Who makes up the in-crowd at WEF?

The issues discussed at the World Economic Forum may seem to reflect the topics of our time, but a closer look at the guest list shows that little has changed. The average participant is still a man from a developed country in his 50s.  

The annual meeting’s slogan of “creating a shared future in a fractured world” encourages looking to a future with more human diversity. But that vision isn’t reflected in participants’ gender, age and origin. 

Their average age is 50, and 54 for men, hardly representative of the “new generation” of young people often mentioned at WEF events.

Only a fifth of participants are women, although the panel leading this year’s WEF is all female. Participants are mainly Westerners, with significantly more representatives from the United States and Europe than from all the other regions of the world.  The gathering includes personalities from politics, science and the arts, but nearly 70% of participants work in the private sector. 

swissinfo.ch

Adapted from French by Julia Crawford