012 & 2014). The Center is named after the former Goldman Sachs CEO John L. Thornton, who was named chairman of the board of trustees at Brookings in 2003 and attended Bilderberg 9 times from 1999 to 2014.

The International Advisory Council of Brookings includes the Swedish billionaire Marcus Wallenberg, who sits on Bilderberg’s steering committee, and also Royal Dutch Shell, which has been one of the most important corporations at Bilderberg since its founding.

In the early 1980s, the then president of Brookings, Bruce K. MacLaury, was a regular attendee at Bilderberg, and also sat on the group’s steering committee. And the current president of Brookings, John R. Allen, attended the Bilderberg conference in 2015, back when he was a special presidential envoy for the State Department.

The Bilderberg conference and Brookings are both best understood as part of a much wider matrix of elite political and economic influence, which includes governmental advisory groups, think tanks, policy institutes and corporate lobby groups. These would include such groups as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Trilateral Commission, the Ford Foundation, the Aspen Institute, the Ditchley Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations and the European Round Table of Industrialists.

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2017, USA

2017 Bilderberg Conference: Chantilly, June 1-4

The 2017 Bilderberg Conference will take place in Chantilly, Virginia, USA, from June 1st to 4th. The influential and intensely private four-day event will take place behind tight security at the luxury Westfields Marriott hotel.

The Sully District police of Fairfax County confirmed on May 17th that the police security operation based around on the Westfields Marriott hotel would last from the 31st May to the 4th June. The date and location of the 2017 conference was subsequently confirmed by the Bilderberg Group’s website.

A police spokesperson also added that neither Stonecroft Boulevard or Conference Center Drive would be closed off for the duration of the Bilderberg Conference owing to the large number of businesses operating in the area. The security operation would be managed from the Sully district police headquarters on Stonecroft Boulevard.

The Westfields Marriott hotel nestles pleasantly amongst aerospace and arms company headquarters, about 40km west of Washington DC. Sully district police confirmed that there would be the possibility to view and take pictures of cars arriving into the Westfield Marriott gates but that no facilities for press would be provided.

The Bilderberg Conference was founded back in 1954, as a way for publicly elected officials and intelligence chiefs to share ideas about the future of America and Europe with financiers, energy company bosses and major industrialists, away from the glare of publicity.

And to this day, the conference gives high-level politicians the chance to mingle freely, away from the prying eyes of the press, with bank bosses, Silicon Valley billionaires, hedge fund owners, and corporate CEOs. The chance to share ideas and shape policy for the western world, with a refreshing lack of press scrutiny.

It is not known yet whether President Trump will attend the Chantilly conference, but former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a pivotal figure at Bilderberg, visited the President earlier this month, possibly to extend an invitation. And Bilderberg Steering Committee member Peter Thiel is a trusted Trump advisor and campaign donor.

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2016

2016 Bilderberg Conference: Dresden, June 9-12

The 2016 Bilderberg conference will take place from June 9-12 in Dresden, Germany.  The conference venue is the five-star Taschenbergpalais Hotel.

BB2016 Hotel Pic 400x400

The Taschenbergpalais Hotel is located just south of the river, in Dresden’s historic city centre, the “Innere Altstadt”:

dresdensmallerr

Travel Information

For anyone wishing to travel to Dresden for the conference, here is some information about reaching the venue:

By plane

Dresden International Airport is about 6 miles away from the hotel. The journey takes about 20 to 30 minutes by car, depending on traffic, and will cost about €30 in a taxi.

By train

Dresden’s main rail station is about two and a half miles from the hotel (about ten minutes by car), and is connected to the hotel via the number 8 tram route (which takes about eight minutes).

By car

Exit the A4 highway at “Dresden-Altstadt”. Follow route B6 to the city centre. Follow signs saying “Hotel Route B” through the city centre: they will lead you right to Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski.

By tram

The nearest tram stops to Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski are Theaterplatz, Postplatz and Neumarkt.

For more information,  visit the hotel’s official website.

