Interacting with the movers and shakers

By Karyn Scherer

It has to be said, the event billed by at least one person as the most important meeting to be held in New Zealand since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi got off to a rather scary start.

Presumably, many of the 220 or so business leaders attending the Apec CEO Summit had not witnessed a powhiri before.

At the height of the fearsome challenge to the manuhiri (which included the Hong Kong-based chairman of the Pacific Basin Economic Council, Helmut Sohmen and the American head of General Motors, Jack Smith), they burst out laughing.

Mr Smith later described the experience as "rather interesting". Maybe trade with New Zealand was not such a good idea, he quipped. "It could be life-threatening."

For those of you not lucky enough to wangle an invite to the second biggest show in town, what you missed was a lot of very earnest, but not always enlightening, speeches.

Mr Smith, for example, seemed rather proud of his personal definition of a global business: one that has investments in more than one country. Whether this definition catches on remains to be seen.

Incidentally, someone forgot to tell him not to mention the war. It was only after the outbreak of the Second World War, he said, that the Japanese stopped buying American cars.

In a sea of grey, navy and black, AMP and TVNZ boss Rosanne Meo stood out like a flare in a bright red suit. On Sunday, she was resplendent in all-pink. One wonders what she thought of Mr Sohmen, who kept referring to "we businessmen".

Another speaker, who shall remain nameless, urged delegates to develop a "moral code of conduct". Whoops. "I mean model code of conduct".

A Freudian slip indeed. The business world, she suggested, had a bit of an image problem. "We're very good at describing the hamburger, but so far there's not much beef," she scolded.

This was, no doubt, food for thought for Ray Cesca, the unusually tall and thin head of world trade for McDonald's.

Mr Cesca was a jolly sort, sharing his views with one liftload of passengers that we were all "one big happy family".

"He obviously doesn't eat much of his own product, does he?" someone whispered in my ear.

A main feature of the summit was "interactive meetings". It turned out this meant delegates were seated at tables, rather than in a theatre, and had to talk to each other.

At least that was the idea. Encouraged to share his personal thoughts on the weekend's theme - globalisation - one local business leader was heard asking after the Otago-Counties Manukau game.

Meanwhile, an interesting dissertation on the way forward for Japan by its Minister for International Trade and Industry came to an abrupt end when no one came up with a single question.

For once, the audience was not ordered to turn cellphones off during the main speeches. These, after all, were Very Important People.

And Motorola's vice-chairman, Gary Tooker, was one person who didn't seem to mind the occasional chirrup while he was talking.

Nevertheless, Mr Tooker must have been thanking his lucky stars the summit was not in Sydney. Across the Tasman, the company is embroiled in an embarrassing scandal over the way it won a contract for millions of dollars worth of police business.

After almost every speech, the speaker was thanked for his or her thought-provoking address. But then those doing the thanking, like those producing the political leaders' communique, were working from prepared notes.

At one point, every single person at the table next to me had their heads down and their eyes wide shut. Maybe it was jetlag.

But then, the main action was not really the talkfest itself. The CEO Summit is really a giant networking opportunity and much of the real progress was being made elsewhere.

Local business leaders had been looking forward to rubbing shoulders with some of the Asia Pacific region's biggest movers and shakers for months, and most managed to fill their appointment books.

As it turned out, they also got to rub elbows and knees with the visitors, thanks to the Heritage hotel having only three small lifts to ferry a phalanx of people between floors.

For most delegates, the highlight was probably Bill Clinton's breakfast speech on Sunday morning.

But for me, it was the address by the one of the world's richest men, the Sultan of Brunei. His Majesty kindly shared his thoughts on how Apec nations should work towards the common goal of shared prosperity.

His conclusion? "I believe the most important contribution we can all make to this is to convince our people that the different sectors we represent are all working together in their interests."

You can draw your own conclusions as to whether he is a hamburger or a beef man.

The venue for most of the summit sessions was the Heritage Hotel's almost-elegant Tearoom.

It was a strange feeling sitting beneath the newly painted ceiling, knowing that this was the very place I spent some of the happiest moments of my early childhood.

Back then, it used to be the rooftop playground of the old Farmers department store. If we were lucky, we would be allowed to ride round and round in circles on the pedal cars, while our parents enjoyed some refreshment after a busy morning's shopping.

It is true, I suppose: the more things change, the more they stay the same.