The Giddiness is Gone:
Nation's CEOs Gather to Address Recovery and Growth And to Honor Former Hershey Chairman Kenneth Wolfe

On June 26 and 27 at the Yale Law School, 100 world-renowned chief executives, policy makers, and academics attended the 47th CEO Summit of Yale SOM's Chief Executive Leadership Institute (CELI).

The theme entitled, "The Giddiness is Gone: Resetting Paradigms for Growth" addressed the challenges of discovering hidden business opportunities within sectors that are not as readily identified as they were during the bubble-economy.  "CEO's are easily lionized or vilified but rarely given the opportunity to make themselves vulnerable for genuine learning- especially in an off-the-record setting," comments CELI founder Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean of executive programs at Yale SOM.
 
The participants at this invitation-only event included: U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao; SEC Commissioner Cynthia Glassman; Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins; Colgate-Palmolive CEO Reuben Mark; John Thornton, President of Goldman Sachs; Sandy Warner of JP Morgan Chase; Sharon Patrick, CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; pioneering shareholder activist Ralph Whitworth; Jack Ward, CEO of Russell Manufacturing; Yellow Freight CEO William Zollars; TIAA/CREF's Peter Clapman; Hobson Brown, CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates; Thomas Shull of Hanover Direct; Richard Cavanagh of The Conference Board; Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association; historian Paul Kennedy; literary critic Harold Bloom, as well as management professors from Yale, Harvard, INSEAD, Dartmouth, and Wharton, along with eighty other distinguished top leaders.

The conference closed with a lunch in the Beinecke Rare Books Library, with a presentation of the Legend in Leadership Award to Hershey's retired chairman and CEO Kenneth Wolfe, a Yale College graduate.