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2015

Participants, Bilderberg 2015

Telfs-Buchen, Austria, 11-14 June, 2015

** = member of Steering Committee

 

** Paul Achleitner (Germany)

  • Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
  • Supervisory Board, Daimler AG
  • Supervisory Board, Bayer AG
  • Trustee, Brookings Institution
  • Advisory Council, Munich Security Conference

 

** Marcus Agius (UK)

  • Non-Executive Chairman, PA Consulting Group

 

Thomas Ahrenkiel (Denmark)

  • Director, Danish Intelligence Service (DDIS)

 

John R Allen (US)

  • Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, US Department of State

 

** Roger C. Altman (US)

  • Executive Chairman, Evercore
  • Advisory Council, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution
  • Member, Council on Foreign Relations

 

Anne Applebaum (Poland)

  • Director of Transitions Forum, Legatum Institute
  • Columnist, Washington Post

 

** Matti Apunen (Finland)

  • Director, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA

 

Zoë Baird (US)

  • CEO and President, Markle Foundation
  • Board of Directors, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Member, Aspen Strategy Group
  • Board of Directors, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies
  • Former member, Cyber Awareness and Response Panel, NSA Advisory Board (2010-2011)

 

Ed Balls (UK)

  • Former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

 

** Francisco Pinto Balsemão (Portugal)

  • Chairman, Impresa SGPS
  • International Advisory Board, Santander

 

** José Manuel Barroso (Portugal)

  • Former President of the European Commission

 

**Nicolas Baverez (France)

  • Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
  • Board of Directors, Institut Montaigne

 

René Benko (Austria)

  • Founder, SIGNA Holding GmbH
  • Tyrolean of the Year, 2011

 

**Franco Bernabè (Italy)

  • Chairman, FB Group SRL

 

Ben van Beurden (Holland)

  • CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists
  • Board of Directors, Peterson Institute for International Economics

 

Laurent Bigorgne (France)

  • Director, Institut Montaigne

 

Laurence Boone (France)

  • Special Adviser on Financial and Economic Affairs to the President
  • Board of Directors, Kering (luxury goods)

 

Ana P. Botín (Spain)

  • Chairman, Banco Santander
  • Board of Directors, Coca-Cola

 

**Svein Richard Brandtzæg (Norway)

  • President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists

 

Oscar Bronner (Austria)

  • Publisher, Standard Verlagsgesellschaft

 

William Burns (US)

  • President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  • Global Advisory Board, Macro Advisory Partners

 

Patrick Calvar (France)

  • Director General, DGSI

 

**Henry de Castries (France)  –  Chairman, Steering Committee

  • Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings
  • Chairman and CEO, AXA Group
  • Board of Directors, Nestlé
  • Scientific Committee, Bosphorus Institute
  • Advisory Board, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management
  • Advisory Board, Focusing Capital on the Long Term

 

**Juan Luis Cebrián (Spain)

  • Executive Chairman, Grupo PRISA
  • Trustee, Paley Center for Media

 

**W. Edmund Clark (Canada)

  • Retired Executive, TD Bank Group
  • Trustee, Brookings Institution

 

Benoît Coeuré (International)

  • Executive Board, European Central Bank
  • Governing Council, European Central Bank
  • Member, Financial Stability Board

 

Andrew Coyne (Canada)

  • Editor, Editorials and Comment, National Post

 

Mikael L. Damberg (Sweden)

  • Minister for Enterprise and Innovation

 

Karel De Gucht (Belgian)

  • Former EU Trade Commissioner
  • State Minister
  • Fellow, Belfer Center, Harvard

 

Jeroen Dijsselbloem (Holland)

  • Minister of Finance
  • Board of Governors, European Stability Mechanism

 

Thomas E. Donilon (US)

  • Former U.S. National Security Advisor
  • Partner and Vice Chair, O’Melveny & Myers LLP
  • Member, Aspen Strategy Group
  • Senior Fellow, Belfer Center, Harvard
  • North American Group, Trilateral Commission

 

Mathias Döpfner (Germany)

  • CEO, Axel Springer SE
  • Board of Directors, Vodafone
  • Board of Directors, Time Warner
  • Board of Directors, Warner Music Group, USA
  • Board of Directors, RHJ International asset management
  • Global Board of Advisors, Council on Foreign Relations
  • International Advisory Board, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University

 

Ann Dowling (UK)

