Thomas Friedman declared famously in 2005: The World is Flat! This metaphor perfectly describes our goal to re-imagine new webs of relationships that can actually effectuate change– not just talk about it ” “Davos Man” is a term that was coined by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington. It refers to the global elite of wealthy individuals, often international business leaders and policy makers, who attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. These are often influential people from a variety of sectors such as finance, politics, technology, academia, and media who are deeply connected to global affairs, policymaking, and economics.
The term is often used critically to describe a cosmopolitan, transnational culture and class that is disconnected from broader society and national interests, due to its global rather than local or national perspective. Davos Men (and Women) are seen by some as embodying a form of globalist capitalism that favors free trade, international institutions, and are often seen as removed from the day-to-day concerns of the general population in their respective countries. in the age of hyper-connectivity, globalization and a general redistribution of power and efficacy. As power has moved from centralized elite bureaucracies to distributed networks of new thinkers and new thinking it became clear to us that there might be a little too much thinking and not enough doing. Large groups of elite experts populating Think Tanks around the globe focus on academically-oriented thinking and policy-making, they rarely step into the lion’s den known as the market place to put their ideas and policies into action. This made us realize the basic model needed to be disrupted; the vanguard who regularly attend global summits of world leaders attending the World Economic Forum Samuel Huntington to define playfully a new anthropological species: “Davos Man.”