Day 0 at WEF 2020

Davos starts on Monday evenings and most people fly in to Zurich in the morning before making the two hour hike to Davos before they get ‘stuck in’ to the event. I chose the less manic option of getting here on Sunday night for a few hours of serenity before the non stop momentum of the event sucks you in. Mukta (my wife) is here with me as well – nothing grounds you or makes the event more memorable that having your spouse with you. Mukta’s a very social animal and she’s built a network of her own over the years at Davos. 

The event for me started with a YGL lunch and the theme was one which I’m sure will be central to Davos this year. Responsible leadership or as a CEO described to me – People, Planet and Profits in that order. In a sense, what does it mean to be able to cater to a broader set of stakeholders than your investors. What does it mean to drive change for a Green agenda even if it hurts your next quarter. This is a weighty issue but like all such issues it is often hijacked by soundbites and empty words. This is why I admire Satya Nadella’s commitment to making Microsoft Zero Carbon. It takes guts to make a commitment like that when you’re looking to grow your very energy intensive cloud business. 

After the lunch it was off to a set of bilateral meetings . I really enjoyed my meeting with Frank Richter of Horasis – it’s another forum for Global collaboration and I will try and attend their Annual meeting in Portugal later this year. I also got a chance to meet a fellow YPO’er who has started a platform for trade and collaboration (Opportunity Network). After this, it was off to meet a Senior Bank exec where we traded notes on the overall economic outlook. The overall mood is still bullish and a strong end to January would help banish some of the skittishness. 

Infosys has been a WEF partner for decades and it’s been a great alliance – the focus that both the organizations have on multi stakeholder engagement, learning , the environment and Responsible leadership allows for a great fit. We have a significant presence here with many events and it promises to be entertaining and edifying in equal measure ! 

What is the state of the world. A desire for responsible leadership. For more, tune in tomorrow. For now, I’m off to the Time 2020 Davos kickoff !