Founded in 2022 by a former Merkel economic adviser, Berlin Global Dialogue gathers heads of state, ministers and chief executives at ESMT Berlin each October for an invitation-only, closed-door reckoning with the global economic order.
Berlin Global Dialogue is an annual, invitation-only geoeconomic forum held at ESMT Berlin (European School of Management and Technology), bringing together heads of state and government, cabinet ministers, central bank officials and chief executives for closed-door dialogue on the global economic order. It was founded in 2022 by Lars-Hendrik Röller, an ESMT economics professor and former chief economic adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel, and held its inaugural edition in Berlin in September 2023. The fourth edition, themed "Advancing Alliances for the New Era," is scheduled for 20 to 22 October 2026.
20 to 22 October 2026, per the organiser's own events page and an ESMT press release confirming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's attendance. ESMT Berlin, Schlossplatz 1, 10178 Berlin, the business school's campus in the historic centre of the city; this address is documented for the 2025 edition and the campus does not change year to year. Prior editions opened Thursday at noon followed by an Opening Night reception; a session-level 2026 schedule was not yet published as of 3 September 2026, the organiser having said the full programme is released in October.
Berlin Global Dialogue, an initiative founded in 2022 by Lars-Hendrik Röller and hosted by, and embedded within, ESMT Berlin (European School of Management and Technology), where Röller served as president from 2006 to 2011 and remains an economics professor. The organiser's own imprint page, which should carry the operating legal entity's name and registration, displays unpopulated placeholder text as of 3 September 2026, so no distinct legal entity (an e.V., a GmbH, or otherwise) can be confirmed from official sources; a cached copy of the same page carries a stale "ESMT GmbH" copyright line dated 2024, while current site footers read simply "Berlin Global Dialogue." Not publicly disclosed: a verified legal entity name and registration number.
The inaugural 2023 edition drew more than 550 participants from 60 countries, an organiser figure reported without independent audit; no equivalent count has been republished for 2024 or 2025. Attendees are drawn from four groups: heads of state and government, cabinet ministers, central bank governors and senior officials, and chief executives of multinational companies. Access is by invitation only, coordinated through the organiser's Participant Hub; there is no public breakdown of the delegate list by category and no confirmed 2026 attendance figure as of 3 September 2026.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is confirmed to attend the 2026 edition, per the organiser's own press release, announced ahead of the rest of the 2026 programme. The 2026 theme, "Advancing Alliances for the New Era," is framed by founder Lars-Hendrik Röller as "a return to our founding mission: advancing the dialogue between business and government," a different register from 2025's "Shifting Power, Shaping Prosperity" and 2024's "Building Common Ground." Bank of America continues as principal partner for a fourth consecutive year. The 2026 edition runs three days (20 to 22 October), matching the three-day length introduced in 2025 (23 to 25 October) rather than the two-day format used in 2023 and 2024.
Not publicly disclosed as of 3 September 2026: the organiser states the full programme is published in October, shortly before the summit itself. Prior editions organised sessions around a small set of named transitions or themes tied to the year's title; the inaugural 2023 summit, for instance, structured its programme around three transitions: to a new economic world order, to a low-carbon economy, and to a just society. The 2026 theme points toward the recalibration of business-government relationships, per the organiser's own framing, but a session-by-session agenda was not available at the time of checking.
Closed-door plenary and roundtable sessions, an opening reception and dinner, and a published Opening Night on the evening before the main programme; the organiser describes "interactive formats" for candid exchange among invited participants rather than open Q&A panels. A parallel BGD Young Voices programme, run with the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM), embeds around 25 nominated master's and MBA students from GNAM partner schools into the main summit rather than running a separate track. Outside the main October summit, the organiser also runs smaller, sector-focused BGD Roundtables through the year, for example a biopharmaceutical roundtable with UCB and an AI-and-geopolitics roundtable with Salesforce, distinct from the flagship event.
BGD Young Voices is the main documented side track: each Global Network for Advanced Management partner school may nominate up to three enrolled master's or MBA students, aged 32 or under, who submit a CV and a motivation statement responding to the year's theme; selected participants receive funded travel and accommodation to attend alongside the main summit. An Opening Night reception and dinner runs the evening before the main programme opens. No exhibition floor, hackathon or awards ceremony is documented for the main October summit.
No ticket exists. The organiser's FAQ states plainly that its annual summits are invite-only and that "it is not possible to purchase tickets"; invitations are non-transferable.
Not possible through open application. The organiser's FAQ states that speakers "will be announced throughout the year" and points prospective attendees to a participants page for updates; no call for speakers, pitch process or nomination form for the main stage is published. The one documented nomination route, BGD Young Voices, is limited to enrolled master's and MBA students at Global Network for Advanced Management partner schools and does not lead to a speaking slot in the main programme.
Not publicly documented. The partners page lists confirmed sponsors by tier but states only that the organiser "is proud to partner with leading international organizations," with no application form, contact route or eligibility criteria published. The path to a partnership is understood to run through direct contact with the organiser rather than a public process.
Tiered on the organiser's own partners page, checked 3 September 2026, without a 2026-specific date stamp, so the list may carry unconfirmed prior-year names. Principal Partner: Bank of America, confirmed by the organiser's press release as continuing for a fourth consecutive year. Strategic Partners: A&O Shearman, UCB, Xunce. Partners: Airbus, Allianz Global Investors, Aurelius, Bayer, Booking, CD&R, Deloitte, Egon Zehnder, Fresenius, JC Group, KKR, Knauf, McKinsey & Company, Mercedes-Benz, Obermark, PGIM, RWE, Siemens Healthineers, Swiss Re, Telekom, Win Digital. Media Partners: Bloomberg (media partner), DW (media partner), FAZ (media partner) and Handelsblatt (media partner); the organiser's own page shows one further media-partner logo without a legible name.
