Gold Mercury’s historic legacy

The pioneering institution and global award that established Visionary Governance® as a civilisational discipline — since 1961.

Our Historic Legacy

Gold Mercury's story is a decades-long journey of advancing peaceful international cooperation, pioneering Visionary Governance®, and contributing to humanity's planetary futures.

Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, receives the Gold Mercury Award at the Kremlin in recognition of his role in advancing nuclear arms limitation through the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) treaties with the United States.

1961. Rome, Italy

The vision that started a new way of thinking about the future

In 1961, a simple but profound conviction took shape: humanity's future would ultimately be determined not only by technology, economics or politics, but by the quality of the leadership shaping them.

At a time when the world was rebuilding after global conflict and entering an era of unprecedented scientific, economic and geopolitical transformation, Eduardo De Santis—Italian entrepreneur, film producer and visionary—believed that governments, enterprises and international institutions needed a fundamentally different way of thinking.

He argued that the world's greatest challenges could not be solved by reacting to events as they unfolded. They required leaders capable of thinking beyond the immediate, cooperating across borders and acting on behalf of generations yet to come.

His insight was simple, yet revolutionary:

Change how leaders think, and you change the future they build.

That conviction became the foundation of Gold Mercury.

With the support of the Italian Government, led by President Giuseppe Saragat, Eduardo De Santis founded Gold Mercury in 1961 as an independent international institution dedicated to strengthening peace, international cooperation and the long-term governance required to shape a better future.

Eduardo De Santis (right) at the 1982 Gold Mercury International Summit in Karachi, Pakistan, advancing the principle of Peace through Cooperation and Trade.

1961 -1980s. Peace and Cooperation through trade.

Business as a force for peace.

Gold Mercury championed Cooperation through Trade — the conviction that enterprise, international commerce and economic interdependence could strengthen relations between nations and reduce the conditions that lead to conflict. Political leaders who built peace through diplomacy and business pioneers who advanced peace through trade were recognised with the Gold Mercury Award.

From its earliest years, the organisation pioneered initiatives that were decades ahead of their time, promoting peaceful international cooperation, encouraging trade as an instrument of stability, advancing the protection of industrial workers, supporting women's participation in leadership, advocating responsible industrial stewardship and encouraging more constructive relationships between governments, enterprises and society.

These initiatives were united by one conviction: humanity's future is not something that happens to us. It is something we deliberately create through the quality of our leadership, our institutions and our capacity to cooperate.

These principles became the foundation of what Gold Mercury defines as Visionary Governance®—a philosophy of long-horizon leadership and international cooperation.

Eduardo De Santis, Founder of Gold Mercury International, receiving the Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana medal—one of Italy’s highest honours—from Carlo Marchiori, Italian Ambassador (1974), in recognition of his public service to the Italian Republic.

1990s. From observation to discovery

Megavisionary Intelligence®

For more than six decades, Gold Mercury has recognised and convened Gold Mercury Laureates® and has worked alongside the political, business and institutional leaders who shape the modern world.

This experience led us to understand the crucial need to develop and codify the philosophies, tools and cognitive systems to help leaders envision and create multi-decade positive futures. We call this capability Megavisionary Intelligence®.

Megavisionary Intelligence® is the uniquely human cognitive capability to perceive emerging realities, organise complexity across longer time horizons and larger systems, and envision future possibilities that others cannot yet see. It explains why some leaders anticipate and enact real change while others react to it, why some create new realities while others struggle to adapt to them.

Applied at a civilisational scale, Megavisionary Intelligence® enables Future Worldbuilding®: the deliberate envisioning, design and building of the worlds, systems, institutions, enterprises and industries upon which future generations will depend.

Today - 65th Anniversary

A New Mission for a New Century

As humanity enters an age of exponential technological change, artificial intelligence, planetary challenges and unprecedented complexity, Gold Mercury's founding mission has become more relevant than ever.

Today, Gold Mercury is The Institution for Future Worldbuilding®.

Gold Mercury believes that the defining challenge of the twenty-first century is not simply technological, environmental or geopolitical. It is cognitive. Humanity's future will ultimately be shaped by the quality of our perception of reality, our imagination to create and our capacity to think beyond the limits of the present.

