Klaus Schwab will leave the presidency of the World Economic Forum in January

The founder of World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, Next January he will leave his position as executive president and assume that of president of the foundation board, the organization confirmed this Tuesday.

In a statement transmitted to EFE, the Forum pointed out that since 2015 it has gone from being a platform for international convocation to being “the world’s leading institution for public-private cooperation” and that as part of this transformation its governance is also evolving in a planned manner.

In this sense, he said that it is moving from being an organization managed by its founders to one in which a president and a board of directors assume full executive responsibility, a logic in which the decision of Schwab, 86, fits.

It is unknown who will replace Schwab at the head of the entity created in 1971 and which every beginning of the year organizes the prestigious Davos Forum, an event in the Alpine mountains of Switzerland to which the most powerful men and women on the planet faithfully attend. between political leaders, executives of the largest companies in the world and personalities who guide the progress of the economy, science and global thought.

The number two of the Forum is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Børge Brende, 58 years old, and who is a strong candidate for the succession, which would be completed before the next edition of the Davos Forum, which will take place on the 20th. to January 24.

The founding council that Schwab will chair will be organized around four strategic committees with the goal that the Forum’s work has an even greater impact, he explained.

Likewise, it was specified that the announced changes confirm the “institutional continuity” of the Forum and its desire to continue being a platform “independent and impartial to address the complex challenges of an interconnected world.”

The World Economic Forum is a non-profit foundation with more than 600 employees at its headquarters in Geneva, and offices in New York, Beijing and Tokyo.

Schwab, of German origin, completed his higher education in Switzerland and the United States, and holds a doctorate in engineering and economic and social sciences, as well as a master’s degree in public administration.

In the early stages of his career he led the restructuring of the first Swiss mechanical construction group Escher Wyss and was a professor of economic policy at the University of Geneva, an institution to which he remained associated until 2003.

In addition to the World Economic Forum, in 1998 he founded the Schwab Foundation with his wife Hilde, dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship and innovation.

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