  • Board of Directors, BP
  • Board of Directors, Department for Business Innovation & Skills, UK
  • President, Royal Academy of Engineering

 

Regina Dugan (US)

  • Vice President for Engineering, Advanced Technology and Projects, Google
  • Director, DARPA (2009-2012)
  • Board of Directors, Zynga (gaming)

 

Trine Eilertsen (Norway)

  • Political Editor, Aftenposten

 

Merete Eldrup (Denmark)

  • CEO, TV 2 Danmark A/S

 

John Elkann (Italy)

  • Chairman and CEO, EXOR; Chairman, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
  • Board of Directors, Economist Group
  • Board of Directors, News Corp.
  • European Group, Trilateral Commission
  • International Advisory Council, Brookings Institution
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists

 

**Thomas Enders (Germany)

  • CEO, Airbus Group
  • Advisory Council, Munich Security Conference
  • International Advisory Board, Atlantic Council
  • Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group

 

Mary Erdoes (US)

  • CEO, JPMorgan Asset Management

 

Rona Fairhead (UK)

  • Board of Directors, HSBC
  • Board of Directors, PepsiCo
  • Chairman, BBC Trust
  • British Business Ambassador (UKTI)

 

**Ulrik Federspiel (Denmark)

  • Executive Vice President, Haldor Topsøe A/S
  • Chairman, Karnaphuli Fertilizer Company

 

Martin S. Feldstein (US)]

  • International Council, JPMorgan
  • Board of Directors, Council on Foreign Relations
  • North American Group, Trilateral Commission
  • Senior Member, Group of Thirty
  • President Emeritus, NBER; Professor of Economics, Harvard University
  • Board member, Belfer Center, Harvard

 

Niall Ferguson (US)

  • Board of Directors, AMG asset management
  • Managing Director, Greenmantle (macroeconomic/geopolitical advisors)
  • Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
  • Professor of History, Harvard University
  • Board member, Belfer Center, Harvard

 

Heinz Fischer (Austria)

  • Federal President

 

Douglas Flint (UK)

  • Group Chairman, HSBC
  • Chairman, Board of Directors, Institute for International Finance
  • Board of Directors, Peterson Institute for International Economics
  • British Business Ambassador (UKTI)
  • International Advisory Board, BritishAmerican Business

 

Christoph Franz (Switzerland)

  • Chairman, Roche Holding
  • Vice-Chairman, Swiss International Air Lines
  • Board of Directors, Zurich Insurance Group
  • Board of Directors, Stadler Rail AG
  • Board of Directors, Lufthansa Technik AG

 

Louise Fresco (Holland)

  • Board of Directors, Unilever
  • Member, Trilateral Commission
  • President and Chairman Executive Board, Wageningen University and Research Centre

 

Kenneth Griffin (USA)

  • Founder and CEO, Citadel Investment Group

 

Lilli Gruber (Italy)

  • Executive Editor and Anchor “Otto e mezzo”, La7 TV

 

Sergei Guriev (Russia)

  • Professor of Economics, Sciences Po
  • Co-chair, Global Agenda Council on New Models of Economic Thinking, World Economic Forum

 

Gönenç Gürkaynak (Turkey)

  • Managing Partner, ELIG Law Firm

 

Alfred Gusenbauer (Austria)

  • Chairman, STRABAG construction company
  • Board of Directors, Gabriel Resources (mining company)
  • Chairman, Supervisory Board, CUDOS capital
  • Former Chancellor of the Republic

 

**Victor Halberstadt

  • Board of International Advisors, Goldman Sachs Group
  • Professor of Economics, Leiden University
  • Board of trustees, Population Council
  • Board of Overseers, Koç University

 

Erich Hampel (Austria)

  • Chairman, UniCredit Bank Austria AG

 

Demis Hassabis (UK)

  • Vice President of Engineering, Google DeepMind

 

Wolfgang Hesoun (Austria)

  • CEO, Siemens Austria
  • President, Federation of Austrian Industries (Vienna)

 

Philipp Hildebrand (Switzerland)

  • Vice Chairman, BlackRock Inc.
  • Member, Group of Thirty
  • Former head of Swiss National Bank (2010-2012)

