Fortune magazine, the Time Warner Inc. biweekly...

Fortune magazine, the Time Warner Inc. biweekly best known for its list of the top 500 companies, will announce today that it has selected Beverly Hills as the site for its annual Fortune 500 Forum. The conference, to be held Nov. 4-6, gives the leaders of the Fortune-ranked firms a chance to get together and discuss how they made the list and how they plan to stay there.

This year’s theme, “New Ideas for Leadership,” will be the starting point for discussion about the “challenges facing U.S. and global business in the new millennium,” Fortune spokeswoman Nyssa Tussing said. “The primary thrust will be information [for doing business] in the digital age,” she said.

Beverly Hills is this year’s choice because of its strategic location as “the nerve center of the entertainment industry,” Tussing said.

“It’s part of a region as a whole that has a very forward-thinking mentality,” particularly through the convergence of new media, entertainment and technology.

Speakers at the three-day event will include former Laker star Magic Johnson, head of Magic Johnson Enterprises; Gerald Levin, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner; Eli Broad, Los Angeles philanthropist and founder of SunAmerica Inc. and Kaufman & Broad Home Corp.; and John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems Inc.