It has now been over 27 years since the Tällberg Foundation organized its first Tällberg Workshop. Over the years, the foundation’s yearly gathering has evolved into an important ongoing open conversation on the wider issues facing business and society. The Foundation has created an independent meeting place, a space where leaders from business, politics and civil society, including academia and the arts, come together and jointly address the most urgent challenges in today’s world.

Since the beginning, the Tällberg Workshop conversations have been at the forefront or even ahead of the debate. They started off in the early 1980s on topics closely related to the strategic agendas of large corporations. At the time deregulation, technological innovation and changing values were pushing business into a new global context deeply affecting strategy, leadership and work-life.

The role of business is still an important theme for the Tällberg gatherings, but in recent years the conversations have increasingly focused on understanding the wider effects of the ever-increasing pace of global integration, not only on corporations but also on public policy making and society at large. In a world of financial and economic integration, and after the political fragmentation that followed the end of the cold war, our present institutional framework is proving inadequate. In the mid-1990s, a series of Tällberg Workshops on the role and behaviour of business in the globalizing world led, among other things, to the UN corporate citizenship initiative – the Global Compact.

The uniqueness of the Tällberg conversations begins with the highly diverse set of people they bring together, bringing a broad range of perspectives and experiences. Care is also taken to achieve a gender balance, and to include both established and emerging leaders and people from different geographical regions. This promotes the sharing of experiences and perspectives and a cross-fertilisation of ideas. This also inspires ongoing, informal and open conversations that in turn result in action and change and sow seeds that over time come to fruition in many different places, processes and institutions.

The foundation borrows more than its name from the small Swedish village of Tällberg, in Dalarna northwest of Stockholm. Workshops and the Tällberg Forum have taken place there, reflecting a belief that roots in the local environment help us understand the global system: the global only comes to life in its local manifestations.

An essential aspect of the Tällberg Foundation is the absence of any specific corporate or political agenda. Since its inception, the Foundation has always been supported by a large variety of corporations, foundations and public bodies, both locally and globally.

The Tällberg experience is also unique in truly integrating intellectual discourse with artistic experiences. Music has always been an important part of the event – not as entertainment added-on, but as an integral part of the process. Since change must come from deep inside every person, rational discourse alone is often insufficient to move people and make them see things differently. The natural beauty of the surroundings, enhanced by the Nordic midsummer light, is part of the wider experience. Profound change requires profound experiences.

In 2005, the yearly gathering organized by the Tällberg Foundation was greatly scaled up for what became the first Tällberg Forum. More than 450 leaders from over 70 countries gathered for five-day in an open, relaxed and creative conversation on the question: “How on Earth Can We Live Together? Exploring Frameworks for Sustainable Global Interdependence”.