 

Reid Hoffman (US)

  • Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn
  • Partner, Greylock Partners (venture capital)
  • Strategic Advisor, New Cycle Capital (venture capital)

 

Wolfgang Ischinger (International)

  • Chairman, Munich Security Conference
  • European Advisory Board, Investcorp Bank (investment management)
  • Supervisory Board, Allianz Germany AG
  • European Group, Trilateral Commission
  • Advisory Board, Centre for European Reform
  • Board of Directors, Atlantic Council
  • Member, European Council on Foreign Relations
  • Chair, Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project, OSCE
  • Associate Fellow, Geneva Centre for Security Policy

 

**Kenneth M. Jacobs (US)

  • Chairman and CEO, Lazard
  • Trustee, Brookings Institution
  • Member, Council on Foreign Relations

 

Julia Jäkel (Germany)

  • CEO, Gruner + Jahr (Europe’s largest printing company)

 

**James A. Johnson (US)

  • Board of Directors, Goldman Sachs
  • Chairman, Johnson Capital Partners
  • Board of Directors, Forestar Inc (real estate / oil & gas)
  • Advisory Council, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution
  • International Council, Belfer Center, Harvard

 

Alain Juppé (France)

  • Mayor of Bordeaux
  • Former Prime Minister
  • Scientific Committee, Bosphorus Institute

 

Joe Kaeser (Germany)

  • President and CEO, Siemens AG
  • Supervisory Board, Daimler AG
  • Supervisory Board, Allianz Germany AG
  • International Council, JPMorgan
  • Board of Directors, NXP Semiconductors NV
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists

 

**Alex Karp (US)

  • CEO, Palantir Technologies
  • Board of Directors, RoboteX

 

Gilles Kepel (France)

  • University Professor, Sciences Po

 

**Sir John Kerr, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (UK)

  • Deputy Chairman, Scottish Power
  • Board of Directors, Scottish American Investment Company plc
  • Executive Committee & European Group, Trilateral Commission
  • Advisory Board, Centre for European Reform
  • Vice President, Advisory Council, European Policy Centre
  • Advisory Council & Senior European Experts group, British Influence

 

Ilhan Kesici (Turkey)

  • MP, Turkish Parliament

 

Henry Kissinger (US)

  • Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
  • International Council, JPMorgan
  • Board of Directors, Continental Grain Company
  • Board of Directors, Theranos (blood analysis)
  • Director Emeritus, Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc
  • Defense Policy Board (US Dept. of Defense)
  • Lifetime Trustee, Trilateral Commission
  • Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
  • Board of Directors, Atlantic Council
  • Board of Directors, American Council on Germany
  • Principal, Nuclear Security Project
  • Vice Chair, National Committee on United States – China Relations
  • Trustee, Paley Center for Media
  • Honorary Council of Advisors, US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce

 

**Klaus Kleinfeld (US)

  • Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
  • Board of Directors, Morgan Stanley
  • Board of Directors, Hewlett-Packard
  • Trustee, Brookings Institution
  • Foundation Board, World Economic Forum
  • Chairman, US-Russia Business Council
  • Board of Directors, American Council on Germany

 

Klaas H.W. Knot (Holland)

  • President, De Nederlandsche Bank
  • Governing Council, European Central Bank
  • General Council, European Central Bank
  • Member, Financial Stability Board
  • Board of Directors, Bank for International Settlements
  • Board of Governors, IMF
  • European Group, Trilateral Commission

 

**Mustafa V. Koç (Turkey)

  • Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
  • International Council, JPMorgan
  • Vice-Chairman, Tüpraş (oil refining)
  • Chairman, Tofaş (automobiles)
  • International Advisory Board, Rolls-Royce
  • Chairman, Turkish Industry and Business Association
  • Global Board of Advisors, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Advisory Board, Holdingham Group (Hakluyt)
  • Scientific Committee, Bosphorus Institute

 

Konrad Kogler (Austria)

  • Director General, Directorate General for Public Security

 

Henry R. Kravis (US)

  • Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
  • Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, Rockefeller University
  • Advisory Board, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management
  • Board of Directors, First Data

 

