Looking For Global Leadership In Turkey

It’s billed as the world’s largest gathering of chief executives. More than 2,600 are set to meet in Istanbul, Turkey, over the next three days at the annual Young Presidents’ Organization think-fest.

It’s a chance for them to network, do business, and figure out what is going on in the world.

For CNBC, on the ground at the event, it’s an opportunity to tap into an organization whose member companies generate $6 trillion and employ 15 million people in 120 countries. We’ll be bringing you exclusive interviews and comment from the meeting. We’ll explore who’s confident, who’s adding jobs and who’s hunkering down.

The timing couldn’t be sweeter. With the sequester in the U.S. running into the end of the week, Federal Reserve president Ben Bernanke promising continued Fed support, and Europe grappling for meaning from the Italian election, business leaders are confused. The economic signals are mixed, the politics perplexing and the markets apparently unconcerned by both.

How do you make a major capital expenditure decision against that backdrop? Is it a time to grow or circle the wagons? What are the new markets to chase?

The location of the event may bring some answers. Turkey has been one of Europe’s surprise performers in recent years. It’s also an economy keen to attract foreign capital and business know-how. The YPOers are not adverse to mixing a little business networking with new market research.

For those interested in investing in the country, helpfully, we start our coverage with an exclusive interview with the Governor of the Central Bank on Feb. 28. Also on the agenda here are Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO of Coca Cola, and Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat and Chairman and CEO, Chrysler Group.

The formal sessions wrap on Friday with a global leader power pow-wow involving former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, and former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.

via Looking For Global Leadership In Turkey.