THE SALON STORY

The Enlightened Enterprise Academy’s Salon reimagines the 18th-century Paris Salons for a global audience, uniting the sciences, arts, and humanities in inclusive dialogue online and offline.

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The Paris Salons of the 18th century were among the most influential gatherings of the Enlightenment. They brought together philosophers, scientists, artists, writers, and political thinkers in a shared space for dialogue and exchange. Figures such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and Montesquieu were regular participants, and during his time in Paris Benjamin Franklin also became a celebrated guest. The salons helped to shape the intellectual and cultural climate of the Enlightenment, providing a forum where ideas could be tested across disciplines and where the sciences, the arts, and the humanities informed one another.

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The influence of these salons spread beyond Paris. In London, coffee houses and the Royal Societies became similar hubs for intellectual engagement, where scientists and philosophers met with merchants, politicians, and writers to share discoveries and challenge assumptions. In Scotland, Enlightenment figures like David Hume, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson were part of this broader international network of inquiry, often linked through personal correspondence and shared intellectual exchange. The salons thus played a vital role in creating a transnational flow of knowledge that helped to shape the modern world.

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The Enlightened Enterprise Academy’s Salon builds on this tradition but reimagines it for the 21st century. Ours will not be Paris-based, nor confined to a small elite. Instead, it will be offered both online and offline, designed to reach a global audience and bring together diverse voices. Where the Paris Salons once gathered a few leading figures in one city, our Salon uses digital technologies to connect participants across continents, while also creating opportunities for in-person gatherings. The guiding principle remains the same: to bring the sciences, the arts, the humanities, and practical wisdom into dialogue, recognising that breakthroughs emerge when disciplines meet.​

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SERIES of

The Salon’s Series and Conversations are living explorations that seed the ideas, networks, and practices needed to respond to our age of complexity.

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The Salon launched its programming with the INFLECTION Series, an ambitious set of conversations exploring the defining challenges and opportunities of our time. From the outset, the goal has been to trace the deep structural shifts shaping the world, to explore the limits of existing paradigms, and to ask what new forms of enterprise, governance, and human flourishing might emerge in response.

The Inflection Series has unfolded as a story in itself, moving from diagnosis of systemic crises to exploration of alternative pathways, and bringing diverse voices into dialogue around the need for transformation. So far, the series has featured contributions from Indy Johar, Donna Hicks, John Alderdice (a member of the UK House of Lords), Mary Crossan, Mary Gentile, and Neil Hawkes.

Each of these conversations has added a distinctive dimension: from the moral foundations of dignity and trust, to the leadership challenges of radical change, to the cultural and institutional renewal required in an age of turbulence. Taken together, they form a rich and evolving narrative about the kinds of shifts - personal, organisational, and societal - that will define our shared future. After a summer break, the series will resume, continuing to weave these insights into a coherent exploration of what it means to live at a moment of global inflection.

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Looking ahead, the Inflection Series will also connect with Paul Barnett’s forthcoming book, Beyond the First Light A New Enlightenment Is Called For. Already being serialised in The Salon, the book builds on the themes of the series, setting out a bold argument for why the crises of today demand a new intellectual and moral awakening. ​

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The Salon will also offer several series reflecting the fact complexity and radical uncertainty are defining features of the world transcending. The will explore the implications for a range of management disciplines such as governance, risk, finance etc. Each will be styled like "Strategy in an Age of Radical Uncertainty," which will be the first. In turn these series will lead to the creation of future Participatory Learning Networks (PLNs), enabling even deeper exploration of the issues in various areas of practice.

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In this way, the Salon’s Series are more than intellectual exercises. They are living explorations that not only tell the story of our current inflection point but also seed the initiatives, networks, and practices needed to respond to it. And the above examples are merely indicative of the way the Salon and other initiatives we offer will relate. Many will be led by members of the Faculty who will also be encouraged to propose other new initiatives.