Achilles Tsaltas led the international conference division at The New York Times, where the portfolio included The Athens Democracy Forum and Art for Tomorrow.
He was charged to set up an independent entity, The Democracy & Culture Foundation, with a mission to not only make these conferences more consequential but, significantly, develop alliances with other organizations to turn solutions into action.
The events remain strongly linked with The New York Times through a licensing agreement, and with current and former senior NYT journalists crafting and developing the agenda and moderating the events.
2013
The Athens Democracy Forum (then conceived by The New York Times) was first run in 2013
2015
Art for Tomorrow (then run by The New York Times) launched in 2015
2019
The Democracy and Culture Foundation was founded as a legal entity in February 2019
In 2019 we decided, for the future growth and development of these conferences, to form a non-profit structure around them and take them out of the commercial structure of The New York Times conference division
The Democracy and Culture Foundation was formed to empower society through citizen engagement and better governance
2020
The Board of Governors was formed in September 2020
The Foundation's work is overseen by a Board of Governors, which sets overall policy and objectives, establishes the Foundation’s set of ethical values and ensures that objectives are met
The Leadership Council was formed in December 2020
The Leadership Council acts as the body of last appeal, takes the lead in funding for the Foundation, gives strategic advice and safeguards ethical standards.
Meet our Partners
We work with a number of select leading institutions to achieve our goals.
The Athens Democracy Forum
The Athens Democracy Forum took place September 28-30, 2022 in Athens where we examined the lessons learned from the pandemic and the rise in populism and participated in the debate on how we should confront the economic and social fallout.
