....Best of all, guests do most of the work for free. Celebrity Talent International advertises that Richard Branson is available to speak for a minimum fee of $150,000. But he will gladly do it gratis in Davos. Multiply this by a few hundred star turns, and the benefits of this model become readily apparent.
Pride and ambition are monetized with equal brilliance on the revenue side. Simple membership for most Davos delegates is $50,000, plus a $19,000 conference fee But that is only the first rung on the ladder. If you want to feel important even by Davos standards, you have to climb further. To gain access to industry peer events as an "industry associate," $156,000 is the price. An "industry partnership," which buys you two delegate spots, costs $263,000.
Scale those heights and another peak looms. Up in the thin air at Davos are the so-called "strategic partners," who each pay $527,000. Strategic partners can send five participants—a CEO and his entourage, for instance.
Given that many top chief executives hold office for only three or four years, WEF membership is effectively a revolving door. By the time the novelty wears off and the CEO starts to see Davos as a very expensive cocktail party, he is out on his ear and replaced by a new guy who was frustrated for years about not being able to go.
If access at Davos can be bought, however, recognition is a more difficult to procure There are plenty of titles available to those willing to strain that bit harder, especially among the younger people who will be the conference lions of the future. The WEF is thick with "Global Young Leaders," "Young Global Shapers" and "Social Entrepreneurs of the Year." Another way to announce your eminence is to serve as a "thought leader" on one of the WEF's 80 Global Agenda Councils.
Davos, in short, is magnificently seductive, a monument to man's need for self-actualization. (And it is mostly men—women only make up 17% of the elite participants at Davos, though they are 60% of WEF staff.) But does it improve the state of the world? Hardly. ..... http://online.wsj.com/article/...8712.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read |