WEF 2020: What Have You Missed? My Top 10 Must-Watch Sessions (Recordings) and Reflections from a Davos Newbie

On its 50th anniversary the official theme of the WEF was “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.” Klaus Schwab, who runs the show, is 84 and still moderating the key panels - strongly promoting a new kind of capitalism: "business is a social organism and needs to contribute to society". Climate change and multilateral stakeholder capitalism were indeed dominating the conversations, both inside and outside the conference Centre.

As a Davos first-timer I was amazed by the vibrant and diverse group of people descending onto the glitzy “promenade” – a multinational bunch of scientists, academics, politicians, NGOs and business leaders. Everybody was warmly welcoming and I was immediately surrounded by a group of insiders who were showing me around (Thanks, Bruce and all the others!) Within 24 hours, whilst wandering between Belvedere, MIT Forum and Global Citizen Forum, trying to protect myself from the Alpine cold (note to self: Amsterdam clothing is not appropriate!) I engaged in conversation with 40-50 interesting people and I had a strong feeling that together we could actually move things - which made it a wonderful experience. No one can ever figure out what exactly is going on where in Davos, particularly not me, but the “fringe” agenda is exciting, eclectic and multifaceted and absolutely worth diving into. The agenda is broad and thought-provoking, incl. dedicated spaces from most global (tech) companies and even a “cannabis-tech” expo. IBM had a quantum computer in its store. And the backdrop of the beautiful Swiss alps is truly stunning. Yes, the cost of accommodation is ridiculous (count a few thousand euros), but if you’re interested to get a glimpse at the leadership zeitgeist and see how it is evolving, you should come!

What were my key take-aways? Macroeconomic conditions are stabilising, but our long-term agenda is in danger: Life on earth is at a tipping point and we need to do more. 17-year-old Greta Thunberg was the star of the conference and made it clear that new generations are demanding action. Multilateralism is under attack and business needs to step in as governments are struggling with the pace of change. ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) – the new buzzword for sustainability - needs to be included in success measures for corporate performance, at all levels, to maintain a license to operate – and the financial system can be a stimulating force to change the wider system (glad that ING is amongst thought leaders here with our TERRA approach). Mostly, the focus was on the “E” - the rest remained somewhat nebulous - and there was wide support for accelerated action. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's annual letter to corporate CEOs was a clear call to action on climate change. Several companies and governments joined an alliance to plant a trillion trees - https://www.trilliontrees.org/. Of course, technology remains the key driver and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) was on everybody’s lips. Tech regulation, e.g. ethics of AI, was a frequent talk in town – yet, we are clearly still figuring out how to deal with it...

Someone suggested to add “D” for data to “ESG” - as data is undoubtedly the fuel of digitisation and platform economies. Data privacy must be seen as human right, said Satya Nadella. (My CDO always reminds me that “if a product is free, I am the product”) It is evident that no global government is there to impose solutions, and the interests of developed and developing nations are divided, as are the interests of the US, China and the rest of the developed world. So everybody needs to unite. On that note, an important and recurring theme was trust – between stakeholders to resolve global problems together (from cybersecurity to financial inclusiveness to climate change) – and between the electorate and politicians and global elites. Digitisation will impact most of our jobs and we need to prepare for that, or people will reject progress. Stakeholder capitalism was touted as the solution yet more concrete success stories were rare and sounded more like corporate marketing. Talking about marketing, Donald Trump was of course there claiming that – thanks to him - the US are in the midst of a historic boom - people in the overflow room were laughing (make sure you read Gianpiero Petriglieri’s fantastic article about people queuing up to see his speech!).

Did it feel like a new era is starting? Not quite, our house is clearly (still) on fire and we are struggling to achieve the UN's SDGs, but the importance of serving stakeholders and the focus on embracing greater purpose is there. As Paul Polman said: in the last crisis, banks were too big to fail and people were too small to matter. This must not repeat itself - we need a new, more diverse leadership for a new kind of capitalism. We need responsible leaders to step up and truly make change personal - it’s up to us to prove to the watching world that we can and will take action! As Jesper Brodin, CEO of IKEA, suggested in a session on Green Deal for Europe: "if you're being courageous but still feel comfortable you need to take another step."

