Remarks: Building Investable Futures Through Multilateral Partnership From Diplomacy to Deployment

Remarks delivered by Sergio Fernández de Cordova, Executive Chairman of PVBLIC Foundation at the Family Offices for Sustainable Development Global Summit during the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly

Wednesday, 23 September 2026 | United Nations Headquarters, New York City

As prepared for delivery

Excellencies, distinguished leaders, colleagues, partners, families, and friends, good morning and welcome.

On behalf of PVBLIC Foundation, it is my great honor to welcome you to the 2026 Family Offices for Sustainable Development Global Summit, here at the United Nations during the 81st Session of the General Assembly.

Before anything else, I want us to recognize where we are, and the moment in history in which we are gathering.

It is a privilege to gather inside the United Nations. Within these walls, countries come together across differences that can sometimes seem impossible to bridge. Wars and peace are debated. Global priorities are negotiated. New institutions and frameworks are born. And decisions are made whose consequences can extend far beyond any government, administration, or generation.

We are also meeting at one of those rare moments in history when so much seems to be changing at once. Technology is transforming how we live and work. The global economy is being reshaped. Geopolitical relationships are shifting. Questions of energy, resources, nature, data, health, education, and security are increasingly interconnected. And institutions around the world are being challenged to adapt at a pace for which many were never designed.

So being here is both a privilege and a responsibility.

And looking around this room, that responsibility becomes very real.

We have heads of government and ambassadors. Leaders from across the United Nations and multilateral system. Family offices, philanthropists, business leaders, technologists, educators, and institution builders. Many of you have traveled across the world to be here, and for many of you, this is your first FOSD.

So let me take a moment to explain why we have brought this particular group of people together.

FOSD exists to create a trusted space where families can work together with governments, the United Nations, multilateral institutions, and the private sector around real national and global priorities.

We are not an investment conference, and we are not here simply to have another conversation. We bring together people who hold very different pieces of the equation and create the frameworks through which those capabilities can work together.

Governments bring mandate and national priorities. The United Nations and multilateral institutions bring frameworks, knowledge, continuity, and reach. Families bring a generational perspective, expertise, relationships, and resources. Business and innovators bring technology, execution, and scale.

No one in this room has all the pieces.

But collectively, this room has an extraordinary number of them.

And that is the opportunity of FOSD.

If this is your first time with us, do not think of yourself simply as an attendee. Look around this room and ask yourself: what do I bring, what am I missing, and what could we build together that none of us could build alone?

And that question is particularly important now, because this moment of transformation is also a moment of trust.

When we speak about trust and transformation, we often treat them as separate ideas. They are not. Transformation is how trust is restored, and trust is the institutional capital that makes transformation possible.

Trust does not come from words alone. It comes from performance. It comes from transparency, consistency, and institutions doing what they say they are going to do. And it comes from creating frameworks where people with very different interests and capabilities can work together and produce real results.

That brings us directly to the theme of this year’s Summit: Building Investable Futures Through Multilateral Partnership.

And our subtitle: From Diplomacy to Deployment.

For us, an investable future is not simply a country where financial capital can find a return. It is a country with the capacity to turn its people, institutions, knowledge, technology, natural resources, relationships, and national priorities into opportunity.

And when we speak about capital in this room, I want us to think beyond money. We think of capital as the energy that flows through these systems. Financial resources are part of it, but so are human capability, knowledge, technology, natural resources, institutional capacity, relationships, and trust.

The question is how we bring those different capabilities together around a shared objective and put them to work.

That is where multilateral partnership matters.

Diplomacy creates the space for alignment. Partnership builds trust. Trust allows different capabilities to come together. And from there, we can begin moving from ambition to implementation.

From diplomacy to deployment.

That is what today is about.

We will hear directly from heads of government and sovereign leaders, leaders across the United Nations and multilateral system, families and philanthropists, business leaders, technologists, educators, and people building new platforms and institutions.

We will talk about human potential, competitiveness, technology and data, philanthropy, generational leadership, resilient prosperity, and new models of nation building.

But these are not abstract conversations.

Around the world, countries and communities are confronting conflict, disasters, economic shocks, resource constraints, and vulnerabilities that can alter the trajectory of entire generations.

We will look at those realities, but also at the extraordinary opportunities that emerge when the right capabilities are brought together around them.

We are also gathering at an important moment for the United Nations, as the conversation about its next generation of leadership is underway.

This is not about any individual candidate. It is about the future of an institution whose leadership and direction matter far beyond these walls.

The world is changing. The question is whether our institutions can transform with it while preserving and rebuilding the trust required for people and nations to continue believing in them.

But I also do not want today to be defined only by the people on this stage.

I want it to be defined by what happens between all of us.

Throughout the day, partnerships will be formalized. Initiatives will move forward. Some of what happens here will be the result of conversations that began months, and in some cases years, ago. Other relationships may begin today.

That is exactly how this should work.

If our theme is From Diplomacy to Deployment, then we have a responsibility to demonstrate what deployment actually looks like.

So I want to leave you with one request.

Be present today. Meet someone you do not know. Ask the question you normally would not ask. Find the person in this room who has a capability that you do not have, and understand what you might be able to bring to them in return.

And when something you hear today matters to you, do not leave it as a conversation.

Ask what the next step is.

Because ultimately, the measure of this Summit will not be how many people were in this room, how many panels we held, or even how good the conversations were.

It will be what happens because we were here together.

So welcome to the 2026 Family Offices for Sustainable Development Global Summit.

Building Investable Futures Through Multilateral Partnership.

From Diplomacy to Deployment.

Let’s get to work.

Thank you.