IN DAVOS, celebrity — in one form or another — is the key.
The World Economic Forum is famed for its inaccessibility — in both senses. This glitzy gathering of the high and mighty from business and politics is held each year in the splendid isolation of a Swiss ski resort that lays claims to be Europe’s highest town.
But entry is carefully controlled to preserve the heady atmosphere of exclusivity enjoyed by its participants. Fame provides the entry tickets to this elite opportunity for high-octane networking and debating among some 2,340 delegates.
From corporate sultans to political titans, from royalty to Hollywood celebrities, Davos is illuminated by the star power of those who make the pilgrimage to this Alpine valley in search of enlightenment — or a big deal. That, at least, is the hope of the organisers.
The cast list for this year’s gathering — from January 25 to 29 — conforms to type, studded as it is with the usual glitterati, interspersed among an abundance of boardroom figures, scientific pundits and political backroom boys, and the commentators who form the chorus in the Davos show.
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This year, “above the title” billing goes to Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, the new German Chancellor, Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie, the actress.
Other cultural figures include Peter Sellars, the opera director, while sport is represented by Pelé, the iconic footballer, Muhammad Ali, and Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa.
Among business figures who will flock to Davos are Sir Richard Branson, George Soros, the billionaire investor, Charles Prince, head of Citigroup, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. With 14 heads of state or government and 60 or so ministers, politics will be extensively represented. Dominique de Villepin, the French Prime Minister, Michael Chertoff, US Homeland Security Secretary, Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, and Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s President, are among those expected.