At this summer’s CFA Institute Financial Analysts’ Seminar in Chicago, I set out to recreate in theory, if not in form, an artwork by one of the city’s renowned artists, Judy Chicago. Entitled The Dinner Party, this installation piece from the 1970s is literally a large table, in triangular form, which is set for dinner. But what’s unique about this imagined dinner party is that the invited guests include the great women in history, both living and dead. In concept, the installation sets the stage for a conversation and exchange of ideas between some of the most respected women in history.

With the spirit of this column in mind, I imagine here a dinner party to which are invited the great minds in finance to tackle the pressing issues facing investors today. This list was compiled with the help of the international contingent of speakers at the seminar, simply by asking them to identify three people—living or dead—they would invite to dinner. As the list below reveals, the topics of the day include the economy, China, India, value investing, oil and energy, sovereign wealth funds, U.S. pensions, and hedge funds.

David Jones, president and CEO of DMJ Advisors, LLC and former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, invites Milton Friedman, Paul Volcker, and Adam Smith to the table.

Louis-Vincent Gave, founding partner of GaveKal, invites economist Jim Walker, who predicted the 1997 Asian crisis, Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics, and Dr. Simon Ogus, founder and CEO of the independent consultancy DSG Asia, to talk about China.

Arshad Zakaria, president and CEO of New Vernon Capital, LLC, invites the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and grandson of Indira Gandhi, and Nandan Nilekani, successful businessman, author of Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, and one of the world’s most influential people of 2009 according to Time Magazine.

Amit Wadhwaney, portfolio manager of Third Avenue Management, invites his colleague Martin Whitman, co-chief investment officer and portfolio manager of the Third Avenue Value Fund, New Zealand‘s Sir Ron Brierley, endearingly known as the “Warren Buffet of the South Pacific,” and Ian Cumming and Joseph Steinberg from Leucadia, the holding company that is known as a “mini Berkshire Hathaway.”

Charles Maxwell, senior energy analyst at Weeden & Co., invites the energy economist Philip Verleger, and Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.

Sudi Mariappa, senior advisor of portfolio management at PIMCO, invites Lim Chow Kiat, deputy president of GIC Asset Management, to talk about sovereign wealth funds, representatives from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which protects the pensions of 44 million American workers and retirees, Curtis Ishii, senior investment officer for fixed income at CalPERS, and the investment managers of Brevan Howard Asset Management, one of Europe’s largest hedge fund managers.

Bruce Greenwald, Robert Heilbrunn Professor of finance and asset management at Columbia Business School, invites David Swensen, chief investment officer at Yale University, Seth Klarman, founder and president of The Baupost Group and author of Margin of Safety: Risk Averse Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor, and Glenn Greenberg, founder of Chieftain Capital Management.

I close the list with my own choice of dinner invitees, selected from the speakers, whose ideas and insights sparked debate and discussion amongst the conference participants. I invite Bruce Greenwald, who ignited the room with his contrarian remarks about the current economic crisis. I also invite Dr. Ashvin Chhabra, chief investment officer for the Institute of Advanced Study, to talk about the importance of rebalancing risk exposures rather than traditional asset classes in the investment management process. Willis Sparks, analyst at the Eurasia Group, would add insight about political risks in the BRIC countries and the implications of these risks for investors and companies in those markets. And finally I invite Christopher Malloy, assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, to talk about how behavioural finance can help us to understand the recent market crisis. Like Judy Chicago’s installation, the guest list at this re-imagined dinner party not only documents investment history by elevating the achievement of some of our best thinkers, but also serves as a starting point for building a new investment approach to the world.