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.”
The Boss
Schwab was a young German academic when he created the first Davos conference in 1971. He has built the event into a global summit that convenes world leaders, billionaires and celebrities. (Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is a Forum partner and has a high-profile presence at the annual event in Davos.)
Over five decades as its leader, Schwab has also grown the Forum from a small nonprofit into a sprawling organization generating more than $400 million in annual revenue, with about 1,000 employees in Geneva, New York and other cities. Many of them came in as young professionals eager to change the world. Some said they benefited from their time at the Forum, met intellectual colleagues and had benevolent bosses.
Others painted a darker picture, saying that women were routinely sexualized and objectified, a tone they said was set at the very top of the organization. Since the Forum’s earliest years, staffers say women received warnings about Schwab: If you find yourself alone with him, he may make uncomfortable comments about your appearance. They describe his behavior as more awkward than menacing, but inappropriate for a leader. Schwab has been married to his wife Hilde, his former assistant, since 1971.
Barbara Erskine, a former Forum communications executive, said that Schwab told a board member to tell her that she needed to lose weight. Schwab told other executives that she had no charm, said Erskine, who spent a decade at the Forum and left in 2000.
Three women who worked in Geneva closely with Schwab—a receptionist, a personal assistant, and a European staffer—told the Journal that the boss over several decades made suggestive comments to them that made them uncomfortable. Several other co-workers said they were aware of Schwab’s behavior with each of the women.
The receptionist who worked for Schwab said he asked her to private dinners and excursions. She said she had to be really clear with him more than once “what kind of relationship I wanted: professional and nothing sexual.”
Myriam Boussina, who worked at the Forum in the 1990s as Schwab’s personal assistant and in a role handling partner companies, said Schwab complimented her attire, haircut and body in a way that was inappropriate for a workplace and made her uncomfortable.
“I knew he liked me and I knew he found me pretty,” Boussina said. “Every man with a lot of power, they think that they can get any woman and they are not ashamed.”
She said there was no real human-resources department at the time she could notify. “You could not go and complain, it was impossible,” she said.
The Forum said Schwab has never made sexual advances toward an employee and the women’s allegations were vague and false. “Mr. Schwab does not and has never engaged in the vulgar behaviors you describe,” a Forum spokesman said.
The European staffer, who worked in Geneva in the 2000s, said Schwab never crossed the line to physical contact with her, but that his pattern of suggestive remarks and behavior was “a horrible thing as a woman to go through.” Once, she said, he propped his leg up on her desk with his crotch in front of her face and told her he wished she was Hawaiian because he’d like to see her in a Hawaiian costume.
“I need to find you a man, and if I were not married, I would put myself on the top of that list,” Schwab told her more than once, she said.
A former senior Forum executive confirmed that the European staffer told him about some of Schwab’s flirtatious comments to her not long after.
He and another Forum staffer said they witnessed Schwab strike the crotch pose in front of the European staffer and other women.
The Forum said Schwab never did such a thing. “This is disgusting and incorrect,” the Forum spokesman said, adding that Schwab wasn’t familiar with Hawaiian costumes.
‘White on Blue Action’
The Forum is an international organization but it is also a family affair. Schwab’s two children hold senior roles at the Forum, and his wife is co-chair of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which is a sister organization of the Forum.
The Forum’s bylaws say that Schwab or at least one member of his immediate family must be on the Board of Trustees. The bylaws add: “The Founder himself designates his successor in the Board.”
The Board of Trustees consists of about 30 members from various sectors of life, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and the heads of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, according to the Forum’s website.
Old timers at the Forum said Schwab liked to hire attractive people, who typically staffed the annual event at Davos. Former Forum executives said the situation was ripe for sexual harassment and that several staffers complained to them about inappropriate behavior by partners. There was even a term for sexual contact between VIPs and Forum staffers, said a former employee: “white on blue action,” for the color of badges worn by the two parties.
The Forum said it has a zero-tolerance policy of harassment at its events, and that reports of any such incidents would be immediately investigated and appropriate action taken. It said it wasn’t familiar with the term “white on blue action.”
Female staffers said their colleagues—especially male ones—would often remark on their appearance. “There was a lot of pressure to be good-looking and wear tight dresses,” said one woman who worked there in the 2010s. “Never in my career have I experienced looks being such an important topic as in the Forum.”
She said it was common for young staffers to be propositioned by Forum event attendees. At a WEF Africa summit, she recalls a CEO asking if she wanted to come back to his room and have a special Japanese whisky with him. She said no.