**Marie-Josée Kravis (US)

  • Supervisory Board, Publicis Groupe
  • Board of Directors, LMVH
  • International Advisory Committee, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
  • Senior Fellow and Vice Chair, Board of Trustees, Hudson Institute

 

**André Kudelski (Switzerland)

  • Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group
  • Vice Chairman, Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce
  • Board of Directors, HSBC Private Banking Holdings (Suisse)

 

Kurt Lauk (Germany)

  • President, Globe Capital Partners
  • Senior Advisor, McLarty Associates
  • Board of Directors, Magna (automotive)
  • European Group, Trilateral Commission

 

Carola Lemne (Sweden)

  • CEO, The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise
  • Board of Directors, Getinge Group (healthcare)

 

Stuart Levey (USA)

  • Chief Legal Officer, HSBC Holdings plc

 

Ursula von der Leyen (Germany)

  • Minister of Defence

 

**Thomas Leysen (Belgium)

  • Chairman of the Board of Directors, KBC Group (banking, insurance)
  • Chairman, Umicore (materials, mining)
  • Executive Committee, Trilateral Commission
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists
  • European Group, Trilateral Commission
  • Member, European Council on Foreign Relations

 

Shiraz Maher (UK)

  • Senior Research Fellow, ICSR, King’s College London

 

Christina Markus Lassen (Denmark)

  • Head of Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Security Policy and Stabilisation

 

**Jessica T. Mathews (US)

  • Distinguished Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  • Member, Aspen Strategy Group
  • Member, President and Fellows, Harvard Corporation
  • Advisory Council, Transparency International USA
  • Board of Directors, Nuclear Threat Initiative (part of Nuclear Security Project)

 

James Mattis (US)

  • Board of Directors, General Dynamics
  • Board of Directors, Theranos (blood analysis)
  • Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
  • Board of Directors, Center for a New American Security

 

Pierre Maudet (Switzerland)

  • Vice-President of the State Council, Department of Security, Police and the Economy of Geneva

 

David I McKay (Canada)

  • President and CEO, Royal Bank of Canada

 

Nuray Mert (Turkey)

  • Columnist, Professor of Political Science, Istanbul University

 

Jim Messina (US)

  • CEO, The Messina Group
  • Board of Directors, Vectra (cybersecurity)
  • Board of Directors, LanzaTech (energy)
  • Board of Directors, Hyperloop (transportation)
  • Board of Directors, Opower (energy software)

 

Charles Michel (Belgium)

  • Prime Minister

 

John Micklethwait (US)

  • Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg LP
  • International Advisory Board, BritishAmerican Business

 

Zanny Minton Beddoes (UK)

  • Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
  • Board of Directors, Economist Group
  • International Advisory Board, BritishAmerican Business
  • Research Advisory Board, Committee for Economic Development

 

**Mario Monti (Italy)

  • Executive Committee & Honorary European Chairman, Trilateral Commission
  • International Advisory Board, American European Business Association
  • Advisory Board, Centre for European Reform
  • Senator-for-life
  • President, Bocconi University
  • Honorary President, Bruegel (think tank)
  • International Advisory Council, ICC Research Foundation

 

Leena Mörttinen (Finland)

  • Executive Director, The Finnish Family Firms Association

 

**Craig J. Mundie (US)

  • Principal, Mundie & Associates
  • Board of Directors, Institute for Systems Biology
  • President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
  • Advisory Board, AuroSense Therapeutics

 

Heather Munroe-Blum (Canada)

  • Board of Directors, Royal Bank of Canada
  • Chair, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
  • North American Group, Trilateral Commission
  • President’s Council, New York Academy of Sciences

 

H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands (Holland)

  • Shareholder, Royal Dutch Shell

 

Michael O’Leary (Ireland)

  • CEO, Ryanair Plc

 

George Osborne (UK)

  • First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer
  • Board of Governors, IMF
  • Board of Governors, European Investment Bank

 

Soli Özel (Turkey)

  • Columnist, Haberturk Newspaper
  • Senior Lecturer, Kadir Has University

 

Dimitri Papalexopoulos (Greece)

  • Group CEO, Titan Cement Co.
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists

 

Catherine Pégard (France)

  • President, Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles

 