So what have you missed? Many people asked me for my top list of sessions – so here is my selection (in no particular order). Please bear in mind that my focus was on general business outlook, financial services, digital transformation and responsible leadership. You can find the full set of recordings here: https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2020/programme

1) World Economic Outlook

Overall, the slowdown of the global economy is stabilising – modest recovery of 3.3% GDP growth in 2020 (in advanced economies 1.6%). We are still hoping for inflation. What fiscal and monetary measures are necessary to mitigate an economic downturn in 2020? There are similarities between the 1920ies and the 2020ies – high inequality, rapid spread of technology, high risk/rewards in finance… and we would like similarities to end there. As Kristalina points out, monetary policy cannot be the only means to control economic growth – we need fiscal instruments and structural interventions to maintain economic growth and resilience of the financial system. Climate and low-carbon futures and financial inclusiveness need to be more prominent. Where there is light, there is shadow - and we need to be ready to act in a coordinated fashion if growth slows down again. The ECB has kicked off its first strategy review since 2003. I personally missed some acknowledgment of potentially harmful implications of the extended low interest rate regime.

Two important sessions here: IMF World Economic Outlook Update with Kristalina Georgieva and Gita Gopinath and Global Economic Outlook with Zhu Min, Steven Mnuchin, Olaf Scholz, Kristalina Georgieva, Haruhiko Kuroda, Christine Lagarde. 

2) Shaping the Future of Financial and Monetary Systems

A strategic review of the industries, institutions and initiatives driving systemic change. How has the competitive landscape changed since a year ago? What are the key business challenges and opportunities in 2020? What should be strategic priorities in the decade ahead? Based on the panel, customer loyalty is decreasing and customer acquisition costs are up. Digital disruption can be seen like an “arc” and financial services are still early on that arc – digitisation is slowly moving from the periphery and user interfaces towards the core. We are seeing an inflection point where now the very nature of money (as it is issued, distributed, utilised) is being reviewed and alternative architectures (stable coins, cryptocurrencies, blockchain…) are under debate. Citi progresses a 3-pronged approach to match best-in-life experiences of other retailers – developing in house, partnering with fintechs and buying new technology. In their view, banks cannot force standards unto customers. Zurich’s CEO suggested that the world so far has moved based on information contained in prices which has stimulated short-termism. Underwriting in the future has to take decisions also based on long-term information not contained in prices (price for carbon and other externalities) – yet, simply stopping funding is “brutal” and we need global agreements. Wide agreement that stakeholder responsibility is good for engagement.

Recording here. Session with Jeremy Allaire, Jin Keyu, Michael Corbat, Katherine Garrett-Cox, Matthew Blake, Mario Greco.

3) Shaping the Future of the Digital Economy

An interesting session with Marissa Meyer, ex CEO of Yahoo and CEOs of Ericsson, Salesforce, PayPal and Nethope. Based on the panel, connectivity drives disruption by itself and is now entering the industrial space with force – new opportunities with WIFI-connected battery-powered robots and more. Salesforce CEO suggested every CEO has an obligation to become Chief transformation officer and revise the business model. We have seen more change in last five years than previous thirty years – IoT will bring more data, computing will move to the edge, batteries will improve. Dan Schulman of PayPal was suggesting that physical world and digital world are merging (eg payments) and we seem to be moving to a platform-based world. Trust and values are becoming critical in this world - we have to have values and as platform owners “we need to take responsibility for what rides on our platforms”. Collaboration is key - “we have to overcome our fear of lack of control” and “democracy has to be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” Understanding the impact of technology on people requires a “beginner’s mind” – Salesforce proudly promoted its successful 1-1-1 model for social responsibility.

Session here: Marissa Mayer, Lauren Woodman, B?rje Ekholm, Derek O'Halloran, Dan Schulman, Keith Block

4) Stakeholder Capitalism: What Is Required from Corporate Leadership?

With shareholder primacy giving way to a broader vision for stakeholder-driven capitalism, how can business leaders rebuild public trust and deliver on a new mandate? The discussion was wide – from treating waste just as a resource “in the wrong place” to the importance of the ESG agenda for millennials (47% believe businesses need to serve greater purpose). Sustainability has to be the new business model – we need a new set of metrics to steer stakeholder capitalism and to fix the relationship between our planet and business. In a “decade of trust” people need to have confidence that they will be better of with new technologies. Data is at the basis of 4IR and the world will compete on data and people need to trust progress will be inclusive. All of our work will change and there is a risk that tasks will move to either high end or low end, hollowing out the middle. We need new education models focusing on skills, rather than jobs. Support for getting rid of formal qualifications. Nobody will want digitisation if it will lead to more have vs have nots. This will require collaboration between public and private stakeholders. We need to dare to think long-term. We always had to take stakeholders seriously but now our license to operate depends on it. Business is a great platform for change.

Two sessions: Stakeholder Capitalism: What Is Required from Corporate Leadership? with Jim Hagemann Snabe, Klaus Schwab, Ginni Rometty, Marc Benioff, Feike Sybesma, Brian T. Moynihan and Leading a 21st-Century Corporation with Kevin Sneader, Adena Friedman, Robert F. Smith, Tidjane Thiam, Chuck Robbins. 

