PRESS RELEASE


July 2008

Global Brand Forum is proud to announce that JIMMY WALES, founder of Wikipedia is the 2008 winner of their GLOBAL BRAND ICON™ OF THE YEAR AWARD in association with CORUM Swiss Timepieces.

He is the second person to win this honour and will receive the distinguished award when he comes to Asia for the first time to speak at the Global Brand Forum in Singapore to be held from Aug 14-15 at the Ritz Carlton Millenia. The inaugural award was won in 2007 by Al Gore, the former U.S. Vice President who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize later that year.

Karthik Siva, Founder and Chairman of the Global Brand Forum, hailed as the “Davos of Branding” for brands, business and leadership said: “Jimmy Wales is the Internet world’s most influential maverick. Global Brand Forum is very proud and honoured to have been instrumental in bringing him to Asia for the first time. He has revolutionised free and open content, and created the world’s first online encyclopedia and the powerful Wikipedia brand.”

Wales also founded the non-profit, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. that operates several online collaborative wiki projects including a collection of e-book texts for students worldwide free of charge. Said Karthik: “In achieving this, Wales has established himself as the world’s ‘uncompromising defender’ of free speech. We are most honoured and eager to have him address delegates from all over the world at the Global Brand Forum in Singapore this August.”

The Regional Managing Director of CORUM Swiss Timepieces, Deepa Chatrath said that the award to former Vice President Al Gore in 2007 and this year, to Jimmy Wales, seeks to highlight the achievements of someone in the global arena who has made an outstanding contribution to the world and has himself, become a brand that stands for good.

Ms Chatrath said: "CORUM salutes the Global Brand Icon of the Year Award winner Jimmy Wales. He has unlocked breakthrough branding and leadership. Jimmy Wales has given people around the world, free access to human knowledge, and to collaborate on their shared contributions. He represents what CORUM and our own legacy of 53 years, continually embrace in our own spirited search to Unlock & Conquer new perimeters of innovation and breakthrough.”

Like former Vice President Al Gore before him, Jimmy Wales will receive the award in the form of a CORUM ‘Romvlvs Gold’ timepiece on the first day of the forum.

The Global Brand Forum is into its fifth year. This year’s theme is ‘Maverick Approaches to Brand Building’. In addition to Jimmy Wales, the forum will host other iconic speakers including Spike Lee, one of Hollywood’s most powerful film makers who has also directed several groundbreaking ad commercials for Nike; Will Wright dubbed the “Steven Spielberg” of the gaming industry who invented a genre of computer game, the SimCity, involving neither winning nor shooting; Al Ries branding guru and author; Al Golin, founding chairman of GolinHarris, who, with the founder of McDonald’s Ray Kroc, created Brand Trust long before the industry had heard of reputation brand building; and many more speakers from across Asia and the Middle East.

For the first time this year, there will be practical breakout sessions on Retail, Corporate Social Responsibility & Entrepreneurship for delegates to get up front and close to the speakers.

Said Karthik Siva, Chairman of the Global Brand Forum, “We have chosen the theme of Maverick Approaches to Brand Building because we are living in a very competitive and yet homogenous world of ‘Manufaketure’. In such a scenario, the only way most companies can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage is to completely overhaul the way brand building is done and to adopt a bolder and more disruptive approach. This holds well not only for companies but also for Singapore as a ‘city brand’.”

Tickets to the 2-day forum are priced at S$3,500 per person. Special rates are available for bulk registrations. For registration and more information, please visit www.globalbrandforum.org.

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