Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Best. Bloomberg Best is about the insight
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Speaker 1: seven hundred journalists and analysts in more than a hundred
Speaker 1: twenty countries around the world. I'm at Baxter and I'm
Speaker 1: Denise Pelaguini on this weekend edition of Bloomberg Best. You
Speaker 1: have to be a decision maker. What it takes to
Speaker 1: get invited to the World Economic Forum. We can shape
Speaker 1: the future in a positive way if you have also
Speaker 1: new innovative ideas. The founder of the World Economic Forum
Speaker 1: says some slots get held open for young, unheard of innovators.
Speaker 1: I was one of the first visitors to see him
Speaker 1: when he came out of prison in ninety and claud
Speaker 1: Schwab on inviting Nelson Mandela. All this and more coming
Speaker 1: up in the next hour of Bloomberg Best and going
Speaker 1: to Davos for the World Economic Forum. It's usually a
Speaker 1: huge deal. Yeah, but you know Denis says, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not happening in Davos, Switzerland this year though, because
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Yeah, that's right. It'll be in Singapore
Speaker 1: this year in May instead of earlier in the year
Speaker 1: and partly virtual. But we did have a chance to
Speaker 1: hear from the founder and executive chairman of the Forum,
Speaker 1: Claus Schwab. He spoke on the David Rubinstein Show, Pure
Speaker 1: to pure conversations, and David begins here by asking Schwab
Speaker 1: about traditions at Davos and how it all gets put together.
Speaker 1: Check it out. So, Klaus, let me ask you. Uh,
Speaker 1: in the end of January, for the last fifty years
Speaker 1: or so, the elites of the world, the most famous
Speaker 1: business people, the most famous heads of state gather in
Speaker 1: Davos UH to talk about various global issues. Uh. This January,
Speaker 1: is that going to be possible? Yes, we come together
Speaker 1: again during the usual Davos week, but of course in
Speaker 1: the virtual form, it's so important to look at the
Speaker 1: aceenda of twenty one and two. Shape the agenda. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the cost roads. But sublitual meeting is not enough,
Speaker 1: so we combine it with a meeting where people really physically.
Speaker 1: We'll meet again later in May. Hopefully vaccines and podcasts
Speaker 1: and testing will allow us to do so. Now, last
Speaker 1: year President Trump spoke, and you've had she ping. In
Speaker 1: recent years, you've had Vladimir Putin, President of France, uh,
Speaker 1: the Chancellor of Germany, leaders from all over the world.
Speaker 1: To get these leaders, do you have to call them
Speaker 1: and say you're personally invited or do they call you
Speaker 1: and say I want to come. No. Usually, as presidents
Speaker 1: is the result of longer um friendship in certain cases,
Speaker 1: or at least relationship. Just look that. I take a
Speaker 1: case for example, Mrs Merkel when Chancellor Mrs Merkel at
Speaker 1: that time when there was the fall off the wall
Speaker 1: and why the way is able? The Convict film was
Speaker 1: very engaged and essential in the German reunification because Chancellor
Speaker 1: Cole and his East German counterpart met the first time
Speaker 1: in Davos and decided to go ahead with the unification.
