CEO slams Davos … but what do speechwriters say?

The World Economic Forum conference at Davos is this week, as most working speechwriters know.

Davos, writes R. James Breiding, CEO of the Swiss-based investment firm Naissance Capital, a “magnificently seductive … monument to man’s need for self-actualization. But does it improve the state of the world? Hardly.” He portrays the whole thing as nothing more than a pricey gang-bang where participants’ “pride and ambition are monetized” through outrageous fees, and on the backs of underpaid conference staffers.

If the Davos would meet the World Economic Forum’s goal of improving the state of the world, it would do so on the strength of the speeches delivered there and the discussions those speeches inspire.

Speechwriters, you’ve written those speeches. Is Davos a place where speakers are heard, rather than simply, as Breiding asserts, seen?

Let’s be frank. —DM