By Alec Hogg
By 2006 I was back into the swing of Davos and starting to get used to rubbing shoulders with the WEF’s rich and famous. A hug with Desmond Tutu here, a handshake with Al Gore there, a chat with Eric Schmidt. It was soon easy to forget in that rarefied atmosphere that I was, well, a boilermaker’s son from Newcastle.
One of those “Davos Moments”, although brief, will stay with me forever. At the 2006 annual meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel was pretty much the star of the show. Her nation was starting to hit its economic straps again after years of costly integration of the poor, communist-ravaged East. As Merkel was also the new chair of the G8, everyone seemed to want a piece of her.
I was lounging around enjoying a cup of tea in an unusually deserted part of the conference centre when Merkel came striding towards me surrounded by the usual coterie. Our eyes met and it only seemed right to greet her – which, to my surprise, evoked a wide smile and cheery “Hallo….” back.
That moment of connection turned me into a lifelong fan. Which, I guess, is the gift of great politicians. This year I’ll get a little closer to Mrs Merkel as she is scheduled to be one of the invited guests for a Media Leaders interview. These are relatively small sessions, so I might even get to say a bit more than “Hallo” this time around…
In conjunction with BrightRock, we have taken to sharing the stories from our recently published World Economic Forum starter pack PDF, ‘A Veterans Guide to Surviving Davos’ with you – Follow the link to download the full document.
