Davos Diary Day 1: Andrea Bocelli, inspiring leaders and the global risk agenda

Alec Hogg shares insights, experiences and learnings from the frontline at the World Economic Forum on Day 1 in Davos, Switzerland. Focusing on what to expect from the agenda as the world’s most powerful meet to explore issues of global relevance, at the top of the agenda this year are climate change and geopolitical threats. This year shows record participation at the WEF and as Alec notes from his interview with an MD at the WEF, Richard Samans, this signals that the world’s leaders are on high alert as they seek to manage challenges facing the globe. Alec’s diary allows us firsthand access to the WEF, sharing personal experiences, global perspectives and the timeless talent that is Andrea Bocelli. – LF

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ALEC HOGG:   Hi there. It’s Alec Hogg in Davos. This is Davos Diary – Day one. Officially, it is the beginning of the World Economic Forum. Wednesday the 21st of January – and a cracking day it has been. I’m a member of a thing called the International Media Council and it’s a very, esteemed grouping, which today had an invitation to meet with the Founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab and some of his managing directors.

WEF Managing director Richard Salmans - lovely interview, one of my first this year at #wef2015
WEF Managing director Richard Salmans – lovely interview, one of my first this year at #wef2015

Well, I used the opportunity to grab one of them, Rick Samans, and have a fascinating interview on the major issues that are facing the world. Rick’s job at the WEF is to look after the long-term projects. He used to work in the Clinton White House, so he’s a Policy Specialist who knows a whole lot about these things. Go along to Biznews and listen to the interview or indeed, just read the transcript.

In essence, what came out of the meeting today was encapsulated when Klaus Schwab said at the end, there has been pretty crummy weather in Switzerland up until Sunday, but as the WEF started, the sun seemed to come back into the sky and things brightened up’. He’s hoping that this is a metaphor for what the World Economic Forum can do for the world, generally because (says Klaus), ‘the world’s not in a great place right now but perhaps, with more listening, more engagement, and more interaction, the end of the World Economic Forum’s deliberations this week will leave delegates going back home with a brighter outlook and perhaps, more that they could do to improve the state of the world’.

That’s the whole idea in fact, behind the World Economic Forum. There were a number of issues that were raised at this lunch today. It was a very high-powered lunch; right next to Klaus Schwab was Maria Bartiromo, the ‘money honey’ from CNBC, who’s also a member of the International Media Council and she is now working for Fox Television in America. I popped over, and said ‘hi’ to her and asked her how it was going and she said, in her career, it was a smart move. Well, we don’t get Fox in South Africa but definitely, from all the feedback that I get, she’s doing a great job.

Just to get onto the major issues that were raised today, and it was really interesting because the Managing Director, who’s in charge of the Risk Reports, for the World Economic Forum, said that the number one risk that came out today, and remember they analysed something like 80 different risks, through the Global Agenda Councils, is war between States. There’s a very real threat of a geo political crisis in the near future, and of the top five crises that are identified at the moment, by the World Economic Forum, three of them are geo political, in nature (most unusual).

Great new innovation for IMC members: lunch with Klaus Schwab and his top team in Davos.
Great new innovation for IMC members: lunch with Klaus Schwab and his top team in Davos.

Pretty much in every other year the top five were all economic related but now what’s happened, it is almost the leaders of various countries have been facing inward and becoming more involved in their own internal concerns, and not focusing their attention on joint problems, like climate change. How long are we going to be able to stay on the planet, etcetera? It is a very interesting change in emphasis this year.

Another reflection of this is that there are 44 Heads of State, who have come to the World Economic Forum, a record by quite a margin. The previous record was in 2009, at the height of the global financial crisis, when there were 38 Heads of State. South African wise, well we’ve got (I think) its half a dozen Cabinet Ministers and, certainly, President Jacob Zuma is here. I saw a group of the Cabinet Ministers tonight, at another of the highlights and when you get to the end of this report, you will hear a little of what I taped there.

Andrea Bocelli was the recipient of the Crystal Award. Now, this is an award that the World Economic Forum grants to artists, not necessarily just because they are world class, but because of the way that they are helping themselves to change the world. Andrea Bocelli, who was blinded from a very young age, is in fact, doing a lot of work to try and eradicate blindness in the world, through his own foundation. So, he was one of the Crystal Award winners tonight.