**Richard N. Perle (US)

  • Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
  • Defense Policy Board (US Dept. of Defense)
  • Board of Directors, New Health Sciences
  • International Patron, Henry Jackson Society
  • Board of advisors, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
  • Board of Trustees, US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce

 

David H. Petraeus (US)

  • Partner, KKR (private equity)
  • Chairman, KKR Global Institute
  • Former Director, CIA
  • Non-resident Senior Fellow, Belfer Center, Harvard
  • Senior Vice President, Royal United Services Institute

 

Panagiotis Pikrammenos (Greece)

  • Honorary President of The Hellenic Council of State
  • Vice President, Citizens’ Movement for an Open Society

 

**Heather M. Reisman (Canada)

  • Board of Directors, Onex (asset management)
  • Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.

 

Gianfelice Rocca (Italy)

  • Chairman, Techint Group
  • International Advisory Board, Allianz
  • Board of Directors, Allianz (Italy)
  • Board of Directors, Tenaris (manufacturing)
  • Board of Directors, Ternium (manufacturing)
  • Board of Directors, Buzzi Unichem (cement/aggregates)
  • Board of Directors, Brembo (manufacturing)
  • Chairman, Italian Institute of Technology
  • Governing Board, European Institute of Innovation and Technology
  • Executive Committee, Aspen Institute (Italy)
  • President, Assolombarda (Milan industry)
  • European Group, Trilateral Commission

 

Gerhard Roiss (Austria)

  • Chairman, OMV Petrol Ofisi (2nd largest private company in Turkey)
  • Chairman, Board of Directors, PETROM
  • Board of Directors, Sulzer (manufacturing)
  • CEO, OMV Austria (has since stepped down)
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists

 

Robert E. Rubin (US)

  • Counselor, Centerview Partners (investment/banking advisors)
  • Co Chair, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Former Secretary of the Treasury
  • Advisory Council, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution
  • North American Advisory Board, London School of Economics
  • Advisory Board, Peter G. Peterson Foundation

 

Mark Rutte (Holland)

  • Prime Minister

 

Karim Sadjadpour (US)

  • Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (Spain)

  • Leader, Partido Socialista Obrero Español PSOE

 

Sir John Sawers (UK)

  • Board of Directors, BP
  • Chairman and Partner, Macro Advisory Partners
  • Former head of MI6

 

Selin Sayek Böke (Turkey)

  • Vice President, Republican People’s Party

 

Eric E. Schmidt (US)

  • Executive Chairman, Google Inc.
  • Board of Directors, Economist Group
  • North American Group, Trilateral Commission
  • President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
  • Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group
  • Advisory Council, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution
  • International Advisory Board, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University
  • Chairman, Board of Directors, New America

 

**Rudolf Scholten (Austria)

  • CEO, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
  • President, Kreisky Forum
  • Chairman, Supervisory Board, Film Institute Austria

 

Jean-Dominique Senard (France)

  • CEO, Michelin Group
  • Board of Directors, Saint Gobain (manufacturing)

 

Karl Sevelda (Austria)

  • CEO, Raiffeisen Bank International AG

 

Jens Stoltenberg (INT)

  • Secretary General, NATO

 

Alexander Stubb (Finland)

  • Minister of Finance
  • Board of Governors, European Investment Bank
  • Board of Governors, European Stability Mechanism
  • Member, European Council on Foreign Relations

 

Katrin Suder (Germany)

  • Deputy Minister of Defense
  • Member, German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat)

 

Peter D. Sutherland (Ireland)

  • Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
  • Member, Supervisory Board, Allianz SE
  • Board of Directors, Koç Holding A.S.
  • Chairman, International Advisory Board, BP
  • Board of Directors, BW Group (maritime/energy)
  • Advisory Board, Eli Lilly (pharmaceuticals)
  • UN Special Representative for International Migration
  • Executive Committee & Honorary European Chairman, Trilateral Commission
  • International Advisory Board, BritishAmerican Business
  • Honorary President, European Policy Centre
  • International Advisory Council, Coca-Cola
  • European Steering Committee, Jacques Delors Institute
  • Consultor for the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See
  • Chairman, LSE Council, London School of Economics
  • International Advisory Council, ICC Research Foundation
  • President, Federal Trust
  • Practitioners’ Advisory Board, Global Policy (journal)