Two profiles dominate the confirmed partner list. Global financial and professional-services firms: Bank of America (principal partner), A&O Shearman, Egon Zehnder, Deloitte, PGIM, Swiss Re, KKR. Large European industrials, pharma and healthcare groups: Airbus, Bayer, Fresenius, Siemens Healthineers, RWE, Telekom, Mercedes-Benz, Knauf, UCB. No pure-play startup or venture-backed company appears among the confirmed 2026 partners.
Through the organiser's Media Portal, linked from the site's press section, or by writing to press@berlinglobaldialogue.org; a general enquiries address, berlinglobaldialogue@esmt.org, is also published. No further public detail on accreditation criteria, deadlines or an expected journalist count is disclosed.
Handelsblatt (media partner), Germany's leading business daily, has covered the summit directly, including a report headlined "Berlin Global Dialogue: Schwarz-Rot ringt um Deutschlands Börsenstory" on a recent edition (unverifiable information beyond the headline, the full article sat behind a paywall at the time of checking). Bloomberg (media partner), Deutsche Welle (media partner) and FAZ (media partner) are listed as media partners on the organiser's own partners page. Separately, the organiser's media page names journalists from Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, CNN and ARD as session moderators, a role distinct from independent reporting. No coverage from Reuters, Politico or other non-partnered international outlets was found in the sourced material checked here.
Four tiers, none fully independent. Placed, as a declared partner: Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, FAZ and Handelsblatt all appear on the organiser's own partners page, so their coverage carries an institutional relationship even where individually bylined. Predictable but unconfirmed: the same networks, plus CNN and ARD, supply on-stage session moderators per the organiser's media page, a role that can shade how a journalist later covers the event. Independent but promotional: Yale School of Management has published multiple stories about the summit tied to its own Global Network for Advanced Management participation, which is institutional promotion of a partner programme, not outside journalism. Organiser-claimed without third-party proof: the headline attendance figure (550-plus participants, 60 countries) rests on the organiser's own 2023 count, not on an audited or press-verified tally.
Anyone without an existing relationship to the organiser, to ESMT Berlin, or to a Global Network for Advanced Management partner school: there is no open registration, no exhibition floor, no public speaker application, and even the one documented open pathway, BGD Young Voices, is restricted to enrolled GNAM master's and MBA students. A journalist seeking on-record access from inside closed sessions will not get it through this channel either: the main sessions are closed-door and no livestream of them is documented.
Late October: the 2026 edition runs from 20 to 22 October, about six weeks after Economic Forum Karpacz (8 to 10 September 2026) and roughly a week before the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh (26 to 29 October 2026), placing it in the autumn cluster of policy and capital forums that follows the September wave led by the Ambrosetti Forum at Cernobbio. Against Ambrosetti, which seats roughly 250 by invitation, Berlin Global Dialogue is larger by its own founding-year count of 550-plus participants, but shares the same invitation-only, no-ticket model and closed-door format for its main sessions.
No. The organiser runs a single annual summit, always at ESMT Berlin's campus in central Berlin. Smaller, sector-focused BGD Roundtables, for example with UCB on biopharmaceuticals or with Salesforce on AI and geopolitics, run through the year but are separate, lower-profile events rather than editions of the main October summit, and are not documented as running outside Germany either.
Not publicly disclosed. The organiser's site, FAQ and press materials are all published in English, and past summits have hosted German, French and other non-English-speaking heads of government and ministers, but no statement of the working language of sessions, or of interpretation availability, is published.
Not remotely, and only partially afterward. The main summit is invitation-only with no public registration, and no livestream of the closed-door sessions is documented. After each edition, the organiser publishes a curated selection of session recordings on its own YouTube channel and website; the 2025 event page, for instance, lists videos covering geopolitical shifts, technological advances, global inequality, smart regulation and AI, but this is a post-event selection rather than full-programme coverage, and no equivalent 2026 material was available at the time of checking.
Not publicly disclosed. No ticket is sold, so a conventional refund policy would not apply; the organiser's FAQ states only that invitations are non-transferable and does not address what happens if an invited participant cancels.
Yes, per the organiser's FAQ: the venue is described as wheelchair accessible, and attendees are asked to notify the organiser in advance if they require additional support. No further detail, such as hearing loops or accessible transport arrangements, is published.
ESMT Berlin sits at Schlossplatz 1, 10178 Berlin, in the Mitte district in the historic centre of the city, opposite the Humboldt Forum. The organiser's FAQ documents no on-site parking, recommending a nearby paid car park or public transport, and confirms a cloakroom is available on site for luggage and bags. Not publicly disclosed: a recommended nearest station or transit line, which the organiser does not specify.
Because a Merkel-era economic architect built a Berlin platform specifically to put heads of state and chief executives in the same closed room, and it has drawn Chancellors Scholz and now Merz, President Macron and European Commission President von der Leyen across its first four years: for a decision-maker weighing which autumn forum to attend, that is a more direct route to Germany's own government than an open conference could offer.
Because the only attendance figure on record, more than 550 participants from 60 countries, dates to the 2023 inaugural edition and has not been republished or audited since, and because three of the four outlets the organiser names for press coverage, Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle and FAZ alongside Handelsblatt, are declared paying media partners on the same page rather than independent observers. Read every attendance and coverage figure here as organiser-supplied until a 2026 summit report, if published, says otherwise.
Official site: berlinglobaldialogue.org. Host institution: esmt.berlin. General enquiries: berlinglobaldialogue@esmt.org. Press enquiries: press@berlinglobaldialogue.org. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Global_Dialogue.