Annual Report 2024 2025

The Forum’s role as a trusted platform for multistakeholder dialogue – a crucial building block of collaboration – has never felt as important. This is why we anchor our year-round work in three major meetings: in Davos at the start of the year, the People’s Republic of China midway through and New York in the final quarter of the year. Our 2025 Annual Meeting in Davos brought nearly 3,000 leaders from more than 130 countries together to identify pathways forward on economic, sustainability, technology and security priorities. During the meeting, heads of European intelligence agencies met with members of the private sector to discuss the complex threat landscape and ways to strengthen collective security. We convened diplomacy dialogues on the Western Balkans and Myanmar to identify pathways to peace and reconciliation, and the “CEOs for Ukraine” session brought together over 80 business leaders with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss plans for reconstruction in Ukraine once hostilities end. We also laid the foundation for the Leaders for European Growth and Competitiveness community, which launched in late June in coordination with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The community is working with chief executive officers and policy-makers to bolster competitiveness in Europe. We launched several initiatives focused on using innovation to drive economic and social benefit, including the Global Data Partnership for Forced Labour, a coalition of businesses and international institutions that is offering ways to use data to combat forced labour. We also launched the Future of Clean Fuels Initiative, which is promoting collaboration to accelerate the scale of the clean fuels transition. In June, our Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, included a dialogue with Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Bringing together over 1,700 public and private sector leaders, the meeting offered a timely platform for stakeholders to share perspectives and insights, coinciding with ongoing negotiations between the world’s two largest powers. Looking further back in the reporting period, during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week, we held our Sustainable Development Impact Meetings 2024 in New York. The meetings convened over 1,000 leaders, including 50 senior government leaders, along with key figures from the private sector, civil society and expert communities, to advance Forum initiatives that are supporting the Sustainable Development Goals. Over the course of the year, our work has centred on delivering insight into and advancing critical technology, economic, societal and sustainability objectives – areas that are inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing. As the global economy enters the Intelligent Age, where innovation will deliver new growth opportunities, the Forum’s Centres for the Fourth Industrial Revolution expanded to 22 members, with new centres launched in Berlin, Kyiv, Medellín, Oman, South Africa and Riyadh. These hubs for public-private cooperation serve as focal points for developing policies that advance innovations addressing our economic and environmental objectives in a responsible manner. The transition to an innovation economy will come with risks, and the Forum’s Reskilling Revolution initiative is on track to empower one billion people with better education, skills and economic opportunities by 2030. The Forum also unveiled Growing Cyber Talent Through Public-Private Partnerships to help ensure the workforce of the future is cyber-skilled. The First Movers Coalition – a group of over 100 leading global companies – continues to grow as its members use their collective purchasing power to drive sustainability innovation. The most crucial component of the Forum’s success has been our talented and hard-working staff in our Geneva headquarters and at our offices in New York, San Francisco, Beijing and Tokyo. I am impressed each day by their commitment to upholding our values of inclusiveness and collaboration and to delivering meaningful results on some of the most complex and urgent issues facing the world today. This is why, during this last year, the Forum increased investment in its staff. Our People and Culture team introduced a 360-degree Leadership Culture assessment process, inviting all employees to contribute feedback on the organization’s senior leaders. We also remain committed to rewarding talent, supporting well-being and offering access to mental wellness programmes. Our work is made possible because of our partnerships with the world’s leading enterprises. The Forum’s 5% growth in partnerships last year – reaching a record 925 companies – reflects the private sector’s strong commitment to addressing critical global challenges. In this time of global complexity, the Forum is grateful for its collaboration with leading global companies, the commitment of its staff and its partnerships with international organizations and civil society. This spirit of collaboration is proof of what cooperative approaches can achieve and why the Forum’s mission – to promote dialogue and strengthen collaboration – is so vital. Over the course of the year, our work has centred on delivering insight into and advancing critical technology, economic, societal and sustainability objectives – areas that are inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing. Annual Report 2024-20257 President and CEO’s Statement