 

Carl-Henric Svanberg (Sweden)

  • Chairman, BP plc
  • Chairman, AB Volvo
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists
  • External Advisory Board, Earth Institute, Columbia University

 

Olaug Svarva (Norway)

  • CEO, The Government Pension Fund Norway
  • Chair, corporate assembly, Statoil
  • Board of Directors, Norwegian Institute of Directors

 

**Peter A. Thiel (US)

  • Board of Directors, Facebook
  • Chairman, Palantir Technologies
  • Founder and President, Clarium Capital Management
  • President, Thiel Capital
  • Advisory Council, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution
  • Advisor, Machine Intelligence Research Institute
  • Advisor, Valar Ventures (venture capital)

 

**Loukas Tsoukalis (Greece)

  • President, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy
  • Advisory Council, European Policy Centre
  • Member, European Council on Foreign Relations
  • Advisory Board, Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM)
  • Professor of European Integration, University of Athens
  • Visiting Professor, The Policy Institute, Kings College London
  • Visiting Professor, College of Europe, Bruges

 

Ahmet Üzümcü (INT)

  • Director-General, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

 

António M. Vitorino (Portugal)

  • Chairman, EDP (Energias de Portugal – energy company)
  • Board of Directors, CTT (postal company)
  • Chairman, shareholders meeting, Banco Santander Totta
  • Partner, Cuetrecasas, Concalves Pereira, RL
  • President, Jacques Delors Institute
  • European Group, Trilateral Commission
  • Member, European Council on Foreign Relations
  • Member, Transatlantic Council on Migration
  • Advisory Council, European Policy Centre

 

**Jacob Wallenberg (Sweden)

  • Chairman, Investor AB
  • Vice-Chairman, SAS (airline)
  • Vice-Chairman, Ericsson
  • Vice-Chairman, ABB (power company)
  • Member, European Round Table of Industrialists
  • International Advisory Board, Blackstone
  • International Advisory Board, Council on Foreign Relations
  • International Advisory Board, Atlantic Council
  • Board of Directors, Peterson Institute for International Economics

 

Vin Weber (USA)

  • Partner, Mercury LLC
  • Defense Policy Board (US Dept. of Defense)
  • Board of Directors, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Board of Directors, ITT Educational Services
  • Trustee, Aspen Institute
  • Vice-Chair, National Endowment for Democracy
  • Co-Chair, Advisory Board, Council for a Secure America

 

Martin H. Wolf (UK)

  • Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times

 

James D. Wolfensohn

  • Chairman and CEO, Wolfensohn and Company
  • Board of Directors, Continental Grain Company
  • Overseer, International Rescue Committee
  • Honorary Trustee, Brookings Institution
  • Advisory Council, Transparency International USA

 

**Robert Zoellick (US)

  • Chairman, Board of International Advisors, Goldman Sachs
  • International Advisory Board, Rolls-Royce
  • Member, Aspen Strategy Group
  • Board of Directors, Temasek (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund)
  • Board of Directors, National Endowment for Democracy
  • Non-resident Senior Fellow, Belfer Center, Harvard
  • Board of Directors, Peterson Institute for International Economics
  • International Advisory Board, Atlantic Council

2015

Bilderberg Conference 2015: June 11-14

The 63rd annual Bilderberg policy summit starts on June 11 at the Interalpen-Hotel Tyrol in Austria – 3 days after the G7, and 26km from Schloss Elmau. The Austrian police have confirmed that the same security operation is covering both events.

The Bilderberg conference is an annual meeting of around 140 politicians, EU policymakers, industry leaders & European royalty.

Participants at the 2014 conference in Copenhagen included:- the head of the IMF, the head of Nato, the head of MI6, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the Swedish and Spanish foreign ministers, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chairmen of the Greek and Canadian national banks, the Chairman & CEO of Shell, the Executive Chairman of Google, the Chairman of Deutsche Bank, the Chairman of HSBC, the Chairman & Chief Executive of BP and the CEO of Airbus.

