Alec Hogg spoke with Lee Lowell, the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum to get an understanding of why exactly the WEF is such an important gathering, delving into the pulling cards that draw such high-powered, elite personalities and power-houses from around the world to the tiny Alpine village of Davos. – LFÂ
ALEC HOGG:  Lee Howell is the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum. So far, so good.
LEE HOWELL:   I think so. I think we’ve had record attendance but more importantly, we’ve had record engagement in all the sessions. If I have to give you a context, over 200…nearly 300 sessions of formal, official programs and over 200 sessions in the private program that we have around initiatives and activities. It’s been wonderful that people have been attending both. We’re actually connecting the issues as well as connecting the people that are engaged in a wide variety of topics.
ALEC HOGG: How do you get the quality/calibre of person to come to Davos? Every year, it seems to get stronger. What’s the secret there?
LEE HOWELL:  The secret is really, building communities of interest and communities of purpose as well as communities of action. Let me just unbundle that for you. There are a lot of interesting issues in the world and clearly, the Forum is has its own communities, from the industry leaders to religious leaders, to experts. These interests really go across the stakeholder groups. They’ll come together at least in the formal program, to look at a better understanding.  Often, as with all of us, we diagnose the problem and we want to get to a solution. They then come together and say ‘let’s look more in-depth at this’ and that’s where we develop communities of purpose and ultimately, some of them actually go and organise initiatives and projects, and we have communities of action.
The architecture is really, building around communities – distinct communities – but bringing them together around common issues and then they can at least frame issue, arrive at a common purpose and ultimately, shared action – collective action. Those are many of our initiatives.
ALEC HOGG: Well, it’s Saturday, the last day of the WEF and it seems to be just as busy as it was in the other days although I’m sure many people have gone home. You say ‘record attendance’. Is there a cap that you put on the number of people who could come here?
LEE HOWELL:  Well, we’re actually in the Congress Centre, which, by Swiss law does have a cap. No. When I say ‘record’ indeed, we really have over 2500 participants here.
ALEC HOGG: But that’s what you do every year – 2500.
LEE HOWELL:  Well, that’s what we do every year but I think what you hinted on is also the fact that as you can hear, they’ve stayed on for the full duration, by and large, and they’re very engaged. This morning for example, we have a number of the key leaders from international institutions coming together and talking about how to collaborate on many key, shared issues. Where their jurisdictions and their mandates don’t allow them to tackle it on their own, so they’re have to work together so we have many international organisations here. Parallel to that, we have a big discussion with issues around military and geopolitics. We have sessions on the future of the military, the future of intelligence services, and looking at security issues, which is a bit of a first for Davos (to focus on geopolitical and security issues). There are a number of new things too, to your point that actually, keeps people more engaged throughout the annual meeting. Today, we do quite a bit around geopolitics and security issues.
ALEC HOGG: You’re very goal-driven here at the WEF. When you look back (and we’re nearly at the end), have the goals for this, the 45th meeting of the World Economic Forum, achieved the aims you were hoping for?
LEE HOWELL:  Clearly, there are institutional goals and many of my colleagues have initiatives and projects that they want to advance.  Personally, it’s more about the experience. Were people here really able to engage as much possible? Where they couldn’t, were they able to access that information/knowledge? I don’t know if you’ve been able to highlight it, but we have an array of technologies now, which we’re using. There’s a bit of a hybrid experience where, if you’re not there you could be present by watching the sessions live, or retrieving information through our systems or transformation maps (the Toplink). There’s an incredible new connectivity that is actually making this meeting even stickier, in a way. That’s why I think when I say ‘there’s even greater participation’, its participation in and off-limits – in session, but they’re still on-line. That’s really been growing and in a way, that’s been a record as well.
ALEC HOGG:Â Lee Howell is the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, talking to us here from the Congress Centre in Davos.