Another woman, who joined the Forum in 2006, said she would receive texts from Forum partners saying, “You look pretty today” and asking to get a drink after the day’s events. She said she had to fend off one government minister who called her with a supposed problem in his hotel room.
“Our male colleagues received different kinds of messages from constituents, like do you know if there are any girls to go out with this evening,” she said. “We never really felt protected.”
Martin, the former Energy Department official, said she sought internal changes to address the harassment issue during her time on the Forum’s managing board. She said she pushed to strengthen the code of conduct at Davos and encourage employees to report any harassment at the event.
She said Schwab and other managing board members viewed her advocacy as overreacting. In 2018, she said, Schwab changed her role in a way that stripped her of responsibilities, staff and budget resources. He never told her why. Martin resigned later that year. The Forum said she was given new responsibilities before she decided to leave.
“I changed what I could, and when I realized that I was really not able to do any more, I resigned,” she said. “You lifted the rocks you could.”
Unwanted Touching
The Forum kept on—and, in some cases, promoted—around a dozen managers against whom there were specific complaints lodged over the years, according to interviews with complainants and documents reviewed by the Journal that were sent to HR or other senior leaders. The Forum said it investigates all complaints, terminated those who violated its policies and concluded that some were without merit.
In 2018, Justyna Swiatkowska made a complaint to the legal and HR departments that George Karam, a manager, had asked her out for drinks after work and engaged in unwanted touching and forcible kissing.
“In months that followed, this event and Mr Karam’s presence at the Forum left me traumatized and afraid to go to work,” she wrote in an email to the head of HR and the Forum’s president reviewed by the Journal. “I also learned that I was not alone, and that there were other women with similar stories.”
A colleague had made a similar complaint about Karam that year. The two accusers discovered others as well, including a woman who told them she had complained about him years earlier.
“The Forum had institutional knowledge about Mr Karam’s predatory,[sic] at least, since the time of the first complaint, but it did nothing for almost 3 years to stop the harassment and to take care of the victims,” Swiatkowska wrote in another email to the head of HR.
The Forum said it launched an investigation and fired Karam within a week. He quickly landed a job at a Forum partner. The Forum said it made clear that he wouldn’t be allowed contact with the Forum or its employees in his new role. Karam didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Other Forum managers who have received complaints continue in their roles.
During a flu vaccination drive in 2010, Malte Godbersen, the current head of technology and digital services, pretended to be a medical doctor when a young female staffer showed up, according to a complaint sent to Schwab and another Forum leader.
He asked her medical questions and responded affirmatively when she asked if she should take off her shirt, but first requested that she move her body into different positions, according to the complaint and people familiar with the incident. Just then a real physician walked in, and the young woman realized she’d been duped. Jeremy Jurgens, a top Schwab lieutenant who happened onto the scene, laughed, one of the people said.
Godbersen subsequently said it was a joke, according to the complaint. Soon after, he sent flowers to the woman’s home. The woman complained to human resources.
HR called in the woman to discuss what had happened. Almost immediately afterward, she began noticing that her work was constantly criticized by her boss, someone other than Godbersen, despite positive feedback from external stakeholders, according to the complaint.
Within months, the Forum dismissed her. HR told her the firing was unrelated to the incident and was because of her job performance.
The Forum said the episode was a misunderstanding and that Godbersen issued an apology. He was reprimanded and had his bonus reduced, documents show. Godbersen, who remains at the Forum, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
New Mothers
After becoming pregnant or giving birth, several women saw their fortunes take a turn for the worse at the Forum, according to people familiar with their experiences. Some received sharp critiques about their performances or lost their roles right as they were coming back from maternity leave. At times, they were offered temporary jobs or roles that the mothers perceived as demotions.
Such outcomes, they said, clash with the Forum’s public stances: The organization has published several articles and white papers highlighting the importance of supporting new mothers in the workforce.
Jurgens, the top Schwab lieutenant, made demeaning comments to a new mother shortly after she returned to work from maternity leave, repeatedly telling her he didn’t like her, according to people familiar with the incident.
When she complained to HR in 2018 that Jurgens was bullying her, the official directed her to a therapist. The Forum said there was no actionable complaint regarding bullying. Jurgens didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Working under a new direct boss in 2021, the woman suffered a miscarriage. In a journal entry texted to her husband from a hospital bed, she explained how she had been working to the point of exhaustion and hadn’t disclosed that she was expecting: “It’s not the kind of place that you can confidentially declare [you’re] pregnant to your manager and expect that the workload might be eased whilst trying to juggle first trimester exhaustion.”
