The Future Investment Initiative (FII) will make its European debut in Rome on Wednesday at the FII Priority conference – the travelling offshoot of Saudi Arabia’s flagship annual gathering in Riyadh and one of the most closely watched conferences in global finance.
The three-day summit is set to run from 17 June to 19 June at the Rome Cavalieri, Waldorf Astoria hotel and will bring together an eclectic mix of financiers, policymakers, heads of state and tech figures under the theme ‘Europe Reimagined: Capital, Sovereignty & Strategic Autonomy.’
The roster includes Anthony Gutman, co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International and global co-head of investment banking; Andrew Cohen, executive chairman of JPMorgan Chase’s global private bank; Lord Franck Petitgas, vice chairman of Blackstone Europe; and Sir Noel Quinn, newly installed chair of Julius Baer.
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Former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi and Albanian prime minister Edi Rama are among the political figures attending, alongside Davos veteran Richard Attias, Italian minister of economy and finance Giancarlo Giorgetti, Saudi Arabia’s minister of tourism, Ahmed Al-Khateeb and Princess Reema Bandar Al Saud, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.
FII Priority is the international arm of FII, which was launched in Riyadh in 2017 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and has since become a fixture in the diaries of the world’s top financiers and world leaders.
The Riyadh conference, often dubbed ‘Davos in the Desert’, drew the likes of Jamie Dimon, David Solomon, Steve Schwarzman, Larry Fink, Bill Ackman and Ray Dalio to its most recent edition last October, alongside political figures ranging from UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves to China’s vice president.
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The Priority summits, which are held in what FII describes as global hubs for innovation and economic leadership, are designed as the conference’s more action-oriented cousins, with a particular focus on the Global South and emerging markets. The last edition took place in Miami earlier this year and counted Donald Trump among the speakers.
On the agenda are some of the most pressing questions facing Europe today, the organisers have announced. Panels will examine everything from how to finance Europe’s reindustrialisation to building more resilient supply chains and navigating the workforce implications of an increasingly AI-driven economy.
The topic of strategic autonomy in energy, technology, defence and finance is also expected to run as a thread through much of the discussions, as organisers have emphasised that European leaders and investors are grappling with a world in which old assumptions about transatlantic alignment and global supply chains no longer hold quite so firmly.
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Travis Kalanick, the Uber co-founder now running Atoms, is among the tech figures on the bill, alongside Stella Li, executive vice president of BYD, and Andrea Orcel, CEO of UniCredit (one of Europe’s most acquisitive lenders).
Alejandro Agag, founder of Formula E and Extreme H, and Inter Milan president Giuseppe Marotta will bring views on sport and culture to proceedings, while Cecilia Attias, former first lady of France and founder of the Cecilia Attias Foundation for Women, is also on the programme.
Coverage of the conference will be published on the Spear’s Magazine website throughout the event.