Its mission is to advance Visionary Governance® by developing the intelligence, leadership and international cooperation required to deliberately envision, design and build the systems upon which humanity's future depends.

Through research, international dialogue, the Gold Mercury Awards®, and Visionary Governance®, the institution continues to cultivate the leaders who Govern from the Future® rather than merely react to the present.

THE GOLD MERCURY AWARDS

Creating the World’s First Awards for Visionary Governance

In November 1961, the inaugural Gold Mercury Awards® were presented at the Quirinale Palace in Rome under the auspices of President Giuseppe Saragat.

They became one of the world's earliest international recognitions of leaders whose vision, international cooperation and long-horizon leadership were helping shape a more peaceful and prosperous world.

Since then, Gold Mercury has recognised presidents, prime ministers, founders of global enterprises, international organisations, humanitarian leaders and pioneers whose leadership has transformed nations, industries and societies.

Among its laureates are Ronald Reagan, Anwar Sadat, Akio Morita, Soichiro Honda, Gianni Agnelli, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Kerry Kennedy and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, recipient of the Gold Mercury Award® for Peace.

For more than six decades, the Awards have reflected Gold Mercury's enduring belief that leadership should be recognised not only for what it achieves today, but for the future it helps create.

Download our Awards booklet

A legacy of historic world leadership. Six decades of Visionary Governance® at the highest levels of global power

Few institutions in the world can claim what Gold Mercury can: that across six decades, through the Cold War and beyond, across every continent and every ideological divide, the world's most consequential leaders have come to Gold Mercury's Peace and Cooperation Summits to advance peaceful cooperation and humanity's planetary future.

Among the historic heads of state, world leaders and global figures who have participated in Gold Mercury Summits across the world's great capitals:

President Ronald Reagan — United States of America
President Anwar Sadat — Arab Republic of Egypt
General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev — Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
H.M. King Juan Carlos I — King of Spain
Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali — Secretary-General, United Nations
President Giovanni Leone — Italian Republic
President Giuseppe Saragat — Italian Republic
Sheikh Khalifa bin Sulman Al-Khalifa — Kingdom of Bahrain

From Washington to Moscow, Cairo to Madrid, Rome to Manama — Gold Mercury has been the convening ground where the world's most powerful leaders have come together in the shared conviction that Visionary Governance® and peaceful cooperation are the only foundations on which humanity's long-horizon future can be built.

President Anwar Sadat of Egypt - Gold Mercury Award for the Camp David Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process

GOLD MERCURY AND WORLD LEADERS

  • Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet Leader

    1980 | Gold Mercury Award for Global Peace & Security for limiting the use of Nuclear Weapons

  • Alvaro Uribe Velez, President of Colombia

    2009 | Gold Mercury Award for Peace and Security

  • Queen Sofia of Spain Gold Mercury Award

    Queen Sofia of Spain

    1984 | Gold Mercury Award for Culture and Humanitarian Affairs. For her charity work towards children and the Queen Sofia Foundation.

  • Giuseppe Saragat, President of Italy, Gold Mercury Award

    Giuseppe Saragat, President of Italy

    International Relations

  • Gold Mercury Award, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States

    Ronald Reagan, President of the United States

    1982 | Gold Mercury Award for Peace and Security. Reagan Negotiated with Soviet Leader Gorbachev a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

  • Gold Mercury Award King Juan Carlos I

    H.M. King Juan Carlos I of Spain

    Gold Mercury Award for his efforts in safeguarding and promoting the democratic transition in post-Franco Spain.

  • Anwar Sadat, Egypt Gold Mercury Award

    Anwar Sadat, 3rd President of Egypt

    1979 | Gold Mercury Award for Peace & Security for the Camp David Accords

Awards for Enterprise. A legacy of historic business leaders and founders

From its earliest years, Gold Mercury recognised that business leaders could shape the future of nations as profoundly as political leaders. Through enterprise, innovation and international trade, they strengthened cooperation between countries, created prosperity and helped build a more interconnected world.

