The Rise and Fall of the World Economic Forum

The anonymous letter of accusation against the founder was aggressive: the allegations ranged from embezzlement, inappropriate behaviour towards staff and the manipulation of reports to direct attacks on his wife. What followed was a media mudslinging match that shook the organisation to its very foundations and kept the global business press on tenterhooks for months. How substantiated were the allegations? How could an organisation that preached openness, respect and solidarity become the scene of an unprecedented mudslinging campaign? And what does the spectacular downfall of this symbol of the global elites mean for the future of an increasingly fragmented, nationalised world? 'The WEF Conspiracy' reveals, for the first time in detail, the background to the scandal, names the masterminds behind the machinations and traces the rise and fall of this stronghold of globalisation. The book draws exclusively on a wealth of previously unknown internal documents.



Dirk Schütz, editor-in-chief of Swiss business magazine Bilanz, has attended every WEF in Davos since 2003. He was so captivated by the drama surrounding this organisation dedicated to improving the world that he wrote numerous articles, which formed the basis for this book. Schütz studied economics and journalism in Fribourg and Geneva and graduated from the Hamburg School of Journalism. He is the author of several non-fiction books, most recently «Too Close to the Wind – Why Credit Suisse had to go down».