Dinner is an important ritual here at the House. And at our Lisbon events, we hosted several eclectic dinners, designed to deepen connections and create meaningful experiences.

One not to miss — if you can snatch a ticket — is a 15 Toasts dinner.

15 Toasts was created out of the desire to create more safe spaces for leaders from business, government, and civil society to step outside of their day-to-day activities and official protocol and engage with their peers in a rich, personal dialogue on values, leadership, and identity. The dinners raise awareness of issues that might be too big and elusive to be captured by formal agendas but deserve deep reflection and meaningful exchange. They also are intended to build trust among leaders and create spaces where people are able to bring their “full selves” to the table.

Often attached to high profile gatherings — the first took place at a World Economic Forum Global Summit — the dinners give guests the permission to be vulnerable, engage as human beings in an open and genuine conversation, and surprise one another and themselves.

Each dinner is organized around a theme, with past dinners including:

15 Toasts To Dignity
15 Toasts To Trust
15 Toasts To Friendship
15 Toasts To Fear

In Lisbon we hosted two:

15 Toasts to Commitment — in partnership with Siemens

15 Toasts to Being Afraid of the Dark — in partnership with Aditi Khorana

The format is relatively straightforward — each event brings together two hosts along with 15 guests, who are seated around a single table in a private setting. The hosts open the gathering, welcome everybody, frame the theme of the evening, and ask each guest to give a toast devoted to the theme at some point during the evening. The dinners are undocumented, abiding by Chatham House Rules.

As a special twist — providing a strong incentive for keeping the round of toasts moving — the last one must sing his or her toast.

While the format is relatively straightforward — the destination is not.

As one former diner, a Fortune 500 CEO commented;

“It’s the first dinner I’ve ever been to where I went in not knowing anyone and came out feeling connected with every single person"

Hungry for more?

Explore our full menu of events in the Attend section