Among the historic business leaders honoured by Gold Mercury are Gianni Agnelli, Chairman of Fiat; Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda; Ramón Areces, founder of El Corte Inglés; and Gunnar Engellau, Chairman and CEO of Volvo — recognised alongside heads of state, ministers and international figures at Gold Mercury Awards® and Summits.

Over more than six decades, Gold Mercury recognised political leaders, business pioneers and international institutions whose vision, stewardship and long-term contribution helped shape the modern world. Looking back across this remarkable legacy, Gold Mercury observed that many shared a distinctive capability, which it would later define as Megavisionary Intelligence®.

Other historic founders and business leaders recognised by Gold Mercury include:

Akio Morita — Founder, Sony, Japan
Anne Mulcahi — Chairwoman and CEO, Xerox Corporation, USA
Emilio Azcarraga Milmo — President, Televisa, Mexico
Rudolf Dassler — Founder, PUMA, Germany
Uolevi Rade — Chairman, Neste, Finland
Don Jose Ignacio Domecq — Chairman, Domecq, Spain
Armand Petitjean — Founder, Lancome, France
Rino Snaidero — Founder, Snaidero, Italy

Anne Mulcahi, Chaiwoman and CEO, Xerox Corporation

Akio Morita, Japanese entrepreneur, co-founder of Sony

Gold Mercury Global Summits. Six decades of global dialogue.

For over six decades, Gold Mercury Global Summits have brought together heads of state, nations, enterprises, international institutions and civil society at the highest levels of global dialogue — advancing Visionary Governance®, deepening international cooperation and designing the frameworks through which peace, trade and planetary futures are built.

Among the historic world leaders who have opened, hosted and participated in Gold Mercury Summits are President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev of the USSR — alongside hundreds of heads of state, ministers, business pioneers and international figures across six decades and every region of the world.

President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, 31st President of Colombia, receiving the Gold Mercury Award for Peace at the Palacio de Nariño in Bogotá, outlining his vision for Colombia's future security, prosperity and national development.

GOLD MERCURY HISTORIC SUMMITS

  • Gold-Mercury-Summit-Pakistan-1982

    Gold Mercury Summit, Pakistan, 1982

  • Gold Mercury Summit Poster London 2006

  • Gold Mercury International Summit Posters Cairo and Moscow

    Gold Mercury Summit Posters for Cairo and Moscow

  • Gold Mercury Moscow Summit 1980 held at the Kremlin

    Gold Mercury Moscow Summit, 1980, held at the Kremlin

  • Gold Mercury Summit 1981, Sofia, Bulgaria.

  • Gold Mercury Moscow Summit 1980

  • Gold Mercury International Pan African Conference

    Pan African Summit 1982

  • Gold Mercury Summit 1979, El Cairo, Egypt.

  • Gold Mercury Egypt Summit – Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations, presiding over the event.

  • Gold Mercury Summit 2006, Venice, Italy. Dr. Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of HIV (third from right).

    Gold Mercury Science Summit 2006, Venice, Italy, honoring Dr. Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of HIV virus (third from right).

  • Gold Mercury Summit, Rome, Italy.

    Gold Mercury Poster for Roma Summit 1961

  • Gold-Mercury-International-Congo-1985

    Gold Mercury Congo Summit 1985

The ‘Gold Mercury Statue’, the icon of a civilisational mission

Gold Mercury International adopted Mercury — the Roman god, the Greek Hermes — as its symbol. The choice was not decorative. It was deeply intentional.

In classical mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods — the divine mediator between worlds, patron of trade and human cooperation, the guide who carried vision and possibility from one realm to the next. No figure in the classical tradition better embodies the Gold Mercury conviction: that visionary leadership, peaceful cooperation and the courage to mediate between the present and the future are the foundations on which humanity's planetary future is built.

The original statue was sculpted by Flemish master Jean Boulogne — Giambologna — around 1564, one of the great works of Renaissance sculpture. His Mercury is captured in a moment of pure forward motion: weightless, one foot lifted from the earth, arm outstretched towards what comes next. The Megavisionary spirit made bronze.

