Knowledge is power and a company's most saleable commodity, says Thurow

According to Thurow, knowledge and employee skills remain "the only source of comparative advantage." He said: "In the past, it was possible to have more natural resources and more capital than the competition. These days, you can only have more ideas than the competition."

Thurow, who will give his views on 'Tapping Into Globalisation', is one of 7 business leaders and thought leaders, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and ex-General Electric CEO Jack Welch, speaking at The International Leadership Summit, Leaders in Dubai. According to Thurow, corporate reputation counts more than ever in an increasingly competitive global market.

He said: "The CFO is the second-most-important person in most firms. When capitalism started, no one knew how to manipulate capital. The CEO didn't have time to think about it and the CFO, if you had the right one, was the person who figured it out.

"But that's becoming a commodity. The person who will replace the CFO in importance is the Chief Knowledge Officer. Bill Gates is a good example of this: he is now the CKO at Microsoft."

According to Thurow, controlling the channels of knowledge is the route to profitability. "The reputation of a company, its reliability, inventiveness and speed of reaction becomes all the more important. That's the flip side of ever-increasing flexibility and the speeding pace of change. During periods of change, customers need continuity, quality they can rely on."

Thurow will address 'Fortune Favours The Bold: Leading Organisations By Seizing Risk In The Global Economy' at 'Leaders in Dubai' on November 29 - 30 alongside global leaders as well as a panel of regional corporate ambassadors.

Appearing in Dubai for the event alongside Thurow are five of the world's most influential business leaders including: Harvard Business School Professor, Michael Porter; Tom Peters, the Ur-guru of management; best-selling author, Frank Maguire, influential futurist, Alvin Toffler and ex-Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani. Jack Welch will also address delegates at the event via a live videocast.

'Leaders in Dubai' is organised by LEADING MINDS, a division of IIR. It will be the biggest business conference at the Dubai International Convention Centre since the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in September 2003.

"Leading is all about vision for the future and Lester Thurow is renowned for his futuristic approach to business. 'Leaders in Dubai' delegates will be able to get a grip of some of the factors affecting tomorrow's corporate world," explained Jessica Sutherland, General Manager, IIR Exhibitions and Conferences.

"They will be given a global economic outlook and learn of the implications for companies, understand how to invent a new business model to correspond with the new global economic order, how to create an exploratory spirit for countries and businesses and how to finance and tolerate risk."

Lester Thurow has been an MIT Professor for more than 30 years and was previously Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management. His formal academic work focuses on globalisation, economic instability and the distribution of income and wealth.

A prolific writer, Thurow is the author of several New York Times best sellers, including 'Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle among Japan, Europe and America,' and 'The Future of Capitalism' as well as 'Building Wealth.'

Professor Thurow has previously served on the editorial board of the New York Times as a contributing editor for Newsweek and as a member of Time magazine's Board of Economists.

A graduate of Williams College, Thurow received his M.A. on a Rhodes Scholarship at Balliol College (Oxford) and his Ph.D in Economics from Harvard University. He previously taught at Harvard after a term as a staff economist on President Lyndon Johnson's Council of Economic Advisers.