Global Events

Where culture meets capital.

WaterHouse creates a permanent, branded presence at the world's most influential gatherings. Days of programming that move and educate. Evenings of private dinners where the investment conversation becomes inevitable.

The WaterHouse Roundtable · Davos · 18 January 2026

The room where it began.

On the opening Sunday of the World Economic Forum, WaterRising convened family offices, governments, multilateral institutions, and infrastructure leaders for a closed-door roundtable on why water continues to lag other infrastructure sectors — and what information, structures, and market signals are missing.

$70B
family-office capital represented in the room
$1.5M
direct founding investment that followed

"Water's challenge is not relevance — it is clarity."

Six Key Takeaways

  1. 01Systemically critical, but poorly understood as an asset class.
  2. 02Family offices are interested, but lack decision-grade insight on water.
  3. 03The absence of aggregated investor data is a binding constraint.
  4. 04Private credit and structured finance are underexplored pathways.
  5. 05AI, quantum, and advanced sensing are reframing water as strategic digital infrastructure.
  6. 06The market wants trusted platforms that inform and align — not sell.
Featured Session · Cannes Lions 2026

Water Is the Original Alpha: Making the Invisible Visible

Impact Hub  ·  Thursday, June 25  ·  09:00–10:00 AM

Water powers every brand, city, destination, supply chain, technology platform, and community on earth — yet remains largely invisible in culture. As AI, economic growth, tourism, manufacturing, and global business become increasingly dependent on resilient water systems, a new challenge emerges: how do we make the essential impossible to ignore?

Hosted by WaterRising Institute and WaterHouse, this interactive session brings together leaders in artificial intelligence, sustainability, business resilience, and culture to explore how creativity can transform public awareness of invisible systems. Together, we explore what it would take to make water famous.

Water is the original alpha.

Before AI. Before brands. Before growth. There was water. The challenge is not convincing people that water matters — it is making it visible.

Water Wellness Passport™

Cannes is where culture becomes market reality: when a theme rises, brands brief against it and budgets shift. WaterHouse repositions water from an invisible utility into a performance and wellness category — linking hydration science to mental clarity, stamina, and executive performance through a festival-long protocol that makes water visible, useful, and shareable among CMOs, creators, and founders. The outcome is not just awareness; it is category formation.

Speakers

AD
Alicia Douglas
Founder & CEO, WaterRising Institute
PA
Peter Adriaens
Co-Founder, Equarius AI; Professor of Engineering, Finance & Entrepreneurship, University of Michigan
LB
Luca Burdese
Independent Advisor — Sustainability, Supply Chain Risk & Operational Resilience

Impact Studio Facilitators

HF
Hajj Flemings
CEO, REBRANDX · House of Intelligence · AI Architect
CR
Cynthia Respert
Founder, AI BuildHER Academy · AI Solutions Architect · Responsible AI Advocate

With Alicia Douglas, Peter Adriaens, and Luca Burdese.

The House at Cannes · June 20–24, 2026

Water Wellness: the next key performance indicator

Carbon defined the last decade of sustainability storytelling. Water will define the next. At Cannes Lions 2026, WaterHouse and WaterRising launch Water Wellness — a new framework linking water, brain health, innovation, and infrastructure — and the world's first Water Wellness Passport™.

WaterHouse is a curated, invitation-only activation: a private retreat minutes from the festival, with Michelin-star chef service, leadership salons, and hydration by tabl'eau Filtered Water with Water Sommelier service. A founding group of partners will help define how brands, creators, and cities measure and communicate water wellness globally.

Four signature touchpoints

Executive Coaching. Strengths-based coaching that empowers leaders to perform while navigating adversity, transition, and growth.


Leadership Salon. Private dialogue with ministers, family offices, and global brand leaders exploring water as a strategic economic and infrastructure priority.


Showcase. An evening hospitality experience with curated water pairings, immersive storytelling, and premium brand engagement.


Market Performance Briefings. Data-driven insights positioning water as an emerging economic category across wellness, technology, and infrastructure.

Cannes Partnership Opportunities

Founding partner tiers for Cannes Lions 2026

Headwater · Title Partner
$250K–$500K

3 private bedrooms · 4 festival passes · 10 dinner seats across the Cannes Dinner Series · private leadership salon hosting · Water Wellness Passport™ title integration · category leadership · first right of refusal · global press visibility.

Wavemaker Partner
$100K–$150K

1 private bedroom · 2 festival passes · 5 dinner seats · dedicated onsite activation space · executive coaching · Water Wellness Passport™ integration · press visibility · social/UGC visibility.

Aquifer Partner
$50K–$75K

1 festival pass · 2 dinner seats · leadership salon access · press mention · UGC & social visibility · Water Wellness gift-bag opportunity.

