Richard Attias - Biography

Richard Attias (born 1959) is a Moroccan global events producer, former chairman of PublicisLive and presently the Executive Chairman of the Experience Corporation. Attias was the producer of the World Economic Forum in Davos for over fifteen years.

Background

Attias was born on November 19, 1959 in Fes, Morocco into a Jewish family, and graduated from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse, an engineering school in France. He began his career as a sales executive at IBM France and in 1986 became the General Manager of Econocom France and Econocom Japan, a computer leasing company.

During the 1990s, Attias founded an Event Management Company and produced various global events including the Zurich Insurances Convention and Boris Yeltsin's visit to France. Richard was awarded the contract for the signature of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) signature agreements in Marrakesh and for the Middle East and North Africa summit meeting in Casablanca.

A brief encounter with Klaus Schwab, President of the World Economic Forum, resulted in a long-standing partnership and the eventual creation of the Global Event Management Company. This joint venture agency went on to manage international conferences, including the International Telecoms Union Congress and the Middle East Peace Summit in Jordan and the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Richard joined Publicis Groupe in 1998 and established a global enterprise producing events for various clients including IBM, l'Oreal, Uniliver, BT, Avaya, Lenovo, EDF, Sanofi-Aventis, etc.

Richard was named Chairman of the Board of Publicis Dialog which combined the operations of Publicis Events and a range of marketing services. In 2004, Richard moved to New York and became chairman of Publicis Events Worldwide, the first world wide events network with over 600 employees.

At PublicisLive Richard combined the events company and team to form PublicisLive that specialized in the conception and production of international conferences and very high profile events such as the Clinton Global Initiative Forum, the Islamic Conference, The Petra Conference of Nobel Laureates, the Dalian Economic Summit in China, and the Monaco Media Forum.

In 2008, Richard was named special advisor to the Emirate of Dubai to provide a comprehensive strategy to make the city a destination for major conferences, and cultural and sporting events

Richard Attias is the Chairman the Advisory Board of the Center on Capitalism and Society [1], directed by Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps.

Current work

In 2008 Richard created the Experience Corporation – a U.S. based full service event management and strategic consulting company with offices in New York, Paris, Jeddah and Dubai, that supports government and non-governmental organizations worldwide. As Executive Chairman, Richard oversees the execution and management of global events. Two major recent productions have been the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the accession to the throne of the King of Jordan and the launching of the Bahrain Education Project in Manama on October 10, 2009. The Experience Corporation has also executed more than a dozen corporate and governmental events since its inception in March, 2008.

On June 22–23, The Experience Corp launched and produced The New York Forum, the first summit to unite business leaders, sovereign funds and all major players in the global economy for an open, action oriented debate to foster ideas for improvement and reinvent current business models. The New York Forum took place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York on June 22–23 and had five hundred attendants.

Personal

In 2008 Attias married former First Lady of France, Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz. They currently reside together in Manhattan, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut.

Richard also currently serves as Vice President for the Cecilia Attias Foundation for Women, a strategic platform for non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting women’s well being and equality worldwide. Richard is dedicated to promoting transparency for donors to ensure that donated funds serve their intended purpose.

External links

• http://www.theexperiencecorp.com
• http://ny-forum.com
• http://www.ceciliaattiasfoundation.org
• http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1672040,00.html
• http://www.ameinfo.com/155655.html