Overheard at Davos: WEF showmanship begins with Klaus Schwab — will it end with Donald Trump?
On day one of the meeting, actor Cate Blanchett, singer Elton John and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan received a Crystal award for their various leadership roles
Davos — Its day one of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos and everybody is talking about the wrong thing: the snow. The snow in Davos is intended, one suspects, to be a picturesque backdrop to the hundreds of events, meetings and panel discussions that form part of the WEF jamboree. But this year, it has just pelted down, if that is what snow does, and become a real obstacle. Just moving around is like swimming in glue. The Swiss railway system has been snowed under in various places, something that had never happened. I actually got onto a train that was, shock horror, three minutes late. The event was opened by the Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairperson of the WEF, who has now presided over 48 of the events. It’s an incredible record, and in many ways, the event is shaped one suspects by his own personal outlook — he is profoundly a social-democrat, internationalist and sightly futuristic. He described the Davos meeting as the "foremost multistakeholder community in ...
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