The Forum said it offers flexibility when it is requested, provided that it is possible for wider teams to absorb.
Topaz Smith, an employee in the New York office, who joined the Forum in 2022, gave birth to twins last year. She said she was told a week before returning from maternity leave in February that her role had been eliminated, even though she said she didn’t have any performance-related issues. She was offered a six-month temporary position.
Within weeks, the Forum hired a replacement to fill a role with the same “partner lead” title she’d had previously that encompassed her prior duties, she said.
“It is a psychologically violent institution, and I don’t understand how they have the credibility to write this Gender Gap report and dictate how economies and industries are run globally,” she said.
The Forum said the role was changed as part of a larger restructuring and a temporary position was created to help Smith find another opportunity. undefined
The N-Word
The Forum has sometimes struggled to live up to ideals it preaches about promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Black employees who have worked at the Forum described being passed over for promotions, excluded from the marquee annual event at Davos and incidents of managers who made comments ranging from tone-deaf to outright racist.
Six Black employees described missing out on promotions or having better opportunities suddenly taken away from them, with bosses giving some of them feedback that they weren’t “visible” enough to senior leadership or needed to smile more. The Forum said promotions are merit-based.
Earlier this year, Kimberly Bennett, a Black employee who worked in Geneva and had helped lead the Black employee resource group, sent a letter to HR that raised concerns percolating among many Black staffers that they were left off staff quotas to attend Davos despite organizing key sessions there.
In one example, she pointed out that when the Forum’s DEI team sent staff to Davos, “all the staff members are white and from Europe,” though there were diverse members on the team. “What does it say about our commitment to DEI if most of the representatives we choose to send to our most important event are white?” she asked in the letter.
She said she received no response.
The Forum said only half its workforce attends the annual meeting in Davos, race and gender play no role in determining who goes and the selection is based on on-site needs.
Two managers in recent years said the N-word in front of Black women working for them.
One of them was Schwab’s longtime operations chief, Jean-Loup Denereaz. Several employees described off-color remarks that he made over the years, including one incident in which a woman complained to bosses in 2017 that he made inappropriate comments in response to a sexual harassment complaint brought to him. Denereaz was fired by the Forum in 2018 after an incident in which he belittled a Black woman on his team in the open office. As he walked away, he said, “What can you expect from a N–,” according to people familiar with the episode.
The Forum said the Denereaz episode was abhorrent and he was let go within days of the incident for violating its code of conduct. Denereaz didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The other incident occurred in September 2022 during a team lunch in Geneva, when colleagues were sharing chocolate-covered marshmallows from Denmark. Margi Van Gogh, a South African manager, and another white co-worker discussed how the candies used to be called “N- balls” in Denmark and had a similar-sounding name in South Africa, using the full word in front of a Black female colleague, according to people familiar with the incident and documents reviewed by the Journal.
The Black woman, who was shocked, later raised the issue in an email to Van Gogh, her manager. She wrote that she didn’t think the word was used “out of malice,” but that it is triggering for her and other Black people. “There is a common understanding that the only proper use of the word is to not use it at all.”
They had a meeting where Van Gogh cried about her ancestral guilt and requested that the Black employee take ownership of organizing a DEI training for the team, according to the people. HR told the woman it didn’t have DEI resources, and Van Gogh never followed up, these people added.
The Forum said it was a moment that was empathetically and amicably resolved. Van Gogh, the head of supply chain and transport industries at the Forum, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tiffany Hart, a Black employee who spent nearly a decade at the Forum, said one boss in Davos questioned her about her wig and, while brandishing matches, asked if he could set it on fire. At another point, she said he told her, “If I knew you had dyslexia, I wouldn’t have hired you.” She said she reported the boss to human resources to no avail.
The Forum said it wasn’t aware of the allegations.
When another boss, Roberto Bocca, a current senior executive, berated her and called her a “bitch” on a team call when she asked a question, she said human resources brushed it off that he was just “Italian and very passionate.” The Forum said the Bocca situation was looked into and addressed appropriately, and the harsh language wasn’t reported. Bocca didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Hart said she left of her own accord in 2022. “We don’t eat our own dog food,” Hart said. “We promote inclusion and improving the state of the world and women’s issues but do the opposite.”
Write to Shalini Ramachandran at Shalini.Ramachandran@wsj.com and Khadeeja Safdar at khadeeja.safdar@wsj.com