Davos 2026 · Capital & Infrastructure

Top-down validation

$70B in family-office capital was represented in the room as senior public and private leaders examined why water continues to lag other infrastructure sectors. The roundtable confirmed that capital is actively seeking better water opportunities — and that the decision-grade intelligence layer is the binding constraint.

$1.5M direct investment followed from Meaningful Ventures 2.0 at the World Economic Forum.

Cannes Lions 2026 · Creativity & Culture

Bottom-up validation

Creative leaders, brands, technologists, entrepreneurs, and storytellers convened around one question: how does creativity make water visible? The session proved the creative industry is ready to make water its next great cultural mission — and that creativity can become infrastructure for investment.

Next step: July 20, 2026 — meeting with Lions Impact & Sustainability; advisory-board invitation extended.

Private Destination Dinner · September 2026

The Lake Como Conversation

An intimate evening exploring long-horizon capital, legacy preservation, luxury-destination resilience, real assets, intergenerational stewardship, and water security — through the lens of private leadership and multigenerational thinking.

"The future stability of iconic places, enterprises, and multigenerational wealth may increasingly depend on the systems we once overlooked."

By invitation only

WaterHouse is a private convening platform bringing together family offices, investors, enterprise leaders, cultural institutions, policymakers, creatives, and infrastructure experts.

The Lake Como dinner is part of the Monaco + Italy Salon Series — the model that pairs cultural immersion with the private capital conversations that follow.

Upcoming · Siracusa, Sicily · Friday, July 31, 2026

From Ancient Springs to Smart Systems

Water Security, Infrastructure & Modernization

Financing the next chapter of water. For over two millennia, Syracuse has stood at the center of water intelligence — from the sacred Arethusa Spring to early Mediterranean hydraulics. Today the region is again pivotal: the new public–private utility Aretusacque S.p.A., serving 19 municipalities, signals a shift toward industrialized water management built to attract capital. This dinner positions Syracuse as a living case study in how water infrastructure can align with the long-term capital, stewardship values, and intergenerational priorities of family offices.

An off-the-record dialogue

An invitation-only evening for 10–12 — family-office principals, utility leadership, infrastructure investors, and technology partners — for a peer-level conversation. Not a deal presentation: a strategic dialogue among the decision-makers shaping where long-term capital flows next.

4 family-office principals or CIOs · 1–2 utility/infrastructure operators · 1–2 infrastructure finance specialists · 1 digital-water expert · 1 host. No press. No observers.

Anchor themes

Water as intergenerational infrastructure — aligning with legacy, continuity, and capital preservation.


From fragmentation to bankability — how consolidated governance and professionalized utilities create investable conditions.


Risk, returns, and regulation — where risk sits and how mixed-ownership models mitigate it.


Aretusacque as a proof point — early insights from a newly formed utility navigating modernization and financing. Italy alone requires an estimated €30 billion over five years to modernize its water systems.

The Activation Calendar

A presence on every influential stage

From the first operational milestone at Davos to the announcement moment at UN Water, WaterHouse follows the world's capital and culture across the calendar.

Jan 2026
Davos · WEF
Milestone reached

The WaterHouse Roundtable at Davos

The first operational milestone — the moment WaterHouse moved from theory to execution. $70B in family-office capital represented; five key findings established water as systemically critical but structurally misunderstood.

Jun 2026
Cannes Lions · France
Milestone reached

The WaterHouse Impact Studio at Cannes Lions

The second operational milestone — the moment WaterHouse understood that creativity is not separate from investment, it enables it. The featured session, Water Is the Original Alpha, set the stage for the Make Water Visible™ movement.

Sep 2026
Lake Como · Italy
Upcoming

The Lake Como Dinner & Italy Programming

An intimate convening series pairing daytime programming with private family-office dinners — the model that turns cultural conviction into capital conversations.

Jul 31, 2026
Siracusa · Sicily
Upcoming

From Ancient Springs to Smart Systems — Siracusa Private Dinner

Part of the Italy Dinner Series. An off-the-record gathering of family offices, utility leadership, and infrastructure investors using Aretusacque S.p.A. as a living case study for making water bankable for patient capital.

Sep 21–26, 2026
UNGA · New York
Upcoming

UN General Assembly Week

WaterHouse activates alongside the world's policy leadership as the Lions MOU is finalized and Phase 2 momentum builds.

Dec 7–10, 2026
UN Water Conference
The announcement moment

WaterHouse announces its partnership with Cannes Lions

The Make Water Visible™ Young Creators Challenge launches. The moment the global water sector has a creative platform — and water becomes culturally impossible to ignore. The moment Phase 2 begins.

Jan 2027+
Davos · WEF 2027
Scale

WaterHouse returns to Davos at scale

Phase 2 raise active, Water Studios launches, Water Interactive pilots begin, and the first Annual Water Intelligence Report is published.

A seat at every table that matters

Founding Builders receive priority access to all global convenings and the private dinners that follow.

See the invitation