5) The future of the corporation

Employees are not like greedy, selfish, lazy domestic cats. The rationale for principle-agent theory is outdated – elaborate monitoring systems to incentivise people with carrot-and-stick measures are ineffective. The last 40 years of management have pushed us back to the ape. Humans are a pro-social species – no other species can sit still in a metal tube for 10 hours without carnage to ensue. Humans are driven by purpose beyond self. A leadership model based on respect is superior to dominance. Leaders who make sacrifices to earn trust as “communicators in chief” are able to bring out the best in people and create forward-looking common purpose.

A wonderful session with Colin Mayer, Paul Collier to explore the future of the corporation in the context of stakeholder capitalism and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

6) The Role of the New Industrialists

From Rosenwald to Ford, pioneers of the first and second industrial revolution transformed not only economies and markets but also social welfare systems. How are the pioneers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution shaping the future of society? What we can learn from history and what new ideas are emerging from business leaders today? Early industrialists were driven by enlightened self-interest. Wealth today has been built mainly on stock markets which is driving inequality. Social values and profit do not need to be antagonistic. The capitalist system is a learning system – as Colin Mayer suggests (in his book Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good) "The purpose of business is to produce profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet, and in the process it produces profits". Platforms need to create more value for the platform to be stable. Aggregators and platforms have very different business models – our current online advertising models facilitate surveillance capitalism. Ajay suggested it all comes back to a triangle of trade-offs: one vs many, man vs nature, short-term vs long-term. Power has to be shared otherwise the “other side” will oppose it – we need to find the “narrow corridor”. Using data responsibly is key – only minimum amount needed, keeping it safe, with clear rights for the consumer. Should we give people the tools to manage themselves or leverage AI to do tasks to / for them? It depends on the problem statement and we need to design the system carefully, putting an educated consumer back in control. We need to democratise access to the tools of digital technologies – generating trust in collaboration of governments, educators, business. And we need to make it really easy for consumers to understand cybersecurity – like nutrition. Platforms provide scale to enable customers, not to generate more oversight. Networks can help to create more diversity by providing dynamic feedback loops – our vision is limited by what we know. Portability of benefits of workers in a gig economy is critical.

A very insightful and stimulating discussion with Ajay S. Banga, Hilary Cottam, Satya Nadella.

7) How to Tax the Digital Economy

With estimates of trillions of dollars held offshore in corporate tax havens, 135 countries are debating proposals to address the tax challenges posed by a global economy that is increasingly digitalized. How can policy-makers and businesses work together to modernize the rules and ensure countries get their fair share of tax revenue? The session was streamed live on French TV and featured a high-profile panel, including the OECD boss, Angel Gurria, and French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire. The issue is that the current tax system was constructed for a world of physical goods, where you can track the chain of value-adding activities across locations. But digital goods don’t respect national boundaries. The likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon have thus figured out legal ways of paying virtually no taxes in many of the countries where their products are consumed. Last year, France decided it had had enough of this, announcing a Digital Services Tax of 3% on revenues (not profits). But faced with the prospect of a trade-war with the US, they have now deferred the implementation of that tax. The ball is now in the hands of the OECD, who are trying to come up with a multilateral solution to this huge problem. The panel kicked things around – agreeing that this is a real and systemic problem, that all solutions are challenging, especially when it comes to implementation (e.g. what are the arbitration mechanisms?), that greater transparency and fairness were the guiding principles for finding a way forward. (Thanks to Julian Birkinshaw for the summary!)

Session here with Stephen Carroll, Katharina Pistor, Angel Gurría, Bruno Le Maire, Delia Ferreira Rubio.

8) Democratic Capitalism: Dead End or Shared Destiny?

Market economies hail democracy for facilitating peaceful change, yet also constrain it for fear of emotions reigning over “reason”. With 60% of voters, from Brazil to Japan, claiming that elections foster little change, what is the way forward for democracy and capitalism? A democratic crisis of capitalism? Most of the room seemed to believe both capitalism and democracy require overhaul. Paul Polman suggested “Banks were too big to fail, people were too small to matter”. Business is increasingly aware of inequality and climate change and we need to change the financial markets to make it again subservient to the real economy, rather than vice versa. We need to work within the system to change the system. Financial services are instrumental to assess business success and hold investors to account. Today we are close to a tipping point where the cost of not acting is superating the cost of action, and we need to move from short-termism to stakeholder capitalism. Financial markets were always designed to serve society and are required to “liberate the business community” to again think long-term. Some debate about control of borders which was not embraced by the rest of the panel.

 A very interesting session with Paul Polman, Ngaire Woods, Niall Ferguson, Martin Wolf, Dambisa Moyo.