Speaker 1: But at that time there was a young member from
Speaker 1: Eastern Germany appointed to the cabinet as Environmental Minister, and
Speaker 1: we made her a young global leader, and she came
Speaker 1: regularly to Davos, and so out of let's say his
Speaker 1: first invitation, regular participation has developed over the last year's
Speaker 1: and I could go on and long. Um, usually the
Speaker 1: people who are coming to Doubles a part of this
Speaker 1: what I would call Doubles community of regulus. So all
Speaker 1: the famous people that have come to make speeches, who
Speaker 1: was it that drew the biggest attention of all the
Speaker 1: people you had? I think it's difficult because it was
Speaker 1: always related to the specific timing when someone came. UM,
Speaker 1: for example, in President Trump came he was the first
Speaker 1: year in in the office. But for me, the most important,
Speaker 1: also most memorable participant certainly was Nelson Mandela. So class,
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of prominent people coming, business people,
Speaker 1: government people. Do they call you sometime and say my
Speaker 1: hotel is not adequate, or I need more passes or
Speaker 1: what are the complaints of How do you shield yourself
Speaker 1: from all these complaints that people might make about they
Speaker 1: need a bigger hotel room, or they need more entourage
Speaker 1: passes or something. Because most of most of those people
Speaker 1: I'm in touch more on an intellectual basis, on a
Speaker 1: political basis, on a conceptual basis. So fortunately, so you
Speaker 1: don't always there to call me if there are such
Speaker 1: matters but they call my stuff and really insist because
Speaker 1: Tamois is a place for skiing. As a hotel infrastructure
Speaker 1: is not like in a big city. But I think
Speaker 1: everybody over time now except what is important is a
Speaker 1: personal contact see Frank Exchange of ideas. So you make
Speaker 1: some sacrifices in terms of your personal comfort. Why did
Speaker 1: you pick Davos? There are many great cities in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you not do it in Geneva, where you
Speaker 1: were living, or why not some other resort in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: I want to avoid the big city. I wanted to
Speaker 1: create a true global village where people meet on the streets.
Speaker 1: It's that was a village. Davos heads a necessary infrastructure
Speaker 1: in terms of hotels and also a great congress house.
Speaker 1: So for those who haven't been there, how do you
Speaker 1: get invited to go to Davos? Every year? Who gets
Speaker 1: to go? You have to be a decision maker, is
Speaker 1: in politics or in business, but also in civil society.
Speaker 1: And in addition we invite always young people of course,
Speaker 1: the media scientists. So it's a true mirror of global stakeholdels,
Speaker 1: which means of all walks of society. If somebody is
Speaker 1: watching you and says I've never been invited to DeVos.
Speaker 1: I'd like to go. So I just send a letter
Speaker 1: to Claus Schwab and say I'd like to come. I
Speaker 1: would read select of me because I'm always curious about
Speaker 1: new people and UM as an example, I just because
Speaker 1: the email I don't know where he has my email
Speaker 1: address from, from a young girl in sixty years old
Speaker 1: in India who has done extraordinary things to help the community.
Speaker 1: UM in terms of practical approaches, UM to deal with
Speaker 1: environmental issues, particularly with plastics. So we have a certain
Speaker 1: open house for everybody who who has an innovative spirit,
Speaker 1: because we want to shape the future, and let's not
Speaker 1: forget we can shape the future in a positive way
Speaker 1: if you have also new innovative ideas. Now some people say, well,
Speaker 1: Davos is the is for the elites, and every year
Speaker 1: when Davos occurs the end of January you get articles
Speaker 1: in newspapers saying this is where the elites are gathering.
Speaker 1: How do you respond to people say it's just for
Speaker 1: the elites of the world. Yes, of course all the
Speaker 1: top decision makers are in Davos, but it's only half
Speaker 1: of the twos you have. In addition, many people not
Speaker 1: very well known, particularly not known to the media. I
Speaker 1: just give you were some examples. I invited Mrs Arhund
Speaker 1: when she still was a member of the parliament. UM.
Speaker 1: We invited people like Mandela. I was one of the
Speaker 1: first visitors to see him when he came out of
Speaker 1: prison in ninety so I taught him ninety two to Davos.
Speaker 1: It was a remarkable historical event because it was the
Speaker 1: first time he came together with at that time President Clerk,
Speaker 1: and it was demonstrations and apartheid as the in in
Speaker 1: South Africa. So there many of those people young um,
Speaker 1: not very well known, but so is also people who
Speaker 1: shape the future. Let's talk about your background first and
Speaker 1: then how you came to create what's known as Davos.
