The unusually large and high-powered crowd gathering in Davos from Monday can be traced back to the persistence — and extensive Rolodex — of a single figure: BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink.
Fink, who runs one of the most important financial institutions on Wall Street, drew on relationships built over decades to attract heads of state, tech honchos and business executives to an annual gathering that was in danger of sliding into irrelevance.
As interim co-chair of the World Economic Forum, Fink’s calls to the White House, which helped secure US President Donald Trump’s attendance, were critical to revitalising the WEF after a governance scandal threatened the institution last year.
“I reached out to many people, heads of state and CEOs on the idea that we’re trying to rebuild the confidence that policymakers have, that business leaders have, that NGOs have,” Fink told the FT in an interview.
This year, nearly 850 top business leaders will attend, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, a first-time attendee, new Meta president Dina Powell McCormick and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, who will be on stage for the first time in years.
Fink said he saw the conference in Davos as a critical forum for world leaders to huddle with business, “focusing on how we can build economic prosperity, economic progress that is shared more broadly in the world”.
“Prosperity is being narrowed,” he added. “I think this is one of the reasons why we have more polarisation.”
He said he hoped to see concrete announcements made following the event, pointing to dozens of side meetings he knew were in the works already, including with senior government figures from Saudi Arabia, Germany and Abu Dhabi.
With nearly 65 heads of state, including most of the G7 countries, in Davos, a key topic of discussion will be efforts to rebuild Ukraine and the impact of AI. World leaders will also be hard pressed to ignore the US intervention in Venezuela and Trump’s promise to take “very strong action” in Iran.
The BlackRock chief, who oversees $14tn in investments for both small retirees and the biggest sovereign wealth funds, has long played a critical role as Wall Street statesman.
BlackRock and Fink have been go-to advisers for policymakers and central bankers during times of crisis. The Federal Reserve tapped the New York-headquartered group to manage its bond-buying programme in 2020 in the midst of a market sell-off during the early days of the pandemic, and the firm played a big role managing the liquidation of toxic mortgage assets tied to the bailout of insurer AIG in the 2008 crisis.
Fink has more recently played a significant part in helping a BlackRock unit navigate the politically fraught takeover of dozens of ports, including two on either side of the Panama Canal.
But his decision to step in as interim co-chair of the WEF last year gave the 73-year-old a new stage from which to influence global affairs. Fink told the FT that he took on the role because he believed the gathering could foster global growth and co-operation. Though Davos has been derided by critics as an elite echo chamber, Fink said that overlooked the importance of bringing leaders together.
“We are living in a more polarising world. There’s more people talking at each other, not to each other,” he said. “I’m not here to tell you [the WEF] is perfect. But I think we have to stop the destructiveness of these assertions of what it is and look at what it can be.”
His success in luring Trump for only his second visit as president helped elevate the gathering’s appeal for other leaders, but Fink insisted that it was “an unfair assertion” to say Davos would become “a Trump show. There is no question when the president is on stage, he’s going to command a lot of attention.
“It is my role to elevate everybody and have a serious conversation.”
The WEF itself is still finding its footing after a tumultuous chapter under the leadership of Klaus Schwab in which the organisation was rocked by allegations of financial misconduct and a toxic work environment. An investigation cleared Schwab of misconduct allegations. Fink and Roche vice-chair André Hoffmann have headed up the WEF’s governing board since August.
Fink, a WEF board member since 2019, said he took the role expecting to lead for two years or less and then hand over to a permanent chair. European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde has been seen as a possible contender for that position.
Fink said “it would be wonderful” to have Lagarde as a candidate when a search committee is ultimately convened.
“If the governing board believes that when her [ECB] term is up that she should be a candidate, I think that’s fantastic. She’s a highly qualified person,” he said, adding that Lagarde was a personal friend.
Fink’s enthusiasm has impressed WEF staffers who worried that he would be a mere figurehead. “He was able to use his influence especially with Silicon Valley, which had shunned WEF in recent years, to come,” said one WEF executive.
Fink combined drumming up interest in the summit with his usual global trips and corporate meetings in the months leading up to the forum.
“He actually seemed to have fun with it and relish the role to some people’s surprise. I think initially some of us were worried about him being too busy with BlackRock but it wasn’t the case,” said a Switzerland-based person familiar with the organising discussions.
Fink, who founded BlackRock in 1988, said he had a similar apprehension. But after discussing the time commitment with the BlackRock board, he came to believe others at the asset manager could step in to help lead the firm as he focused on rebuilding the WEF.
“I didn’t even know if I had the capacity to do it,” he said. “In consultation with my leadership and my board, they thought it would be something that my other leaders who are growing tremendously can fill in for the time that I needed to ensure that we re-establish the World Economic Forum as a place for conversation.”