Hubris has a way of catching up to people. That was my first thought when I read that Klaus Schwab, founder and chair of the once-mighty World Economic Forum (WEF), had resigned his position in the wake of an anonymous whistleblower alleging financial and personal misconduct on the part of Schwab and his wife (the family has strongly denied all the claims).
In early April, the 87-year-old Schwab had signaled he might step down. That process, however, rapidly accelerated on April 22 following these allegations. They come on top of a board-led independent probe into the WEF’s workplace culture – one, it was alleged, had been characterised by bullying, sexual harassment, and other forms of discrimination (in March, the WEF said the investigation ‘did not find the forum had committed any legal violations’ and ‘did not substantiate’ allegations against Schwab).
For an outfit as notoriously woke as the WEF, which has bent over backwards to flash its progressive credentials on every possible occasion, it’s difficult to underplay how damaging these and the new allegations have been to its reputation.
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