Emanuel and his co-CEO, Patrick Whitesell, are extending their reach beyond Tinseltown and aiming to create sparks with the wider corporate community by putting together a conference of highfliers.
William Morris has been working closely with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt to put together the conference with the support of New England Patriots boss Robert Kraft and California philanthropist Eli Broad.
Other backers of the new event include: Mukesh Ambani, of India’s Reliance Industries, a big movie investor; Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr; and Yuri Milner of DST Global, an early Facebook investor.
Emanuel’s new event replaces a slot left vacant last year by Forstmann Little’s annual conference because of the death of founder Teddy Forstmann.
Notably, Emanuel, who counts Silver Lake as a backer of the talent agency, does not attend the Allen & Co. confab in Sun Valley, Idaho.