The discussion that we had leading up to the Crystal Award winners though, there was much that came through. Klaus Schwab at the lunch again, said that the role that the World Economic Forum plays is, is a catalyst. It stands on its own feet and puts together these various ideas, and once they get to a point, where they can be taken over by others, he says, ‘they hand them through’. There was an example he used about the public/private partnerships that are going on in Africa at the moment, in the agricultural field, where 16 countries around the world are experiencing these public/private partnerships, ten of them in Africa.

Anyway, that was Klaus Schwab. I then moved around the conference centre, and got to talk to a few people. I had a chat in fact, with Professor Schwab himself, who said that he does read Biznews and he did read my article on him being the star of Davos, and he certainly is.

After that, it was off to various bits and pieces, and meeting with all kinds of interesting people here. I bumped into Nku, Nyembezi-Heita and Sim Tshabalala. She, ex of ArcelorMittal, now the Chairman of the Stock Exchange. He the Managing Director of Standard Bank, at a fascinating panel debate that was held by Wipro, and the Financial Times of London, Wipro one of the big outsourcing companies in the world. It employs 107 thousand people and its Managing Director, T J Kurien was a guest of mine on CNBC Africa, a little while ago, a very insightful contribution that he made. Also on their panel was Martin Sen, who’s the Chief Executive of Zurich Insurance Group – most impressed by him – a young 29-year old, Valentin Stalf from a company called NUMBER26.eu, who’s just about ready to launch an all mobile phone bank.

A bank where you never need to go into any branches, which will only give you a bank account that can be opened in just eight minutes. It is an online bank on steroids. He said why he came to that conclusion and why he’s managed to pick up quite a lot of support from financial backers, by the way. He never gave us a figure but he said it was well under a hundred million, which I presume he meant Euros, and in banking terms that is very low cost to launch a bank. He says, ‘if you look at my generation, the 29-year olds and people younger than that and around that age, they use the bank once a year, they will go into a branch. They use online banking once a week, but they use mobile banking every day’.

FT/Wipro panel discussion asking the tough questions in #WEF2015
FT/Wipro panel discussion asking the tough questions in #WEF2015

Another member of the panel who was really fascinating is Keith Weed, Chief Marketing Officer at Unilever, and to give you an indication of how highly esteemed these guys were. Tom Friedman was there as well, from the New York Times, the man who wrote ‘The World is flat’. Walking in there, I bumped into him and asked if he was going to be involved in any way and he said, ‘no, he was actually just there to listen’. He thought it was such insightful contributions that were likely to come through, and he was right.

There were a few things that came out of the panel discussion, which I think are going to be a theme for Davos throughout this week. It is a move away from being the business of business, is business. To the businesses to operate, need a licence from the community. The old idea of paying all the attention to shareholders is no longer sustainable in this new world, particularly in a world where there is instant response from customers, through social media. Keith Weed, the Chief Marketing Officer at Unilever used the example of a young girl who started a website called Change.org. She wanted one of the soft drink companies to change an ingredient in a soda and they, of course were not prepared to listen to her, until 200.000 people signed on the petition, on Change.org and that ingredient was, indeed changed.

So it is very much the focus that was of that discussion this evening. It is likely to be a focus of Davos overall. That businesses need to get closer to customers. They need to ask the tough questions. They need to ask themselves, whether what they’re doing is fair. Is it sustainable? Do they have

Andrea Bocelli, superstar tenor, winner of #WEF15 Crystal Award
Andrea Bocelli, superstar tenor, winner of #WEF15 Crystal Award

something that will enable their licence to serve the community, to be renewed? As Mr. Weed said, from Unilever, companies just can’t get away with things anymore, in the way that they did in the past. As a consequence, unless they change their attitude and make sure that they are serving society, they will not be in business in time to come.

Well, just to close off with, the Andrea Bocelli concert was one of those ‘bucket-list’ things that you just don’t get to see anywhere except, it seems in Davos.

This is Alec Hogg at the World Economic Forum.

This podcast was made possible by BrightRock, the company that introduced the first ever needs-matched life insurance.

 

 

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