| A GLOBAL MAGNATE (AND MAGNET)
Christina Gold has dimples, a wide smile,
and an easy charm that instantly draws you
to her; she is also a CEO with international
clout. Fortune magazine rates her one of the
“100 most powerful women in the world.”
Panamanian Ambassador Federico Humbert
Arias and his wife Daphne honored Gold
with a reception at their home when she and
husband Peter were here to receive the 2008
Leadership in
Excellence Award of
the Inter-American
Development
Council. It was
awarded at the
IADC’s seventh
annual Winter Gala
at the Organization
of American States,
where she was
lauded for her
work benefiting
underdeveloped areas
world wide and for the charitable initiatives she
has instituted.
Henry Kissinger was honorary chairman of
the black-tie gala hosted by IADC’s chair, Amb.
Christopher Thomas, and its president and CEO
Barry Featherman. Present also was former
honoree Harriet Mayor Fulbright.
Western Union, the company for which
Gold serves as president and CEO, was also
honored for its “leadership in stimulating
economic development in the Americas,”
said Featherman. For those who remember
Western Union’s business as telegrams and an
occasional money order from home, that was
back in 1851, when it was founded. It is now
the world’s largest money-transferring |
business,
with $68 billion per year to the Americas alone
– and Christina presides over 355,000 agents in 200 countries.
Susan Hurley
Bennett helped
organize the gala,
which is always a
let-your-hair-down party that throbs to a
Latin beat, with many ambassadors from the
Americas, interesting speeches, and a hot salsa
band playing non-stop. The event draws guests
from all over, including dynamic Ivonne ABaki,
the popular, one-time Ecuadorian
ambassador, who ran for Ecuador’s presidency,
was appointed minister of finance, and has
now been promoted to the presidency of the
Andean Parliament. She and daughter Tatiana
were joined this year by pal Bo Derek, adding
to the high glamour quotient.
UP IN THE AIR:
For this writer, a special part each year of the
Palm Beach Red Cross Ball is the flight with
the ambassadors to be honored there, aboard
Donald Trump’s Boeing 727. Built to hold 158,
he reconfigured it for just 23 passengers, happy
amidst the comfortable upholstery, mahogany
paneling, golden bathroom fixtures, and oil
paintings. There is always anticipatory chatter
with the honorees on the way down … and a fun
re-hash on the way back. This year, while Trump’s
pilot of 17 years, Mike Donovan, guided the big
bird gently down, the energetic ambassador of
Malaysia, Rajmah Hussain, urged me to share
the cockpit jump-seat with her |
(luckily, she is
tiny) and we literally had a bird’s eye view of
Washington, obtainable only from that perch, as
we gradually returned to earth. TURKISH DELIGHT:
Cyd Everett chaired a beautifully done
cocktail party for the Women’s Committee of
the Washington Ballet, hosted by Nabi Sensoy,
the ambassador of Turkey, and his wife Gulgun at
their Massachusetts Avenue residence, complete
with Turkish delicacies. As the flowered invitations
promised, University of Massachusetts Professor
Walter Denny came down from Amherst to
speak on “Flowers in Ottoman Turkish Art”; we’ll
never look at those tulips the same way again.
Seen: Kay Kendall and Jack Davies, Debbie
and Donald Sigmund, Vibeke Lofft, Septime
Webre, Maria Nedelcovich, and Paul Carp.
ANYONE WE KNOW?
There was one funny sidebar to the alwaysmagnificent
Kuwaiti National Day celebration:
Sheila and Gerald Katz rushed in from Potomac
to the party’s usual site, the Willard Hotel. Sheila
thought ”How odd, just regular flowers, Rima
always has spectacular ones at her events.” No Al-
Sabah hosts in sight, and only a few familiar faces.
Then it hit. Wrong party. They regrouped and
headed for The Four Seasons and the fête. |
AROUND TOWN
