Few gatherings seem to evoke that inimitable mixture of ridicule, loathing and straight-out envy as the annual World Economic Forum gabfest in Davos.
WEF’s boundless ambitions – or rather, the boundless ambitions of WEF founder Klaus Schwab – to build what was essentially an earnest economic conference into one of the world’s sexiest intellectual gatherings worked beautifully. At least they did in terms of drawing the big, big names and non-celebrity participants – with wallets fat enough to pay the astronomical sums required to join the in-crowd – to a remote Swiss mountain resort for a few days.
The replication of WEF in countries as far flung as Australia, Jordan and China is another matter. The “big” names have never been quite as big, the surroundings never quite as glamorous and the crowd never as high-powered. On the plus side, though, the charges for participation are cheaper at these “poor relative” WEFs and more significantly, nobodies – or rather, non-celebrities – have a chance of gaining entry.
The latest “wannabe Davos” WEF gathering is now taking place in Dalian, China, where it is attracting some serious and not so serious commentary.
In a withering article, Access Asia, a “market intelligence” website run by a bunch of Asia hands, grumbles:
As if one Davos conference a year wasn’t enough for all the Big Swinging Dicks and Thomas Friedman admirers, it seems they need another – in Dalian. The annual World Economic Forum – known in some circles of the Annual Fair of the Rapists, Pillagers and Plunderers – is organising the first annual meeting of Global Growth Companies (GGCs), known as the “Summer Davos”.
To be a GGC, you need an annual turnover between $2bn and $4bn (so what if you make more?), and no less than 15% year-on-year growth. So, don’t expect too many little guys to be invited. As that old fraud Friedman would say, you need to be ‘turbocharged’.
Do we detect a tone of sour grapes? Maybe not. The Dalian meeting, running September 6-8, “will probably yield little and be another hot air shop like the rather pointless Boao Forum – all genuflecting, back slapping, saying the right thing and, of course, being ‘turbocharged’ – or officially it will be a ‘…opportunity to address all of the key issues growth companies face’,” continues Access Asia.
According to the organisers, “Dalian will burst on to the world business map”, which sounds messy. Of course, like a real Davos, you need a bit of MBA BS to make the thing attractive to the corporate types, who prefer lingo to real language. Hence the “New Champions” concept. Nothing very much really, but wrapped up in a thick layer of hyperbole. So, the Summer Davos is subtitled “The Annual Meeting of the New Champions.”
There was a long piece about what, who, where and why some people are “New Champions”, but, to be honest, we couldn’t be bothered to read it. Then, like Boao and the much more closely watched Miss World, it will become an annual Chinese event.
But that’s not all, we’re warned. After holding its inaugural session in Dalian, the annual GGC forum will explode on Tianjin, near Beijing, in 2008. Another pair of Chinese cities will be selected after 2008 to host the event in the following two years. Access Asia is betting Shanghai for 2010.
Just make sure you wear your shades, it warns, “so as not to be blinded by the luminescence of the ‘New Champions’.”
Meanwhile, on the “surely not serious” front, a curious blog by The Daily Telegraph’s Mark Kleinman, now in Dalian, commends the “coup” for Dalian’s municipal government in drawing “such a prestigious event” as the WEF gathering. Among attending VIPs, gushes Kleinman, “Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP and BT’s Ben Verwaayen are here…So too are the heads of many Chinese state-owned enterprises and companies from across Asia, Europe and the US”.
Oddly, in a separate news report on the gathering, Kleinman writes in the Telegraph: “At Davos last January, many US business leaders were conspicuous by their absence. Here, the dearth of British chairmen and chief executives might be regarded as a disappointment too. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, and Ben Verwaayen, who occupies the same role at BT, are both here, but they are isolated figures as far as the heads of FTSE 100 companies are concerned.”
Back to his rather curious blog, and Kleinman ends in appropriately curious style, commenting:
Only one complaint so far, and given that I noticed Ozwald Boateng on the delegate list, I hope I’m offending a very wealthy fashion designer somewhere: the outfits of the very charming army of helpers stationed at delegates’ hotels. Not to put too fine a point on, the all-green suits remind me of the inside of a mint Aero.
I’ll see if I can get a picture – and with any luck, some other colour from what should be a fascinating insight into the motivations and insecurities of the world’s ‘New Champions’.
We can’t wait Mark, we really can’t.