Klaus Schwab | |
|---|---|
 Schwab in 2011 | |
| Chairman of the World Economic Forum | |
| Assumed office 24 January 1971 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 30 March 1938 Ravensburg, German Reich |
| Nationality | German |
| Spouse |
Hilde Schwab (m. 1971) |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | ETH Zürich (Dr. Sc. Tech) University of Fribourg (Dr. Rer. Pol) Harvard University (MPA) |
Klaus Martin Schwab (German: [klaʊs ˈmaʁtiːn ʃvaːp]; born 30 March 1938) is a German engineer, economist, and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He has acted as the WEF's chairman since founding the organisation in 1971.
Klaus Martin Schwab was born on March 30, 1938, to Eugen Wilhelm Schwab and Erika Epprecht[1][2] 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.[3][4] Schwab's family was monitored by the Gestapo,[5] which in 1944 also interrogated his mother (who was from Zürich) for speaking with a Swiss accent in public.[4] Schwab was raised Catholic.[6] He is a citizen of Germany although he has three Swiss grandparents and two Swiss brothers.[5]
Schwab attended first and second grade at the primary school in the Wädenswil district of Au, Zürich, in Switzerland. After World War II, his family moved back to Germany where Schwab attended the Spohn-Gymnasium in Ravensburg until his Abitur in 1957.[5][7]
In 1961, he graduated as a mechanical engineer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich,[8] which awarded him a doctorate in engineering entitled Der längerfristige Exportkredit als betriebswirtschaftliches Problem des Maschinenbaues (Longer-term export credit as a business problem in mechanical engineering).[9] He was also awarded a doctorate in economics from the University of Fribourg,[8][10] and a Master of Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[11] While attending Harvard, Schwab found a mentor in former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.[12][13]
Schwab was professor of business policy at the University of Geneva from 1972 to 2003, and since then has been an honorary professor there.[8] Schwab and his wife Hilde created the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 1998.[14]
In 1971, Schwab founded the European Management Forum, which was renamed as the World Economic Forum in 1987.[15] In 1971, he also published Moderne Unternehmensführung im Maschinenbau.[16]
In 2003 Schwab appointed José María Figueres as CEO of the WEF,[17] his intended successor. In October 2004, Figueres resigned[18] 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.[19][20] In 2006, Transparency International highlighted this incident in their Global Corruption Report.[21]
Schwab founded the Global Shapers Community in 2011 within the WEF to work with young people in "shaping local, regional and global agendas."[22]
In 2015, the WEF was formally recognised by the Swiss Government as an "international body".[23]
Schwab has authored or co-authored several books. Some consider him to be "an evangelist" for "stakeholder capitalism".[24] The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the subject of a 2016 book he wrote, is an idea he is credited with popularising.[25] In January 2017 Steven Poole in The Guardian criticised Schwab's Fourth Industrial Revolution book,[26] 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'."[27]
The political scientist Klaus-Gerd Giesen has argued that the dominant ideology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is transhumanism.[28][29]
While Schwab declared that excessively high management salaries were "no longer socially acceptable",[30] his own annual salary of about one million Swiss francs (a little more than $1 million USD) 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.[31] Moreover, the former Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Jürgen Dunsch made the criticism that the WEF's financial reports were not very transparent since neither income nor expenditures were broken down.[32] 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.[33][34]
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[35] 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.[36][37]
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.[38] He also was awarded the Dan David Prize,[39] and was recognized by Queen Elizabeth as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George.[38] Schwab has also received honorary degrees from various universities,[40][41] including the National University of Singapore[42] and Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania.[43]
Schwab married Hilde Schwab, his former assistant, in 1971.[44] The wedding took place in Sertig Valley at a Reformed church.[45] The couple live in Cologny in Switzerland.[46] The Schwabs have two adult children, Nicole (born 1975/1976) and Olivier. Nicole Schwab co-founded the Gender Equality Project.[47]
