A few years ago Klaus Schwab, the octogenarian founder of the World Economic Forum, decided the organization needed a youthful makeover.
So he singled out a group of employees over 50 years old and instructed his human-resources chief to get rid of them all, according to people familiar with the matter. This, he explained, would lower the average age of the workforce. The HR chief, a seasoned former World Bank executive named Paolo Gallo, declined, pointing out that there has to be a reasonable explanation for firing somebody, such as poor performance. Not long after, Schwab fired Gallo.
It wasn’t the only example of Schwab engaging in behavior that would violate standard workplace policies of the Forum’s leading corporate partners. One episode still making the rounds among staffers is the time in 2017 he tapped a young woman to lead an initiative for startups. She had discovered she was pregnant, and during her first few days on the job went into Schwab’s office in Geneva to tell him.
Schwab grew upset that she wouldn’t be able to continue working at the same pace, people familiar with the incident said, and told her she wasn’t suited for her new leadership role. She was pushed out after what the Forum said was a brief trial period.
The World Economic Forum, the organization behind the annual Davos gathering of world leaders and chief executives, says its mission is no less than to improve the state of the world.
But under Schwab’s decadeslong oversight, the Forum has allowed to fester an atmosphere hostile to women and Black people in its own workplace, according to internal complaints, email exchanges and interviews with dozens of current and former Forum employees and other people familiar with the Forum’s practices.
At least six female staffers were pushed out or otherwise saw their careers suffer when they were pregnant or returning from maternity leave. Another half dozen described sexual harassment they experienced at the hands of senior managers, some of whom remain at the Forum. Two said they were sexually harassed years ago by VIPs at Forum gatherings, including at Davos, where female staff were expected to be at the delegates’ beck and call.
In two more recent incidents, employees registered internal complaints after white Forum managers used the N-word around Black employees. Black employees also raised formal complaints to Forum leaders about being passed over for promotions or left out of Davos.
The Forum declined to make Schwab available for an interview. Forum spokesman Yann Zopf said in a statement that this article would “mischaracterize our organization, culture and colleagues, including our founder.”
In written responses to the Journal, the Forum said it holds itself and its employees to a high set of values, with confidential reporting channels and a thorough investigation process. It said Schwab never created an age limit for employees and that he collaborated with the HR chief to make it possible for people to work beyond the normal retirement age.
It disputed the Journal’s characterization of events and said the organization has zero tolerance for harassment or discrimination and has responded appropriately to any complaints received. It said there have been three reported allegations of racial discrimination since 2020 and that each has been thoroughly investigated and appropriate action was taken.
The Forum added that many of the episodes described by the Journal, including those alleging pregnancy discrimination, involved former employees who had been dismissed for performance reasons or as part of restructurings. A Forum spokesman said women don’t face a higher rate of turnover after parental leave and that at least 150 employees returned from leave to the same or a better job during an eight-year span.
In a memo to staff on May 21, Schwab announced that he planned to step aside as executive chairman, which he indicated was part of a long-planned transition. He said he will stay on as nonexecutive chairman of the board of trustees. The announcement came after Schwab sent a letter to the Journal’s publisher and editor in chief to share concerns about the reporting for this article.
The Forum’s workplace culture is particularly distressing to many employees because of the organization’s public stances promoting gender equality. It publishes an annual “Global Gender Gap Report” that details various countries’ progress toward gender parity. Some of the allegations of mistreatment came from former members of the very team that put it together.
“That was the most disappointing thing, to see the distance between what the Forum aspires to and what happens behind the scenes,” said Cheryl Martin, a former U.S. Energy Department official who served as a top Forum executive.
The Journal interviewed more than 80 current and former employees ranging in tenure from as far back as the 1980s through the present day. Some of them have bonded over what they describe as shared trauma in a WhatsApp group called “WEFugees” that has hundreds of former employees.
“It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after,” said Farid Ben Amor, a former U.S. media executive who worked at the Forum for more than a year before resigning in 2019. “It’s particularly distressing when contrasted with the eagerness and earnestness with which many of us joined the Forum.”
