III. Annual Report 2019/2020: Convening
The Atlantic Council leads through its ability to convene key communities of interest, in the United States and globally. Learn about the events and galas we hold to bring together friends and allies for debate, discussion and celebration.
The Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards and Distinguished Leadership Awards
Held in September, the 2019 Global Citizen Awards underscored our mission of “shaping the future together” and convened a high-level audience of some six hundred policy and industry leaders, media practitioners, and civil society activists to shine a light on four exceptional individuals: President of Chile Sebastián Piñera, Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte, Oscar Award-winning producer Brian Grazer, and musician, technologist, and philanthropist will.i.am.
Image: Left to Right–Global Citizen Award Honorees Brian Grazer and will.i.am are joined by introducer Ron Howard at a reception prior to the awards dinner.
The 2019 Distinguished Leadership Awards dinner in Washington, DC, celebrated three individuals who embody leadership at its finest: Adrienne Arsht, Christine Lagarde, and Fred Smith. We were also honored to bestow our Distinguished International Leadership Award to NATO on its seventieth anniversary, the first time the Atlantic Council in its fifty-nine-year history has honored an international organization
Image: Left to Right–Honorees gather for an intimate dinner the night before the gala, including Rose Gottemoeller representing NATO, Frederick Smith, Christine Lagarde, and Adrienne Arsht. Photo by Tony Powell.
The Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum
The Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum is the go-to conference on the geopolitics of the energy trans- formation, where energy and foreign policy leaders come together to set the energy agenda for the year and examine the longer-term geopolitical and geoeconomic implications of the changing energy system.
In January 2020, the Global Energy Center held the fourth-annual Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi, kicking off Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. The forum, held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces, was convened in partnership with the Ministry of Energy and Industry of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), and Mubadala Investment Company, with Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation and Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum as platinum co-chairs.
The forum convened global energy leaders at a time of geopolitical uncertainty, focusing on the role of oil and gas in the energy transition; financing the future of energy; interconnections in a new era of geopolitics; and energy dynamics in South and Southeast Asia. More than 750 delegates representing seventy-four countries attended, including more than eighty C-suite executives.
Nato Engages
In 2019, the Atlantic Council convened two NATO Engages town halls on the sidelines of official NATO meetings. On April 3, around the commemoration of NATO’s seventieth anniversary, the Council hosted “NATO Engages: The Alliance at 70” in partnership with NATO, the German Marshall Fund (GMF), and the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Our stage became the public platform for key officials and rising leaders, including US Vice President Mike Pence and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, to celebrate the alliance’s history and success and discuss the challenges facing NATO. The event—which rocked The Anthem, DC’s downtown concert venue—utilized creative and interactive formats, such as storytelling, to humanize the alliance and its key moments.
On December 3, alongside the London Leaders Meeting, we convened “NATO Engages: Innovating the Alliance,” at Central Hall Westminster. Working with MSC, GLOBSEC, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and King’s College London, we discussed NATO’s future and emerging challenges, such as technology and China. With a stage graced by heads of state, pop stars, and tech gurus alike, the event gathered some six hundred participants, about half of whom were under thirty-five and women. The NATO Engages hashtag reached 57.1 million users worldwide and trended number one in the United Kingdom.
We act with the conviction that none of our most significant international challenges can be addressed in national or institutional silos. Common cause has seldom been so vital.
Image: Council staff with honoree will.i.am at the Global Citizen Awards gala, September 2019.
Next:
Read the full report:
Annual Report 2019/2020
John FW Rogers, Chairman of the Atlantic Council, and Fred Kempe, CEO and President, explain how our past year’s performance, and a dozen years of growth and innovation, helped position us for the historic disruptions of 2020. Read the full introduction.
Image: Image: Flags for NATO member countries displayed next to the stage at DLA in honor of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.