Our Mission

Salzburg Global is where open-minded leaders from around the world gather for breakthrough conversations on pressing global issues.

Since 1947, our programs have worked to overcome barriers and open up a world of better possibilities – creating spaces where divergent voices can address the big challenges of our time.

Since 1947, we have gathered over 40,000 Fellows from 173 countries for more than 1,100 sessions that change the conversation on the pressing issues of our time.

That very first session brought together over 100 young Europeans and Americans – including veterans of the French resistance, survivors of Nazi concentration camps, prisoners of war, and former enemies. They met at Schloss Leopoldskron, an Austrian palace that had been occupied by the Nazis in a country that was still under Allied military occupation.

They wrestled with how diverse and fractured groups of people could come together and start creating the conditions for peace in the aftermath of World War II.

Seventy-seven years later, the challenges may be different, but our mission still carries that same founding spirit: to overcome barriers and open up a world of better possibilities.