Council on Competitiveness Leads The Innovation Conversation During The Historic Visit of Her Excellency Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil -- And Announces 2013 3rd U.S.-Brazil Innovation Summit

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council on Competitiveness partners with the Brazilian Government to host today's "Brazil-U.S.: Partnership for the 21st Century" conference at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The meeting is central to the first official U.S. visit of Brazil's President, Her Excellency Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil, and features 400+ C-suite executives and senior public sector leaders who are exploring key opportunities for bilateral economic, social and political engagement.

The Council on Competitiveness President and CEO, the Honorable Deborah L. Wince-Smith, leads the Business Track Panel on "Partnership in Innovation & Competitiveness" – joined by Council on Competitiveness Chairman and Deere & Company Chairman & CEO Samuel R. Allen; Ernst & Young Chairman and CEO and Council member James S. Turley; U.S. Department of State Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Robert Hormats; IBM Brasil's President, Ricardo Pelegrini; and, Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development President, Mauro Borges Lemos.

The conference – kicked off by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Federative Republic of Brazil's Minister of External Relations, H.E. Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, will identify ways in which leaders from the two most powerful nations in the Americas can work together on a shared innovation agenda to solve global grand challenges and opportunities – from trade and investment, to education and energy.

Wince-Smith says the dialogue is germane to the Council's seven years of U.S.-Brazil work pursuing long-term planning and investments to create the talent, capital and infrastructure necessary for continuing success. "Innovation is the only choice for our two nations, and today is a critical step in the Council's long journey to deliver an action agenda for our leaders. Moving forward, we are pleased to announce today that, along with our partners the Brazilian Competitiveness Movement (MBC) and the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI), we will host in 2013 in Brazil the 3rd U.S.-Brazil Innovation Summit."

Other key participants in the conference include: Luciano Coutinho, President, Brazilian Development Bank; The Honorable Daniel B. Poneman, Deputy Secretary of Energy, United States; Adriana Machado, President and CEO, General Electric Brazil; Jose Orlando Melo de Azevedo, President, Petrobras America; Jorge Lemann, President, Lemann Foundation; The Honorable John Bryson, Secretary of Commerce, United States of America; and, H.E. Fernando Pimentel, Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Federative Republic of Brazil.

ABOUT THE COUNCIL ON COMPETITIVENESS

For 25 years, the Council on Competitiveness has developed solutions to drive U.S. competitiveness, productivity and standard of living. We are CEOs of major American corporations; presidents of the nation's top universities, colleges and community colleges; and leaders of labor unions whose membership extends nationwide.

PRESS CONTACT

Douglas Rohde
Communications Director
Council on Competitiveness
[email protected] 
(202) 383-9507

SOURCE Council on Competitiveness