The Davos Agenda: What we shared and heard

Davos

January 31, 2021The World Economic Forum’s January meeting traded the Swiss Alps for a virtual setting this year, as some 1500 global leaders joined hundreds of online panel discussions for the Davos Agenda.

Six McKinsey colleagues were among them: our global managing partner Kevin Sneader, senior partner Cornelius Baur, North America managing partner Liz Hilton Segel, senior partner Dame Vivian Hunt, McKinsey Accelerate global leader Daniel Pacthod, and Asia offices chairman Oliver Tonby. Against the backdrop of the global pandemic, each joined dozens of sessions on urgent matters like climate change, diversity and inclusion, the future of work and manufacturing, and much more.

Throughout the week, we also announced new WEF partnerships. We committed to be one of 61 leading organizations that will share metrics focused on “people, planet, prosperity, and governance” as part of the Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics initiative. And McKinsey became a founding member of the forum’s Partnering for Racial Justice in Business initiative, a new global coalition dedicated to fighting racism in the workplace.

“McKinsey is proud to be a founding member of this new coalition,” Kevin said of the anti-racism initiative, “that is working to tackle issues of racial injustice in the workplace and identify solutions that work across the globe.”

To hear more from Kevin and the rest of our delegation on a Davos like no other, read on.

Kevin Sneader

Beyond the pandemic itself, one topic dominated the agenda this year, and it’s the same one that held sway a year ago: climate change and the transition to a net zero economy. Of course, January 2020’s momentum around business action to foster a green economy was slowed by the advent of the pandemic. But listening and participating in the many virtual sessions taking place this week leads to a view that there is renewed commitment to ensure a green recovery—even if it may have shades of brown, as the resumption of some activity leads to an emissions rise.

This was evident in various sessions. Heads of government lined up to encourage and commit to action. Presidents Macron and Xi along with Chancellor Merkel used their remarks to urge multilateral action. Asset owners such as Larry Fink made sweeping commitments to push for institutions to take action and put their own houses in order. And CEOs responded with much discussion of the paths they would take to ensure they helped achieve the Paris climate accords or better.

Of course, many other topics occupied the minds of those who joined the week’s hundreds of panels. I participated in a conversation around gender parity, while sustainable consumption was another topic that seemed to fill many hours of the agenda. It was a very different Davos. The face-to-face time gave way to a highly efficient but somewhat cooler set of online discussions. For me, virtual Davos was no substitute for the real thing.

Cornelius Baur

Appropriately, the global pandemic figured prominently in several discussions, and it became clear that all nations are united in this crisis of a century. There were repeated calls for joint efforts and specifically for multilateralism, which emerged as one of the event’s most popular terms this year.

Digital is the essential prerequisite for growth. The South African President spoke about the continent’s hunger for digital, and in India, more than six million people were trained on digital during the pandemic. Meanwhile, accelerating the introduction of industry 4.0 technology raised concerns about a potential uptick in unemployment, which could generate massive public frustration in certain markets. This made the importance of reskilling abundantly clear: at-risk workers must be quickly upskilled and given new hope in these situations.

Looking ahead, the consensus seemed to be that 2021 will be a year of two very different phases in Europe and the US: the first, lasting until about midyear, could see slightly negative growth, as further public funding and subsidies continue to roll out in an effort to aid recovery efforts. The second phase, however, should see strong growth, leading to small annualized gains in Europe and slightly larger ones in the US.

Liz Hilton Segel

As global leaders shared their perspectives on rebuilding in 2021, what I heard louder and with more urgency than ever was the case for investing in people. From a workforce perspective, this means that supporting the wellbeing of employees and investing in the reskilling of workforces is no longer an advantage but rather a requirement to ensure the long-term resilience and growth of global businesses and economies.

In a CEO discussion convened by Fortune, we heard from business leaders on the most important changes they are making to emerge stronger from the challenges of the past year. Responses ranged from reskilling and retraining employees to meeting the shifting needs of consumers to fostering a more flexible, empathetic, and connected workforce in our hybrid work world. Elsewhere, conversations covered the new social contract of business and the importance of collaboration at a local level to make a difference.

I shared more thoughts on the actions businesses can take to support their employees’ wellbeing on the Davos Agenda blog. As these conversations continue, people must remain the priority. This is how we invest in the future.

Vivian Hunt

My conversations made clear this week that we are still facing a global crisis on several fronts; we may be over the worst in some cases, but we continue to face huge choices with regards to our shared and interconnected recovery. When it comes to the health of people globally, the steps we take towards a global and equitable vaccine rollout are critical and will have a huge impact.

Meanwhile, on the economic front, there has been a huge focus on rebuilding through a stakeholder capitalism lens. The ESG agenda was integrated into all aspects of the Davos Agenda in a way that is unprecedented (at least in my experience). The crisis has created and accelerated inequality in the workplace and beyond, and business leaders have a responsibility to make better choices on inclusive growth, green growth, and strong interconnections globally.

If real progress is to be made on those fronts, metrics will have to matter: And there was a feeling of real responsibility among the delegates this year around the notion of measuring and monitoring our progress. It reminded me of one of my takeaways from last year; when it’s at its best, Davos is a ‘do shop,’ where people set plans in motion, not just a ‘talk shop’.

Daniel Pacthod

There were several themes that cut across the sessions I joined this week. Many delegates talked about the importance of driving responsible industry transformation as business leaders continue to embrace stakeholder capitalism. There was also a clear desire to accelerate the sustainability transition and become better stewards of our planet. This was most evident in everyone’s anticipation of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this November.

Leaders also talked about rethinking economic and social systems to help those who need it most, especially in the form of job creation, and accelerating the tech transformation for the good of society. What happened in the last 12 months in vaccines is remarkable; and while the bio-revolution is the next unlock, the focus has to remain on “tech for the good of society.”

Finally, there were discussions on the need for a new multi-lateral system that is fair and takes into account the geopolitical, economic, and human necessities of the 21st century. A key facet of that society would put public trust on the front burner; across all the sessions, public- and private-sector leaders realize the need to re-establish trust and engage the younger generations.

Oliver Tonby

The mood this week was realistic—everyone had a clear-eyed view of the challenges ahead—but I also heard reasons for hope and optimism. One thing we have seen is the role technology can and does play, not only in combating the pandemic but also in creating further opportunities for growth.

In the COVID-19 era, three attributes matter when it comes to business growth. The first is speed. The pace of tech innovation among companies, workers, consumers, and citizens has accelerated. The second is collaboration, which we see in the case of organizations working together to solve big problems. And the third is resilience. The pandemic has created a situation where going forward, it may now be unthinkable to make a big move without first asking an important question: how pandemic-proof is this?

Finally, as many of my fellow Davos Agenda attendees have noted, climate change was one of the most talked-about topics over the course of the week. Where government policies around sustainability stall, stakeholders may increasingly turn to business—one of the most trusted institutions in society at the moment—and demand action.