The changing of the guard
As a former employee of the World Economic Forum, my feed is abuzz with the news that the Forum’s Founder and Executive Chairman, Klaus Schwab, will be stepping down from his post. A former colleague, Peter Vanham , wrote for Fortune that Schwab’s retirement, along with that of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon , leaves stakeholder capitalism in an uncertain position.
Schwab has always been a visionary, as well as a keen sensor of shifting geopolitical and economic headwinds. As part of the founding team for the Global Shapers Community, which Schwab personally founded, I saw firsthand how he understood from the Arab Spring how the WEF needed to adapt in order to engage a younger demographic that had suddenly come into power.
He similarly sensed the shift towards stakeholder capitalism and, indeed, steered many corporations towards that direction of travel. By bringing in civil society to Davos, corporate CEOs and government officials had official and unofficial channels to collaborate and cooperate. Schwab also encouraged statements and initiatives to launch at Davos in order to amplify impact.
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But this changing of the guard is needed. So many of the faces of stakeholder capitalism are white men. Klaus Schwab. Jamie Dimon. Paul Polman . They are legends. But it’s time for us to look elsewhere.
The balance of power is shifting towards a world that is less white, western, and wealthy. There are so many concurrent challenges. Trust in the system has eroded and it’s unclear how to rebuild it. The backlash on stakeholder capitalism is part of a shifting narrative, one that challenges corporate impact because it has left so many behind.
We can, and should continue, to do more, to do better, and to include more stakeholders in the mix. Indeed, that is what I remember most from Klaus's leadership. Now it’s time for the work to continue under the leadership of those who have the lived and learned experience to bring about inclusive and meaningful change. I am optimistic about this changing of the guard. It is very much needed.
Conectando personas y conocimientos para cambios sistémicos. Construcción de Comunidad local y global.
10 个月Very mind-picking Noa Gafni! The questions of a transition at such high level of influence are so interesting. Specially because of the times we are living and the role he/WEF have played as one of the most influential Post WWII institutions. And on a business-only analysis the role he played as advocate of the stakeholder capitalism as a broader perspective to the shareholder-only vision of Milton Friedman. I like to back to history, specially when it is written on personal reflective tone, and it is written by the original thinkers themselves. In the Stakeholder Capitalism book he wrote I found some of that. For this particular question, I find interesting to see his reflections in that book after sharing the original (1973) Davos Manifesto (attached in the picture). Despite all the changes, many of the things here resonate to what I see happening / debating these days. One of the main reasons why I love going back in history is discovering how leaders like Klaus Schwab and Hilda Scwhab have tried to close the gap between their original intention and the changing realities, after realities like the Arab Spring, the Internet, the emergent technologies... How a transition at the top leaders would reflect this too?