Klaus Martin Schwab

Klaus Martin Schwab (; born 30 March 1938) is a German mechanical engineer, economist, and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He acted as the WEF's chairman since founding the organisation from 1971 until 2025 when he was replaced by Peter Brabeck-Letmathe.

Early life and education

Klaus Martin Schwab was born on 30 March 1938, to Eugen Wilhelm Schwab and Erika Epprecht in Ravensburg. His parents had moved from Switzerland to Germany during the Third Reich in order for his father to assume the role of director at Escher Wyss AG, an industrial company and contractor for the Nazi regime. Although his father was baptized Lutheran, Schwab was raised Catholic. Although he has three Swiss grandparents and two Swiss brothers, he is a citizen of Germany and has declined multiple offers for naturalization, from both Kurt Furgler and Ueli Maurer.

Schwab attended first and second grades at the primary school in the Wädenswil district of Au, Zürich, in Switzerland. After World War II, Schwab attended the Spohn-Gymnasium in Ravensburg until his Abitur in 1957.Patrik Müller, Andreas Maurer
''An impossible gift: Why the naturalisation of WEF founder Klaus Schwab will fail.''
Aargauer Zeitung, 20 August 2019.Jürgen Dunsch: ''Host of the Mighty: Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum in Davos.'' FinanzBuch Verlag 2016. p. 26f. In 1961, he graduated as a mechanical engineer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, with a doctorate in engineering, with a dissertation titled (Longer-term export credit as a business problem in mechanical engineering). He also earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Fribourg, and a Master in Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. While attending Harvard, Schwab found a mentor in future National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Career

Schwab was professor of business policy at the University of Geneva from 1972 to 2003, and since then has been an honorary professor there. Schwab and his wife Hilde created the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 1998.

World Economic Forum

In 1971, Schwab founded the European Management Forum, which was renamed as the World Economic Forum in 1987. Also in 1971, he published . In 2003 Schwab appointed José María Figueres CEO of the WEF, as his successor. In October 2004, Figueres resigned over his undeclared receipt of more than US$900,000 in consultancy fees from the French telecommunications firm Alcatel while he was working at the Forum. In 2006, Transparency International highlighted this incident in their Global Corruption Report.

Schwab founded the Global Shapers Community in 2011 within the WEF to work with young people in "shaping local, regional and global agendas." In 2015, the WEF was formally recognised by the Swiss Government as an "international body".

As author

Schwab has authored or co-authored several books. Some consider him to be "an evangelist" for "stakeholder capitalism". The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the subject of a 2016 book he wrote, is an idea he is credited with popularising. In January 2017, Steven Poole in ''The Guardian'' criticised Schwab's ''Fourth Industrial Revolution'' book, pointing out that " the internet of things" would probably be hackable. He also criticised Schwab for showing that future technologies may be used for good or evil, but not taking a position on the issues, instead offering only vague policy recommendations. The ''Financial Times'' innovation editor found "the clunking lifelessness of the prose" led him to "suspect this book really was written by humans—ones who inhabit a strange twilight world of stakeholders, externalities, inflection points and 'developtory sandboxes'." The political scientist Klaus-Gerd Giesen argued that the dominant ideology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is transhumanism.

Criticism

Salary level and lack of financial transparency

While Schwab declared that excessively high management salaries were "no longer socially acceptable", his own annual salary of about one million Swiss francs (about US$1.2 million) has been repeatedly questioned by the media. The Swiss radio and television corporation SRF mentioned this salary level in the context of ongoing public contributions to the WEF and the fact that the Forum does not pay any federal taxes. Moreover, the former journalist Jürgen Dunsch made the criticism that the WEF's financial reports were not very transparent since neither income nor expenditures were broken down. Schwab has also drawn ire for mixing the finances of the not-for-profit WEF and other for-profit business ventures. For example, the WEF awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to USWeb in 1998. Yet shortly after the deal went through, Schwab took a board seat at the same company, reaping valuable stock options.

