Top Panel
Background
About the Global Forum
The Global Forum is a not-for-profit "community of practice", involving participants from major companies and organizations from around the world, who, in a collegial spirit, discuss executive education, organization development, and Action Learning.
Attendance at the annual Global Forum is by-invitation only and restricted to 100 participants. Sessions take place over 4 days and are informal and interactive. The Global Forum is not-for-profit. Travel, meeting expenses and accommodation are borne by all participants, including speakers. In order to ensure transparency and confidentiality, no media is allowed.
Overview
1. Objectives and History
2. Global Forum Advisory Committee
3. Who Attends?
4. What is Discussed?
5. Post-Global Forum Activities
Objectives and History
The objectives of the Global Forum are:
- to allow practitioners and their peers from around the world to share experiences and thinking in the furtherance of excellence in organization and executive development, and action learning
- to continuously develop and improve approaches, methods and techniques used in Business Driven Action Learning.
The idea for the Global Forum originated in 1995 when Yury Boshyk met with Herwe de Schepper (IBM), Stephen Mercer (General Electric) and Ron Bossert (Johnson & Johnson) to discuss best practices and common dilemmas associated with business driven action learning executive programs. Very soon afterwards several companies voiced their desire to share experiences with their peers in a similar way. Thus, in May of 1996, the first annual Global Forum took place in southern France. Ever since then the Global Forum convenes its annual meeting in different parts of the world (usually hosted or supported by a major company or group of companies) and is organized by the Global Executive Learning Network and Global Forum community members.
Since 1996 the Global Forum has been hosted by:
- 1996-99: Sophia Antipolis, France, Theseus Institute
- 2000: St. Louis, USA, Boeing Leadership Center
- 2001: Melbourne, Australia, BHP Billiton Global Leadership Centre
- 2002: (21-24 May): Johannesburg, South Africa, Gordon Institute of Business Science & Standard Bank
- 2003: (20-23 May): Amsterdam, The Netherlands, ABN Amro Learning Centre
- 2004: (18-21 May): Munich, Germany, Siemens Leadership Centre
- 2005: (7-10 June): Shanghai, China, DuPont and General Electric
- 2006: (5-9 June): Montreal, Canada, Alcan
- 2007: (19-22 June): Dublin, Ireland, Hewlett Packard and the Irish Institute of Public Administration
- 2008: (23-26 June): Seoul, South Korea, Hyundai Oilbank and the Korean Action Learning Association
- 2009: (22-25 June): San Jose, USA, Intel
- 2010: (21-24 June): Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France
- 2011: (20-23 June): Singapore
- 2012: (17-20 June): Yokohama, Japan
- 2013: North or South America: exact venue and sponsors to be determined
- 2013: Europe, Middle East, Africa: exact venue and sponsors to be determined
- 2014: Asia: exact venue and sponsors to be determined
- 2015: North or South America: exact venue and sponsors to be determined
Global Forum Advisory Committee
The Global Forum advisory committee is composed of former corporate Global Forum hosts and other active members of the Global Forum community. It makes and evaluates program suggestions and screens applicants for participation. Members include:
- Professor Nick Binedell (Gordon Institute of Business Science, South Africa)
- Yury Boshyk, as Coordinator
- Brian Cawley (Irish Institute of Public Administration)
- Danielle Hudon (Rio Tinto)
- Nina Dankfort-Nevel (General Electric)
- Professor Udo Dierk (Fachhochschule der Wirtschaft - Paderborn - formerly Siemens)
- Pierre Guillon (fomerly Korn/Ferry, formerly Allied Domecq, BHPBilliton, Dow, )
- Barbara Gutmann (Volkswagen)
- Steffen Landauer (formerly Hewlett Packard)
- Fernando Lanzer (formerly ABN AMRO Bank)
- Stephen Mercer (formerly Boeing and General Electric)
- K.R. Yoon (Du Pont)
- Brad Benson (Intel)
Who Attends?
Those who attend include private and public sector and not-for-profit line executives and managers, human resource and organizational development practitioners, academics and some consultants. The representation is also worldwide.
The Global Forum is open and tolerant of all approaches and schools of thought. For example, participants representing all approaches to action learning have taken part and no specific approach to any topic such as leadership is propagated.
The steering committee has advised that any consultants invited to attend will have to be accompanied by their corporate clients, and that such invitations will be made on a case-by-case basis.
For a list of organizations that have attended in the past, see above, under Previous Forums. If you would like to attend the Global Forum, please address all enquiries to Yury Boshyk at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
What is Dicussed?
A detailed listing of presentation and panel topics is indicated above in the Previous Forums section. Topics are suggested by participants and from research done in preparation for the Global Forum. As a general rule, participants are asked to make a presentation on their professional activities either at their first or second Global Forum meeting.
Post-Global Forum Activities
Besides the publications, participants are involved in benchmarking and networking, especially through executive dialogs and interviews. Some have formed formal and informal national and regional discussion groups such as the South African Regional Forum, the Korean Action Learning Association, the Nordic Regional Forum and most recently, the Asian Action Learning Network.