Under Klaus Schwab’s decades-long oversight, the World Economic Forum "has allowed to fester an atmosphere" of sexual harassment and discrimination against women and Black people, the World Street Journal has cited numerous sources, including current and former forum employees, as saying.
An array of female staffers described sexual harassment they experienced at the hands of senior managers, some of whom remain at the forum, "a tone that was set at the very top of the organization," according to the WSJ.
"Since the Forum’s earliest years, staffers say women received warnings about Schwab: If you find yourself alone with him, he may make uncomfortable comments about your appearance. They describe his behavior as more awkward than menacing, but inappropriate for a leader," the newspaper pointed out.
Former forum staffer Farid Ben Amor, for his part, told the WSJ, "It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after."
"It’s particularly distressing when contrasted with the eagerness and earnestness with which many of us joined the forum," Ben Amor added.
In separate incidents, white managers reportedly used the N-word around Black employees, who also raised formal complaints to its leaders about being passed over for promotions or left out of Davos.
Forum spokesman Yann Zopf has, meanwhile, rejected all the accusations, insisting that the WSJ article purportedly mischaracterizes "our organization, culture and colleagues, including our founder," who "does not and has never engaged in the vulgar behaviors" the newspaper described.