Weber wins shootout for Forbes' event job

Taking place from August 30 to September 1, the event marks the first time it will be held in Sydney.

In 2001 the host city was Singapore, followed by Hong Kong in 2002, Shanghai in 2003 and back to Hong Kong last year. William Adamopoulos, vice-president and managing director Asia-Pacific for Forbes Inc Group, said Australia has been one of the world's great growth stories over the past decade. "Sydney is not only an attractive place to live but advances in technology have enabled the city to become a business hub for the Asia-Pacific region," he said. "We are also very excited to hold the Forbes CEO conference at Sydney's famed Opera House."

This is the third year Weber Shandwick will manage PR for the event and marks a return to the consultancy after two years with Ogilvy PR in Asia.

It is believed that Ogilvy and Hill & Knowlton also pitched for the business.

Gillian Burrows, corporate practice director at Weber Shandwick, who will lead a team of consultants including account director Agata Dec and account manager Steve Pratt, has identified three core objectives.

These are generating exposure of the conference across all key media targets both locally and globally, generating awareness and interest from the global business community in the respective sectors the conference seeks to address and generating international interest in Australia--specifically New South Wales -- among foreign capital investors. The communications strategy is yet to be confirmed but the campaign is expected to include a mix of promotional initiatives on a local and global scale.

In total, 10 topics have been pegged for discussion ranging from the power of innovation to corporations and the environment to how vulnerable is the global economy. Sports marketing has also been highlighted with a yet to be confirmed panel looking at issues such as business and geographic trends in sport; how can budding sports stars best be nurtured and retained especially in less wealthy economies, lessons learnt from the Sydney and Athens Olympics as well as business opportunities coming out of the 2008 Olympics.