While the average Bay Streeter is stuck doing role-playing exercises in HR-sanctioned training seminars, the city’s business and political elites are finding more inspired sources of, well, inspiration. Retired U.S. government titans are cashing in on their names with astronomical speaker’s fees in cities way outside the Beltway. But how much is their advice worth?

COLIN POWELL
What: OHA HealthAchieve 2007, Toronto; annual professional development conference for top health care executives and administrators.
Speaker’s Fee: Reportedly $100,000 (U.S.), plus first-class travel expenses.
In the audience: Over 2,500 health care executives, including Alan Hudson, provincial health policy heavyweight. The come-on: Good leaders “take care of the troops.”
Lesson: Used the Cold War as an example of how relationships between adversaries can evolve.
The big sell: “Vision without execution is a hallucination.”
What it cost: $270 for the day.