Speaker 1: So where did you grow up. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a middle size town just north of Switzerland in Germany,
Speaker 1: and I actually experienced still the halls of World War Two.
Speaker 1: I remember how I was sitting with my teddy bear
Speaker 1: in our shelter um. But we were actually fortunate because
Speaker 1: my father was working for a Swiss company and was
Speaker 1: also active for the International Red Course, so we could
Speaker 1: cross the border at any time between Germany and France
Speaker 1: and Switzerland. And what stroke me and what probably influenced
Speaker 1: my whole life, was to cause a kind of line
Speaker 1: and artificial lines in Boldo between Switzerland and Germany. And
Speaker 1: on the one side so was peace and on the
Speaker 1: other side there was the war. I think it was
Speaker 1: a very important element for me and a trival to
Speaker 1: devote my life to dialogue, to reconciliation, to working together
Speaker 1: in order to solve issues. And so you went to
Speaker 1: school then in Germany and and in high school in Germany. Yes,
Speaker 1: I went to high school in Germany, but some studied
Speaker 1: in Switzerland. I did, at the same time a studies
Speaker 1: in mechanical engineering, but at the same time I studied economics.
Speaker 1: And I concluded both with a master's degree, of course,
Speaker 1: and afterwards with a doctorate. And some of my father felt,
Speaker 1: in order to do real a career in in business,
Speaker 1: you have to go to Harvard Business School. So I
Speaker 1: applied to Harvard Business School, was accepted. But son I
Speaker 1: wrote to Harvard Business School and said, look to Dean Baker, look,
Speaker 1: I have two doctor grads. I want to come to
Speaker 1: the second year immediately, and he wrote back, no way.
Speaker 1: So what happened. Afterwards, I found a school in the
Speaker 1: At that time we didn't have the Internet yet. It
Speaker 1: was a big catalog. I found a center which was
Speaker 1: called Littower Center on today is the Kennedy School. And
Speaker 1: I discovered if you do, if you accepted at the
Speaker 1: Littower Center, you can cause register everywhere in the Harvard system.
Speaker 1: So that's what I did. I uh registered with the
Speaker 1: Kennedy School, went to all the classes of the Harvard
Speaker 1: Business School second year, and suddenly I got an invitation
Speaker 1: from Dean Baker to have tea with him in this
Speaker 1: little president's house, and he said, you are the first
Speaker 1: one who out foxed our system. From now on, cross
Speaker 1: registering will only be possible for two courses, so for
Speaker 1: two classes. But for me Cincy at Harvard it changed
Speaker 1: my life because I met also people like Henry Kissing Jaw,
Speaker 1: John Canders, Call Brays, and I became much more interested
Speaker 1: in political, general, economic, societal problems. So after you've finished
Speaker 1: at Harvard, you came back to Germany or Switzerland. I
Speaker 1: got the phone call from a famous smiss industrialist, Mr
Speaker 1: schmid Heini, and he told me, look, you have the
Speaker 1: Harvard experience. I just watched two companies. What ten thousand
Speaker 1: people company with another big industrial groups suits the group
Speaker 1: which still exists, Why don't you come and you are
Speaker 1: responsible for the merchant. So I went through a hearts
Speaker 1: cool because I had to lay off people. Um. But
Speaker 1: after two years, let's say, the job was more or
Speaker 1: less finished, and I asked myself what to do now?
Speaker 1: And I got an offer from the University of Geneva
Speaker 1: to do teaching, and I felt, with all the academic
Speaker 1: experience I have accumulated business experience, I should spend one
Speaker 1: or two years teaching. At the same time, I got
Speaker 1: an offer from a from the German Machine Building Association.
Speaker 1: You have been at Howard, you have business experience, why
Speaker 1: don't you write a book for our members on modern management.
