He enticed multinational corporations to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the privilege of serving as “strategic partners,” securing access to exclusive lounges and private conference rooms inside the Congress Centre. He reinforced the value proposition through relentless networking, making Davos an indispensable venue for business.
In defining a high-minded mission-“Improving the State of the World”-Schwab turned attendance into a demonstration of social concern. He recognized early on that the Forum had to distinguish itself from the run-of-the-mill business conferences, where people sat around talking about money. “He has a knack, an incredible knack to smell the next fad and to jump into it,” said one former colleague. “Several of us almost threw up,” recalled Barbara Erskine, who then ran the Forum’s communications.īut if Schwab is something of a ludicrous character, he is also begrudgingly admired as a savant. In the mid-1990s, when the Forum convened a gathering in South Africa, Schwab delivered a speech in front of Nelson Mandela at the closing plenary in which he cribbed from Martin Luther King Jr. When a Forum employee who was late for a meeting once pulled into Schwab’s spot in the parking lot, aware that the boss was overseas, he caught wind of it, and insisted that she be fired, relenting only after senior staff intervened to save her. On his travels, he demands the privileges of a visiting head of state, complete with welcoming delegations at the airport.Īt the Forum’s headquarters in Switzerland-a glass-fronted campus looking out on Lake Geneva-a hallway connecting two wings is lined with photos of Schwab posing with world leaders. Schwab’s movements through the Congress Centre unfold like military exercises, a coterie of agitated minions accompanying him everywhere.
“All your politics certainly are aiming to create better inclusiveness for the American people.” “Congratulations for what you have achieved for your economy, but also for your society,” Schwab told Trump as he introduced him. When Donald Trump appeared in Davos in January 2020 to present a keynote address, Schwab credited the American president for fostering a spirit of community. He blithely disregards the obvious contradictions between the pristine values he publicly champions-inclusion, equity, transparency-and the unsavory compromises that he makes in wooing people with money and influence. Like most Davos Men, Schwab has mastered the art of holding two irreconcilable positions at once, unencumbered by the typical constraints of rank hypocrisy. But this is also central to the experience, a feeling of overwhelming befuddlement tinged with elation that you are somewhere that is supposed to signify your own importance in the momentous sweep of history-a ridiculous yet highly effective means of motivating people to keep showing up. The event has exhausted the meager supply of hotel rooms, forcing grown professionals to share glorified dorm spaces in barebones chalets for upward of $400 a night, or otherwise commute from neighboring villages while relying on Forum shuttle buses whose schedules appear as closely guarded as North Korean nuclear launch codes.ĭespite the outward appearances of glamour, attending the Forum has become a supreme and unending torment of logistical hassles, astonishing costs, and physical deprivation-exhaustion, dehydration, hunger, and anxiety. In recent years, 3,000 people have jammed the proceedings in Davos.
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