OsborneKerrsm
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne meets with Sir John Kerr, Deputy Chairman of Scottish Power, at Bilderberg 2014

The Bilderberg Group is governed by a Steering Committee, chaired by Henri de Castries, Chairman & CEO of AXA. Also on the Steering Committee are: James A. Johnson, a director of Goldman Sachs; Klaus Kleinfeld, a director of Morgan Stanley; Peter Thiel, a director of Facebook; Kenneth M. Jacobs, Chairman & CEO of Lazard; and Robert Zoellick, Chairman of Goldman Sachs’ Board of International Advisors.

The conference agenda is set to include the situation in Ukraine and Syria, and the TTIP trade agreement: senior lobbyists for TTIP from the business and financial sector will be attending.

Italy, profile

Participant Profile: John Elkann

John Elkann is he grandson of the famous Italian industrialist, Gianni Agnelli. He is the Executive Director of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, a director of News Corp and the Economist Group, and a regular participant at Bilderberg meetings.

Here he is the stylish Elkann at the 2014 Bilderberg conference in Copenhagen, in conversation with Evan Greenberg (board member of Coca-Cola):

ElkGreenbergSM

And here is trotting after Alex Karp (CEO, Palantir Technologies, described by Forbes in 2013 as “a CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut”) and Klaus Kleinfeld (CEO of Alcoa, and director of Morgan Stanley and Hewlett Packard):

ElkrushSM

According to the Financial Times (2015):

“[Elkann] has spent the past decade quietly building up a network to rival his grandfather. A regular participant at Sun Valley, Berkshire Hathaway and Bilderberg conferences, he sits on the boards of the Economist and News Corp.”

On the Economist board, he sits alongside Eric Schmidt (the Executive Chairman of Google, and another regular participant at Bilderberg) and Sir Simon Robertson (the Deputy Chairman of HSBC – the Bilderberg Association is registered to Simon Robertson Associates LLP).

Henry Kissinger, one of the inner circle of the Bilderberg Group, was a friend of John Elkann’s grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli. Kissinger wrote:

“During the last two decades of his life, no one was closer to me than Gianni Agnelli.”

Agnelli was also a close friend of David Rockefeller, another leading light of Bilderberg:

“It is fervently hoped that Iachi will rise to this Pantheon. Ready to assist him are Fiat consultant Henry Kissinger, and Agnelli’s dear friend David Rockefeller, just in case.” (Harpers and Queen, 2002)

Dr Kissinger remains close to the family, and to John Elkann:

“Mr Elkann’s godfather is Henry Kissinger and he openly admits an affinity with Pritzker, Ridley and Walton US industrial dynasties.” (Financial Times, 2015)

Here is Elkann with Kissinger in Rome 2008:

kissingerElkannRome2008

John Elkann’s brother is Lapo Elkann, who was Henry Kissinger’s personal assistant in New York in 2001. His wife is Donna Lavinia Borromeo, of the aristocratic Italian family, the House of Borromeo. Their wedding:

“featured a 5m long chocolate cake depicting dozens of chocolate Cinquecento and a guest list including Henry Kissinger”

Elkann controls the Agnelli family investments. This, from a Financial Times profile (2011):

“in recent days, Mr Elkann has taken full control of the family investment company, a firm with €9bn ($12.6bn) in net asset value and more than €1bn of investment firepower, with the intention of making it into a kind of Berkshire Hathaway for the capital goods industry. He wants to expand into the US and Asia.”

Finally, further details on Elkann and his relationship to the  Agnelli fortune:

“The partnership Giovanni Agnelli & C is effectively controlled by John Elkann, a grandson and main heir of Gianni (Giovanni) Agnelli. Elkan controls a holding company called Dicembre, which has 31.2 per cent of the votes in the limited company.” (Economist, 2007)

“Dicembre controls Giovanni Agnelli & Company, a limited partnership which in turn controls a holding company called I.F.I., which in turn controls a $12 billion holding company called I.F.I.L., which owns a controlling 30 percent of Fiat Group, which owns Fiat Auto, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, and a majority of Ferrari, plus a diversified portfolio of holdings in the Juventus soccer team, Intesa Sanpaolo (Italy’s largest bank), and the U.S. real-estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, among others.” (Vanity Fair, 2008)