For Gold Mercury, the statue embodies Visionary Governance®, excellence in leadership, peace through cooperation — and the Protectores Futuri conviction that those who carry vision forward carry it on behalf of all generations to come.

The ‘Gold Mercury Handshake badge’, a symbol of ‘Peace & Cooperation’ in a complex world.

At the opening of every Gold Mercury Summit, something simple and quietly extraordinary would happen. Representatives of Gold Mercury would move through the room — approaching each delegate, each head of state, each minister and business leader — and place in their hands a small badge bearing a single image: two hands in a handshake.

The Gold Mercury Peace and Cooperation Handshake badge asked nothing of its recipient except the most fundamental of human commitments — to exchange ideas, to listen, to cooperate and to reach across whatever divide separated them from the person standing next to them. In the great halls of the world's capitals, delegates from nations that had viewed each other as adversaries would look down at the same small badge in their hands and understand, in that moment, what Gold Mercury had always believed: that cooperation is not weakness. It is the most Megavisionary act of all.

The handshake badge remains one of Gold Mercury's most enduring symbols — a reminder that behind every system of governance, every framework and every planetary strategy, there is a human being willing to reach out their hand. That willingness — simple, radical and always possible — is the foundation on which every future worth inheriting is built.

In a complex world, the handshake remains the most powerful act of Visionary Governance.

In 2021, Gold Mercury marked six decades of pioneering Visionary Governance® — sixty years of convening world leaders, designing long-horizon frameworks and advancing the peaceful cooperation on which humanity's planetary future depends. It was not merely an anniversary. It was a testament to the enduring relevance of what Eduardo De Santis founded in Rome in 1961: the conviction that the future must be designed, governed and protected by those with the vision and courage to think across generations. In 2026, Gold Mercury celebrates its 65th anniversary — a milestone that will be marked by the ambition, scale, and Megavisionary spirit that have defined the institution since its founding.

Celebrating our 65th Anniversary in 2026.

Gold Mercury's Founder and Chairman, Eduardo De Santis, was appointed Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy (Ordine della Stella d'Italia) by the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Italy and to the advancement of international cooperation.

Established by the Italian Republic in 1947, the Order of the Star of Italy is one of the nation's highest civilian honours, recognising individuals whose work has strengthened Italy's international relations, fostered cooperation among nations and promoted mutual understanding across borders.

For Eduardo De Santis, the honour reflected a lifetime dedicated to the principles that inspired the founding of Gold Mercury in 1961: peace through cooperation, dialogue between nations, responsible leadership and the conviction that humanity's future is built through collaboration rather than conflict.

Those same principles continue to guide Gold Mercury today. As The Institution for Future Worldbuilding®, Gold Mercury remains committed to cultivating the leadership, international cooperation and long-horizon thinking required to help shape a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future.

An enduring legacy. Eduardo De Santis and the Order of the Italian Star.

Eduardo De Santis, Founder of Gold Mercury International receiving the ‘Order of the Italian Star’ from the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano.

Increasing our Visionary Governance® capacity. The Launch of GLOGO®.

The Global Governance Monitoring System.

Building upon his work in Future Visioneering®, Gold Mercury President Nicolas De Santis developed GLOGO® (Global Governance Monitoring System) to strengthen the Institution's Visionary Governance® capabilities.

GLOGO® is a governance intelligence framework that organises global complexity into eight interconnected planetary domains and thousands of sub-domains, creating a structured ontology of the forces, systems and events shaping our world. By transforming complexity into actionable intelligence, GLOGO® enables leaders and institutions to better understand emerging risks, monitor change and support more informed long-horizon decision-making.

The system also includes GLOGO Alerts®, a global monitoring and early-warning capability that catalogues major decisions, policies and events, assessing whether they advance or undermine Planetary Futures and humanity's long-term wellbeing.

More on GLOGO

“I am honoured that Gold Mercury International mention and reward my efforts to promote peace with freedom, a goal toward which the people of the United States strive. Gold Mercury is correct in saying that only through international cooperation can peace with freedom become a reality.”

Ronald Reagan 40th President of the United States of America