Sir Richard Branson, Jack Welch and actor Robin Wright to speak at New York business forum

The Synergy Global Forum, a business and networking event, is set to take place in New York City’s Madison Square Garden this month, featuring some of the world’s most prominent business leaders, philanthropists and entrepreneurs.

The event will take place between 27 and 28 October, and will feature forum headliner Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, an international corporation with more than 400 different companies under its umbrella. Sir Richard was knighted for “services to entrepreneurship”, and has received the Tony Jannus Award for his work in commercial transportation.

He will be accompanied by Jack Welch, the manager and ex-CEO of General Electric. Mr Welch was named by Fortune magazine in 1999 as the “Manager of the Century”, and received $417,361,902 when he left General Electric.

Speakers will also include figures from the media world, including the House of Cards actor Robin Wright and the journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell, known for writing Outliers: The Story of Success and The Tipping Point. Steve Forbes, the chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, will also be speaking, as will Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.

Other guests listed include Guy Kawasaki, the Apple Evangelist and venture capitalist; Daniel Goleman, the psychologist and author; Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and author; Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an author; and leadership expert Simon Sinek, whose TED talk entitled "How great leaders inspire action" has been viewed almost seven million times on YouTube.

And the main venue for the forum is itself one of the star attractions: The Theater at Madison Square Garden was the home of the NFL draft for 10 years from 1995 to 2004, and has hosted TV show finales, boxing matches as well as traditional theatrical productions in the past.

Guests will be treated to an afterparty DJ-ed by Paris Hilton, and tickets range in price from $1,900 for general admission to $10,000 for premium tickets.