Speaker 1: So I sat down and asked myself what is actually
Speaker 1: the purpose of a company? And that's when I came
Speaker 1: up with the stakeholder concept, which means that a company
Speaker 1: is not just an economic unit, but a social organism
Speaker 1: and it has to serve all those who depend on
Speaker 1: the company, who have a stake in the company, like
Speaker 1: the people working in the company. Is the community that
Speaker 1: is active in So that was the big let's say
Speaker 1: beginning actually of Sdabo's idea, because the Dabo's idea is
Speaker 1: the stakeholder capitalism, the stakehold of responsibility. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: back at the University of Geneva. You're teaching economics. Is
Speaker 1: that what you're teaching? I was teaching actually leadership corporate management,
Speaker 1: and son, as a professor of US, I should say, frankly,
Speaker 1: a little bit bald. After all the previous experience I
Speaker 1: had written this book, Son, I felt why not to
Speaker 1: create the platform where business leaders could meet the stakeholders,
Speaker 1: which means political leaders but also um outstanding voices of society.
Speaker 1: So um I got I had made some savings and
Speaker 1: I got some money from my parents and that's how
Speaker 1: I started. See that was m platform, which is now
Speaker 1: called the World econvict form and actually um I incorporated
Speaker 1: it immediately as a not for profit foundation because I
Speaker 1: recognize if I wanted to attract governments, it cannot be
Speaker 1: for profit, profit making venture. So so had you made
Speaker 1: it a for profit venture, you think it would not
Speaker 1: have become as big as it has become. No, certainly not,
Speaker 1: because now we have su trust of everybody, because people
Speaker 1: know we are serving a purpose and we are not
Speaker 1: serving how own interests? What year was it that you
Speaker 1: had your first conference? It was seventy one, and so
Speaker 1: we're four hundred forty four people. And actually I hired
Speaker 1: one employee because I needed some experience in UM in
Speaker 1: how to run a confluence. That's how I met my wife.
Speaker 1: She was my first hitt and my first collaborator. So
Speaker 1: you've now been married for how many years? Next year
Speaker 1: it will be fifty years, David? Fifty years? Okay, So
Speaker 1: we canna have a big party at DeVos to celebrate
Speaker 1: the fiftieth wedding anniversary. No, we are more, uh, let's
Speaker 1: say a pirate family. I think we will do it.
Speaker 1: We married in a very little church in a mountain valley,
Speaker 1: which cannot let's say, give whom to mores and probably
Speaker 1: twenty thirty people. So we will go back, certainly to
Speaker 1: the church if if COVID allows us to do so.
Speaker 1: What was it that propelled Davos as we're calling it
Speaker 1: now or word economic forum to go from a four
Speaker 1: forty four person event to a global phenomenon? What was
Speaker 1: it that actually changed things that made it so popular
Speaker 1: and so important to people to attend? I think if
Speaker 1: I look over the last fifty years. It is the conviction,
Speaker 1: UH said the big issues in the world need a
Speaker 1: collaborative approach. UM. Business has to interact with government leaders.
Speaker 1: But also if you want to plan long term, you
Speaker 1: have to know how customers feel, how the young generation feels,
Speaker 1: what experts are thinking. So doubles it became a place
Speaker 1: where you really could absolve what the future will bring you.
Speaker 1: I think UH, intellectual or contextual intelligence as I would,
Speaker 1: to know what's going on, not only now, that what
Speaker 1: will happen in the future. To connect the dots became
Speaker 1: more and more important for business leaders when they looked
Speaker 1: at the long term strategies. Over the years the fifty
Speaker 1: years or so, have there been one or two or
Speaker 1: three events that have happened at thats where a global
Speaker 1: leader of one country met with a global leader of
Speaker 1: another country and actually as a result of peace, agreement
Speaker 1: broke out or something like that happened. Is that happened
Speaker 1: very much? It happens UM. For example, UM, we at
Speaker 1: a very critical moment thirty years ago, we prevented probably
Speaker 1: a war between tokey increase, even if unfortunately we didn't
Speaker 1: or any monst city. UM. We were the only platform
Speaker 1: for many years, which part is really leadership and see
Speaker 1: that leadership together in Davos. As you know, David, we
Speaker 1: try UM always to be a platform of good services.
