Queen Elizabeth II welcomed global business leaders, presidential envoys and tech entrepreneurs to a lavish reception at Windsor Castle on Tuesday evening to mark the end of the UK’s Global Investment Summit.
The UAE’s Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed, managing director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, was among the distinguished guests invited to meet the Queen at her Berkshire home. Also attending was Yasir Al Rumayyan, the Saudi Aramco chairman who is also governor of the Public Investment Fund which recently led the £300 million ($412.8m) takeover of football club Newcastle United.
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates was there, as was US climate envoy John Kerry, Tata chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran and Poppy Gustafsson, chief executive of British cybersecurity company Darktrace.
The event followed the day-long GIS at London's Science Museum, which aimed to catalyse billions of pounds of overseas funding by showing the best of British innovation.
In the run-up to the conference, the UK secured £10 billion in foreign capital for Britain’s green economy through 18 new trade and investment deals.
The funding will be used to support green growth and create 18,000 jobs as Britain extends its green ambitions before hosting the Cop26 environmental summit in Glasgow from October 31.
Prime Minster Boris Johnson was at the reception in Windsor Castle’s green drawing room, with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan and members of the royal family such as the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge.
The queen put on a stylish display, wearing a turquoise outfit with floral detail and a Cullinan V brooch featuring a heart-shaped central stone — the same diamond jewellery she wore in a photograph released to mark Prince Philip's 99th birthday last year.
The senior royals were joined by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Prince Michael of Kent.
In a foreword for the GIS official brochure, the queen said she was “proud” of Britain’s move towards a sustainable future but stressed that “there is still much more to do”.
The head of state also described how tackling the pandemic had inspired scientific breakthroughs and how Britain's innovative spirit often stems from “teamwork against adversity”, such as the efforts of Alan Turing during the Second World War to break the Nazi regime’s Enigma Code.
“The challenge of today, however, is not in breaking a code. It is in working together across the globe to avert the challenges of climate change. It is our shared responsibility, of those in government, business, and civil society, to rise to this challenge,” she wrote.
