World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab told his staff and the company's board of trustees this week that he will step down as the organization's chairman after creating and leading it for five decades.
Days after his previous title-drop, the Wall Street Journal published a damning report claiming — on the basis of internal complaints, email exchanges, and interviews with current and past WEF employees — that "under Schwab's decades-long oversight, the forum has allowed to fester an atmosphere hostile to women and black people in its own workplace." The report noted that at least six female employees were allegedly "pushed out or otherwise saw their careers suffer" when pregnant or coming back from maternity leave. Other women claimed that senior managers had sexually harassed them.
