World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab will be stepping down from his role as leader of the global gathering.
Schwab announced the change in an email to WEF staff on Tuesday, according to Semafor.
Schwab has not named his successor. He has said the WEF’s executive board has been “under the leadership of President Børge Brende, [who] has taken full executive responsibility.”
Brende formerly led Norway’s conservatives. In Semafor’s reporting, it said the WEF “has shifted its focus towards the center, and away from liberal politics.”
Semafor noted the WEF is sitting upon a healthy nest egg.
It took in almost $500 million in the fiscal year that ended in March 2023 and had 200 million Swiss francs in cash, Semafor reported in 2023.
The WEF characterized the change as part of a long-running transition.
“Since 2015, the World Economic Forum has been transforming from a convening platform to the leading global institution for public-private cooperation,” the WEF said in a statement on its website.
“As part of that transformation, the organization has also been undergoing a planned governance evolution from a founder-managed organization to one where a President and Managing Board assume full executive responsibility.
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“By January 2025, Klaus Schwab will transition from Executive Chairman to Chairman of the Board of Trustees,” the statement continued. “In addition, the Forum’s prominent Board of Trustees will be organized around four strategic committees to further reinforce the impact of our work.”
“These shifts underscore our institutional continuity in providing an independent and impartial platform to address the complex challenges of an interconnected world,” the statement concluded.
Schwab founded the WEF in 1971. Its major function is to convene a major summit in Davos, Switzerland, according to Bloomberg.
A Fox News report questioned the merits of the WEF.
“It is nothing more than an official mechanism by which cronyism can flourish,” said Ben Habib, co-deputy leader of Reform UK, a British political party. “The event legitimizes cronyism.”
Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a British think tank, said the WEF is less than it appears.
“There are many people who think Schwab controls the world. I’m not one of them,” he said.
Schwab, he said, “has embedded himself with the ‘great and good,’ but they ain’t so great and ain’t so good.”
“The little guy is not represented anywhere in these major international forums,” Mendoza said.
