Demonstrating the difference. Why there’s real value in going to Davos after all.

First published in PRWeek UK last week, this extended version begins with an upfront confession: I’ve long been a Davos sceptic throughout my career. Over the past three decades I’ve sent teams of journalists from news outlets such as Sky News and Bloomberg TV to attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland with more than a little irritation. It’s elitist and irrelevant I would say, far better to go to the Detroit Motor Show if you want to reflect what business really thinks.

It’s time to admit here and now that I was wrong.

Last week I went to Davos for the first time. If you watched or read the news commentary, you’d be left with the perception that Donald Trump was succeeding in shaping the global agenda to his will. Thirty years working in the media has taught me of the necessity to formulate one narrative and a simple headline. There is a comfort and security in sharing the same consistent story, even if it’s only part of the picture.

The reality of living in the World of 2025 is that complexity and disruption combined with the speed of global change overwhelms the agenda of any one man or one country. One insight being shared, particularly by Europeans on the Davos promenade, is that if President Trump is to deliver on his pledge to deliver US economic supremacy, his agenda must be dominated by his rivalry with China. This week’s news from DeepSeek would seem to bear out that truth.

One of Fleet Street’s finest business journalists told me he comes to Davos every year as he finds the world’s business leaders more relaxed, and forthcoming surrounded by the snow. But for me I found the juxtaposition and the serendipity of the conversations most surprising.

This year SEC Newgate UK hosted a programme of events at the Heimatmuseum which brought together a group of people it’s hard to conceive could share the same space anywhere or at any time else. Where could a paid-up member of the global business elite such as Sir Martin Sorrell bump into a local dairy farmer for whom contentment in life means milking nine, not fourteen cows?  

Over the course of the day, we spoke to CEO’s responsible for serving millions of customers, financiers responsible for billions of global investments as well as entrepreneurs determined to change the world for the better.

When it came to climate, finance leaders told me they can’t ignore what they see taking place outside the office window. Despite President Trump’s recent actions on climate, one statistic widely shared at the Heimatmuseum was that during Trump’s first term, coal production in the USA fell by 40%. So much for that drill, baby, drill rhetoric. 

The concern over climate may be clear, but so also are the financial realities and the business logic. I was particularly struck by the arguments being made for climate investment by the CIO of the multi-billion-dollar NEOM construction project in Saudi Arabia. Dr Manar Al Moneef highlighted how only 15 years ago, solar energy in her country was 12 times more expensive than it is today. This is not Woke Capitalism at play, but rather a focus on building the energy transition infrastructure and providing the finance and the regulation required.

Also central to our conversation at the Heimatmuseum, was the idea that values and diversity can be the cornerstone of business success. A people centred business builds job descriptions around the strengths and skills of the team, rather than the other way around. It’s hard not to agree that combining dignity and progress in the workplace is not just the right thing but also smart business strategy.

So Davos delivered fresh perspectives that were both global and local in nature. You may ask -but what has changed or been delivered? Yet I’m convinced optimism can be infectious. Sometimes it’s important to state, simply and often, that the world can be a better place.