With the nation in the throes of an economic crisis and a high-stakes presidential election a month away, the salad bar at Carlsbad's Four Seasons Resort Aviara was one of the best places to get the inside scoop this week.

The nation's most exclusive sorority checked into the hotel for the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, an all-female, invitation-only confab that ended yesterday and typically draws 300 of the biggest names in business, politics, academia and the media.

A few names on the high-profile guest list Donna Shalala, former U.S. secretary of health and human services Billie Jean King, former tennis star Christie Hefner, chairman and CEO, Playboy Enterprises Mary Lyons, president, University of San Diego Sheryl Sandberg, CEO, Facebook Indra Nooyi, CEO, PepsiCo Ursula Burns, president, Xerox Martha Stewart, founder, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Ann Moore, CEO, Time Inc. Melinda Gates, co-chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Arianna Huffington, co-founder, The Huffington Post Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent, CNN Donna Hanover, ex-wife of Rudy Giuliani Nina Jacobsen, producer, DreamWorks SKG Anne Wojcicki, co-founder, 23andMe, and wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin Andrea Wong, president and CEO, Lifetime Entertainment Services

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Xerox President Ursula Burns and Melinda Gates, wife of Bill, were on tap to speak to an audience that included an alphabet soup of CEOs, COOs, CFOs and VPs from American Express to eBay to Wal-Mart.

More than a dozen execs from financial firms at the core of the crisis – Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Bros., among them – were also expected to attend. Maybe Linda McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment CEO, could put them in a choke hold.

What does such a high-octane group talk about when they get together? Equal pay for equal work? Taking over the universe?

A bit of hyperbole in the “most powerful” label not withstanding, you can bet it's not whether Meredith Grey will finally move in with McDreamy.

“Unlike practically all other women's events, we don't talk much about women's issues, glass ceilings and all that stuff,” said Pattie Sellers, a Fortune editor at large who chairs the event. “This is a conference of very prominent, powerful people from business, philanthropy, the arts, government and academia – getting together to talk about the most important issues of the world.”

Though it would be nice to share in their wisdom, the media and the public were not allowed to attend. Arianna Huffington, CNN's Christiane Amanpour and CBS' Lesley Stahl were invited, but all conversations were off the record.

“We want them to be able to let their hair down and have fun,” Sellers said.

Rest assured, at a conference attended by Christie Hefner, chair and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, it couldn't be all work.

There were sessions on learning to play the Wii and a yoga class led by Martha Stewart. (Who knew the woman who says it's best to “refrigerate salad plates for an hour before setting the table” could be so Zen?)

And before departing yesterday for their respective office suites and penthouses, the women were offered luxury beauty treatments from Shiseido.

But the main focus was the corporate world. Discussions at the $3,900 event included “Motivating the Masses,” “Grappling With Free Trade Policy,” “Negotiating Compensation, Perks & More,” “Engaging Employees in Social Responsibility” and “Corporate Philanthropy.”

In leaner times, the ability of businesses to fund charitable organizations has taken on greater urgency, said first-time attendee Pamela Barnes, CEO of The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

“Given the financial crisis, I'm interested to find out what corporations see as their responsibility in philanthropy, in good times and in bad,” Barnes said just before the gathering.

On Thursday, attendees got together with Penny Pritzker, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign finance chair, and Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and now co-chair of the John McCain campaign, to watch Sarah Palin and Joe Biden duke it out.

Now in its 10th year, the Most Powerful Women Summit grew out of Fortune magazine's annual list of the most powerful women in business, topped this year by Nooyi, the PepsiCo CEO.

When the list was first published in 1998, Carly Fiorina, then with Lucent Technologies, was No. 1 and Oprah Winfrey was No. 2. The list, though a hit with readers and corporate recruiters, was controversial. Fiorina wrote in her memoirs that she was uncomfortable with being placed on a women-only list.

Ten years later, gender issues are again front and center in the public consciousness, with questions raised about the impact of sexism on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and kitchen-table debates about whether Palin's five children, including a pregnant 17-year-old and an infant with Down syndrome, would hamper her ability to be vice president.

Though women have made strides, they're still underrepresented in politics and on corporate boards, said Doreen Lorenzo, president of frog design inc., a corporate consulting firm. Meetings such as the one in Carlsbad let women network, interact and problem-solve in a style that's uniquely female.

“We have a different view about how to approach things than men, and than men and women when they're mixed together,” Lorenzo said. “It's a consensus-driven approach and not about power.”

Charlene Begley, president and CEO of GE Enterprise Solutions, said she welcomes the opportunity to be among so many other female executives. Typically, 90 percent of her business associates are men.

“Do I hope someday this meeting is irrelevant because women are so equal at the table of corporate executives and CEOs? Yes,” she said. “But today we're not quite there in terms of pure numbers.”

Only two men made the invite list this year. The first, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, was scheduled to award $50,000 to a woman from a developing nation who took part in a Fortune-sponsored mentoring program. (Does Goldman Sachs even have $50,000 to give away these days?)

The other was Warren Buffet, proving once again he's America's favorite really rich guy. In addition to his speaking engagement, Buffet also was on hand to play bridge.

A few years ago, Goldie Hawn insisted on bringing Kurt Russell, but organizers later deemed that unfair and put a ban on husbands tagging along, Sellers said.

Linda Koch Lorimer, Yale University vice president, has attended the conference for several years, and not for the beauty treatments. “It is a remarkable opportunity to have the most candid, insightful conversations with a group of women who are leaders in so many sectors of society,” she said.