Speaker 1: I would even say in bis Pestiss tradition, because like
Speaker 1: Switzerland's the world econry form is independent, impartial and non political.
Speaker 1: So many people that build organizations like yours has been
Speaker 1: over fifty years now, they want them to continue forever.
Speaker 1: What do you hope will happen subsequently you're not being
Speaker 1: the executive chair? Will I continue or can it not
Speaker 1: continue without you? I have built a very strong government
Speaker 1: structural not only with the board of trustees, but also
Speaker 1: with the managing world. The foom UM is now an
Speaker 1: organization with offices around the world in China, Tokyo, US
Speaker 1: twice and also we have our center for the f
Speaker 1: Sincesty Revolution in San Francisco. UM. I think many capable people,
Speaker 1: and if something happened to me, I think the spirit
Speaker 1: would survive. What is it you're most proud of having
Speaker 1: created over the fifty year period of time. It's a
Speaker 1: gathering place or a network of our community. What is
Speaker 1: it that makes you most proud of what you've done?
Speaker 1: I think many many examples where we took an initiative
Speaker 1: for we pro wided solution. I'm personally very proud, maybe
Speaker 1: as an academic, that stakehold of capitalism is now broadly
Speaker 1: accepted and has been even um in sicna Kais is
Speaker 1: shown as being involved more robust model for the business
Speaker 1: compared to one company which is only aiming at short
Speaker 1: term profits. Class. Now, when you call somebody, any head
Speaker 1: of state in the world, or you email anybody, does
Speaker 1: it take more than five minutes or two minutes or
Speaker 1: a minute for you to get a call back? Because
Speaker 1: you know everybody knows you, everybody wants to talk to you.
Speaker 1: How hard is it for you to get anybody on
Speaker 1: the phone? I assume not too hard. I would say
Speaker 1: it's not too hot, but certainly not if it's in
Speaker 1: a minute, or sometimes it takes a week, but certainly
Speaker 1: most people see I have met every leader probably around
Speaker 1: the world. We see exception of the last pope I
Speaker 1: tried to take out of all those meetings, um the
Speaker 1: very best and um David, if I may, um, when
Speaker 1: you meet those people who ask your self what is
Speaker 1: actually what? What what makes the leader? Today? I have
Speaker 1: a very simple definition it takes brains, soul, heart, and muscles.
Speaker 1: Now supremes stands for professionalism. You have to know what
Speaker 1: you are dealing with. Uh See. Soul stands for having
Speaker 1: a compass which gives your direction. It may be a vision,
Speaker 1: it's your values. And the heart is for passion. You
Speaker 1: have to be passionate about what you are doing. And
Speaker 1: the muscles is for being able to implement um your ideas,
Speaker 1: your vision, to translate your values. And I have to
Speaker 1: say when I look around in the world all the
Speaker 1: leaders I have met, so actually the only way if
Speaker 1: you who respond to all four citeria. But again, the
Speaker 1: person who is out standing sevest lower model is certainly
Speaker 1: knows of Mandela Well. I may just conclude by saying
Speaker 1: I've met a lot of great leaders as well, but
Speaker 1: I would also say one that I know who has brains, soul,
Speaker 1: heart and muscle is Klaus Schwab. So congratulations on what
Speaker 1: you have done, Klauss. I hope you're very proud of
Speaker 1: what you've built and I look forward to seeing you
Speaker 1: not too too long for now. Thank you way how
Speaker 1: much Stavord and you've been listening to Klaus Schwab. He's
Speaker 1: founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum on
Speaker 1: the David Rubinstein Show Peer to peer conversations, and that's
Speaker 1: it for this hour of Bloomberg Best And I'm Denise Pere.
Speaker 1: This is