Allegations of employer misconduct and harassment

On 29 June 2024, ''The Wall Street Journal'' published an article, authored by staff reporters Shalini Ramachandran and Khadeeja Safdar, stating that Schwab is accused by former WEF employees of having engaged in two instances of sexual harassment. Furthermore, a former employee alleges that she was "pushed out" from her role as leader of an initiative for startups, following a brief trial period, after telling Schwab she was pregnant. Schwab grew upset that she would not be able to continue working at the same pace, people familiar with the incident said, and told her she was not suited for her new leadership role. A fourth allegation was that Schwab ordered the firing of all individuals over 50 years of age at the WEF, which then-HR-chief Paolo Gallo refused to do. After this, Schwab allegedly fired Gallo. The article then went on to discuss alleged misconduct by other high-ranking WEF officials, which was not directly related to Schwab. The WSJ article quoted the WEF's response to the specific allegations against Schwab, which the authors had gathered before publishing the article, as: "Schwab has never made sexual advances toward an employee and the women's allegations were vague and false" and that “Mr. Schwab does not and has never engaged in the vulgar behaviors you describe”. Three days later, the WSJ article was reported on, separately and respectively, in Swiss daily newspapers Tages-Anzeiger and Neue Zürcher Zeitung, where WEF further commented that "it is deeply disappointing that the WSJ made provably false allegations" and that there existed a zero-tolerance policy for this sort of misconduct. In response to a whistleblower's allegations of corruption, the WEF announced an investigation into Schwab's behavior.

In the aftermath of these revelations, some commentators pondered the future of the WEF.

Controversies

Whitstleblower allegations and controversy with World Economic Forum

In May 2025, Schwab launched a defamation and coercion complaint against anonymous whistleblowers whose allegations prompted his resignation as chair of the WEF board of trustees in 2025. The accusations, including claims of financial impropriety, research manipulation, and mishandling of sexual harassment cases, were described by Schwab as “stupid and constructed.” Despite stepping down from the WEF, Schwab maintains his innocence and has stated that his lawyers filed a criminal complaint with the Geneva public prosecutor, marking a turbulent period for the World Economic Forum as an organisation. The controversy also highlighted management issues at the WEF identified in earlier investigations and reignited scrutiny over its workplace culture.

Controversy with Davos municipality

In June 2021, Schwab sharply criticised the "profiteering", "complacency" and "lack of commitment" of the municipality of Davos in relation to the WEF annual meeting. He mentioned that the preparation of the COVID-related meeting in Singapore in 2021/2022 had created an alternative to its Swiss host and sees the chance that the annual meeting will stay in Davos at between 40 and 70 per cent.

Awards and honours

Among other awards, Schwab has been conferred with the French Legion of Honour (knight distinction), the Grand Cross with Star of the National Order of Germany, and the Japanese Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. He also was awarded the Dan David Prize, and was recognized by Queen Elizabeth as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George. Schwab has also received honorary degrees from various universities, including the National University of Singapore and Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania.

Publications

Articles

"Global Corporate Citizenship: Working with Governments and Civil Society."
''Foreign Affairs'', vol. 87, no. 1 (Jan–Feb 2008), pp. 107–18. .

Books

The Global Information Technology Report 2001–2002: Readiness for the Networked World , Berkman Klein Center
with Geoffrey S. Kirkman, Peter K. Cornelius and Jeffrey D. Sachs, New York, Oxford University Press (2002). , .

''The Fourth Industrial Revolution''.
Geneva: World Economic Forum (2016). .
* ''Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution'', with Nicholas Davis. New York: Crown Publishing Group (2018).
* ''COVID-19: The Great Reset'', with Thierry Malleret. Forum Publishing (2020). .
* ''Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet''. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley (2021). .
* ''The Great Narrative: For a Better Future'', with Thierry Malleret. Forum Publishing (2022). .

Personal life

Schwab married Hilde Schwab, his former assistant, in 1971. The wedding took place in Sertig Valley at a Reformed church. The couple lives in Cologny, Switzerland. The Schwabs have two adult children. His daughter, Nicole Schwab, co-founded the Gender Equality Project.

References

External links

Klaus Schwab
at IMDb
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwab, Klaus
1938 births
Living people
Academic staff of the University of Fribourg
ETH Zurich alumni
German businesspeople
German economists
German male writers
German people of Swiss descent
German philanthropists
Grand Cordons of the Order of the Rising Sun
Harvard Kennedy School alumni
Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Members of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco
Members of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group
People from Ravensburg
People from the Free People's State of Württemberg
University of Fribourg alumni
World Economic Forum