Greetings, Davos delegates and WEF watchers!
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is packed with programming following yesterday’s preliminary meetings, an official welcome reception with a delectable display of Swiss chocolates, an evening dusting of snow, and the annual Crystal Awards ceremony. (Congratulations to actress Michelle Yeoh, musician Nile Rodgers, and architect Diébédo Francis Kéré.)
I’m Quartz executive editor Heather Landy, your faithful Davos correspondent for the week, and I survived the great security line delay of 2024 at the Grandhotel Belvédère, where an equipment failure caused bags to be hand-searched on Monday afternoon (though we hear the lines were moving slowly even before then). Here’s to speedier queues in the days ahead.
Say hello on the Promenade or the Klosters shuttle, and email me with questions, news tips, cocktail party invites, and absolutely any Sting sightings whatsoever. Also, bundle up. The forecast calls for sun, but temperatures are lower than yesterday. Look for a high today of 27°F/-3°C and a low of 9°F/-13°C.
Here’s what you need to know
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in person. The Ukrainian president, who addressed the forum by video in 2023, is scheduled to speak from the stage in Congress Hall at 2:15 pm CET. Will his pleas for aid loosen purse strings in Europe and in Washington? Can the private sector help? (Bloomberg reports that Zelenskyy will meet with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon while the two are in town.) Russia, meanwhile, is once again off the WEF’s guest list.
China’s premier is here. Li Qiang, the country’s senior-most official to come to Davos since Xi Jinping in 2017, speaks in Congress Hall at 10:50 am CET. China’s sizable delegation this year includes the minister of commerce, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, and the vice chair of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
The Middle East is on the agenda. A session with Qatar’s prime minister is full, but it will be livestreamed from the WEF’s website at 9:45 am local time. Jordan’s prime minister speaks at 5:30 pm in Kurpark Village. Then on Thursday, look for sessions with Israeli president Isaac Herzog and Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shyaa Al Sudani. Also in town this week: Rachel Goldberg, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was taken hostage by Hamas, and Noam Peri, the head of financial tech at Google in Tel Aviv, whose 79-year-old father, Chaim Peri, was captured at the Nir Oz kibbutz he co-founded six decades ago. Noam Peri is here with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
What about the world beyond geopolitics?
Every CEO we’ve spoken to here thus far has named geopolitical risks as the issue they’re most concerned about right now. But in fact, the WEF meeting and the many sideline events here are designed to appeal to people with a wide variety of interests—geopolitics and generative artificial intelligence chief among them, it seems, but also climate, health, education, and the state of the global economy, among other hot-button topics.
A look at labor. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator for the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), is on a 4:15 pm CET panel addressing how “leaders [can] meaningfully accelerate trust with workers today to prevent the strikes of tomorrow.” As for the “workforce behind the workforce” (i.e., nurses, teachers, and care workers), their needs will be discussed at a 1 pm CET session.
What metaverse? Also at 1 pm CET, yours truly moderates a panel in Kurpark Village on “Next Steps for Digital Worlds,” featuring Meta’s Nicola Mendelsohn, WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell, the Atlantic Council’s Brittan Heller, and Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant.
The cost of a tech-enabled childhood. Swiss-based billionaire Margarita Louis-Dreyfus (second cousin once removed of Julia, by marriage) is funding a new global advocacy campaign launched this week in Davos to “prioritize the well-being of children in our digitally interconnected world.” The Human Change Project has three days of programming lined up, including a Thursday session about digital addiction’s impact on the future workforce.
Seen around town
Looks quiet. But it’s about to get a lot busier.
What it’s come to for crypto…
A dramatic Davos backdrop for panels on diversity and inclusion at the Inkwell Beach program, up at the Hotel Schatzalp.
3 questions with … KPMG CEO Paul Knopp
Quartz: What issue did you come to Davos feeling most excited about?
Knopp: I would say generative AI, but more specifically, the velocity at which it’s changing businesses, and maybe society, ultimately. Davos, January 2023, almost nobody mentioned gen AI. You fast forward only a year, and uses of the technology have almost gone mainstream while still being in a fairly nascent stage—meaning that future developments around gen AI are probably going to make the transformations that we see in three to five years really, really impactful.
Quartz: What issue did you come to Davos feeling most worried about?
Knopp: Last year, for me, it would have been the economy. I’m a little more concerned right now about the number of geopolitical concerns around the world that could create shocks. The war that’s happening in the Gaza Strip in Israel, what’s happening in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and how that’s disrupting some supply chains, the continuing concerns around the war in Ukraine and the continuing impacts on energy security and food security that still have extreme importance to a lot of parts of the world, including Europe, and then, you know, just the tensions among countries that might be a little more nationalistic and their behaviors more isolationist. To me that warrants some higher level of concern.
Quartz: Do you think Zelenskyy will get anywhere making his case for support this week in Davos?
Knopp: I would like to think he would. The case for the sovereignty of Ukraine and democracy in Ukraine should really be strong. National sovereignty and the security of a free country ought to be really important to all of us, in my opinion. And then there are concerns that if Ukraine were to fall, how could that spread beyond Ukraine? My guess is he’ll get some traction in Davos.
Pro Tips
Training in? The Congress Centre is between the Davos Dorf and Davos Platz train stations and roughly a 20-minute walk from each (15 minutes if you’re from New York City). But during the WEF meeting, some trains stop between the two at a special station called Davos Kongress, which leaves you just 350 meters from the conference hall.
With women in mind. Female Quotient’s always busy Equality Lounge isn’t the only gathering spot this year devoted to the programming and networking needs of women. The “We Lead Lounge” at Promenade 57 was set up by the government of India, the Confederation of Indian Industry, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to facilitate conversations on “the potential to invest in women-led development in India and globally.” Events there run through Thursday.
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See you in your inbox again tomorrow,
Heather