9) How to Survive the 21st Century

Join a conversation that explores the challenges of the 21st century and how to address them before it is too late - again, I am referring to Julian’s excellent summary. Yuval Noah Harari, acclaimed author of Homo Deus, was given a main stage opportunity to answer the question: Will we survive the 21st Century? He isn’t convinced the answer is yes – we face three existential challenges, nuclear war, ecological collapse and technological disruption. His talk focused on the last one of these, and he painted a scary picture: AI is taking jobs away, leaving a “globally useless” class of people, who rather than struggle against exploitation by capitalists (as they did in the industrial era) are now struggling against irrelevance. The AI arms race (led by US and China) is creating “data colonies” of people whose information is being owned and exploited by a few elite companies. And “digital dictatorships” are emerging who can hack us, sometimes for our benefit and sometimes not. The really scary change, he argues, is that companies are increasingly linking our personal data to our biometric data, so they can literally “hack” us – they can figure out not just what we say or type into a computer, but how we are behaving and what we are thinking. Yikes. Of course, technology is not deterministic, and he said it’s in our hands to shape this future. And, of course, this is better done in a multilateral way, not by individual countries pulling up the drawbridge.

A very thought-provoking session with Yuval Noah Harari, Mark Rutte, Orit Gadiesh.

10) Creating a Credible and Trusted Digital Currency – the cryptic future of cryptocurrencies

The possibility of a trusted global digital currency has sparked political, economic and regulatory discussions worldwide. What trends are shaping the future of digital currencies? How do we address financial inclusion, implications for security and digital trust, and the role of central banking and supervision? This was a very good discussion to clarify the different types of digital currencies – with a focus on CBDC (central bank digital currencies). The panel agreed that we should focus on clear use cases: cross-border payments (esp. inefficient and expensive remittances), financial inclusion (with still 1.7bn people unbanked and another 1bn underserved), and rooting out illicit finance. In terms of AML, digital currencies can be both a problem and a solution. Already 10% of central banks (representing 20% of global population) are planning to introduce general purpose Retail CBDCs within the next 3 years. The role of the financial system (focus of Wholesale CBDCs) has to be further defined in the case of emission of Retail digital coins at scale. Issues like personal data protection, AML, consumer protection etc need to be addressed. Progress in retail payment was compared to telecoms where customers have access to free connectivity services whilst in money transfer still interfaces are slow and costly. Focus in the EU is on developing instant payment solutions.

An interesting discussion with Sheila Warren, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, David Marcus, Valdis Dombrovskis, Beno?t Coeuré, Neha Narula

And of course lots of other exciting sessions...

In case you are looking for some more insights "off the beaten track" - here are a few more specialised, yet very interesting debates:

·      The Business Case for Safeguarding Nature – even if only for the inspirational video at the beginning. With Marco Bizzarri, Kristin Rechberger, Svein Tore Holsether, Justin Worland, Cherie Nursalim

·      A Future Shaped by a Technology Arms Race - An interesting debate between tech is good and Apocalypse now – with Zanny Minton Beddoes, Ren Zhengfei, Yuval Noah Harari

·      Averting a Climate Apocalypse – watch Greta’s passionate appeal to the WEF. With Ma Jun, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Rajiv Shah, Rebecca Blumenstein, Oliver B?te, Greta Thunberg.

·      The Global Impact of a Tech Cold War – cybersecurity wars and the potential for a “splinternet” with Samir Saran, Carsten Knop, John Chipman, Michelle Zatlyn

·      A Conversation with Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore – very interesting how Singapore is finding itself between evolving powers. With Lee Hsien Loong, B?rge Brende

·      Shaping an Inclusive Platform Economy - How can platform conglomerates use their scale as a force for good? With Alibaba’s Daniel Zhang, Julie Sweet, Derek O'Halloran

·      Deepfakes: Do Not Believe What You See - Deepfakes are a new dimension of fake news that pose a danger to democracy and vulnerable groups. Incredible what is possible. With Gideon Lichfield, Hao Li

·      Feeding the Planet for the Future - The global food system will need to meet an expected 35% rise in demand by 2030. With Sean de Cleene, Johan Rockstr?m, Tian Wei, Wiebe Draijer, Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo, Christine Moseley, Ramon Laguarta

·      The Future of American Foreign Policy – Four years into the Trump presidency, how has the "America First" foreign policy doctrine transformed US leadership abroad? With David M. Rubenstein, Jane Harman, Gideon Rose, Amos Yadlin

·      How to Turn Protest into Progress - How can movements transition from protest to political change more effectively? With Craig Francourt, James Harding, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, Micah White, William F. Browder.

Thank you very much, Klaus Schwab, for 50 years of drive and energy in accelerating management and leadership in the world! Until next year!