Two Nobel Prize winners head leaders in Dubai Business Forum 2009

Former Vice President Gore, who served under President Clinton for eight years, will head a list of top speakers at this year's forum under the title, A New Beginning.

Following on from his political career, Gore has gone on to become a bastion for climate change and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work.

Author of three books, his second, An Inconvenient Truth, was adapted into a documentary that won an Oscar last year and his most recent book, The Assault on Reason, is an indictment on former President Bush's radicalism.

Taking the current economic challenges facing the world today this year's business forum will be tackling head on the lessons learned from the past and setting a course for the future.

Leaders in Dubai Business Forum 2009 will discuss topics such as reinventing leadership, talent retention and team work, long-term investment and planning and economic sustainability.

Gore, who is also board member of Apple and senior advisor to Google, will be the final speaker on the second day with a presentation, Sustainable Capitalism When a Bailout Won't Suffice.

Joining Gore at the conference will be Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his non-violent efforts to discontinue apartheid in South Africa. The charismatic clergyman has since spoken out for better awareness of HIV/Aids and continues to be a spokesman for the world on many humanitarian and political issues.

At the forum he will present a speech entitled The Power of Unity in Business and the Importance of Goodness.

Speakers at Leaders in Dubai Business Forum 2009 will also discuss relevant strategies for success as the world's economies begin to implement ways of recovering from the worst global economic crisis since the 1930s.

Among them will be President Barack Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, who the new US leader called the unsung hero of the 2008 election race.

In February Plouffe's leadership skills were crowned with glory when Barack Obama became the first African American to be voted into the White House as the 44th President. Plouffe is now working on a book about the campaign entitled, The Audacity to win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory.

The 42-year-old political strategist will address Leaders in Dubai Business Forum 2009 with what promises to be a compelling speech entitled, Grass Roots Strategy from a Presidential Campaign Manager.

Other speakers include influential business thinker, Gary Hamel, author Chester Elton, conductor Benjamin Zander, businessman Jack Perkowski, business motivator Steve Farber and industrialist Kris Gopalakrishnan.

Farber, president of Extreme Leadership, an organisation dedicated to developing extreme leaders, will give a presentation on day two entitled, Extreme Leadership for Accelerated Productivity, as well as a full day masterclass on the final day with the title, The Radical Leap into Effective Leadership.

At last year's Leaders in Dubai, Mohammed ElBaradei, the then Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, headed an 11-strong team of speakers.
Under the title: Emerging Strategies for Tomorrow's Challenges, Wolfensohn led a debate on corporate accountability and corporate social responsibility.

Previous speakers at Leaders in Dubai Business Forum have included entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell.

In 2007 former US secretary of State Colin Powell told a packed Leaders in Dubai Business Forum audience how he regretted delivering his speech to the UN in 2003 presenting America's case for war against Iraq.

Organised by Leaders Presents, a division of IIR Middle East, the Leaders in Dubai attracted 1,300 delegates last year from more than 40 countries and is expecting an even stronger showing this year.

The event is sponsored by Philips and headline media partners include BBC World, Al Arabiya, Gulf Business and The Times International.