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Christine Lagarde’s expected move to run the World Economic Forum is no longer a “foregone conclusion”, according to people familiar with succession planning at Davos.
Lagarde, who is expected to step down early as European Central Bank president ahead of French elections, was widely tipped to take over as the next permanent chair of the WEF, whose founder Klaus Schwab abruptly resigned last year. She is currently a member of its governing board.
But Lagarde has increasingly been seen within the Swiss organisation’s board as a “Klaus’s candidate” — a perceived link that may now work against her, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
The succession debate is connected to a broader struggle over the Davos forum’s future direction, including the extent to which it tilts towards the US.
Larry Fink, the BlackRock chief who became interim co-chair alongside Roche vice-chair André Hoffmann last August, emerged from January’s annual meeting — the first without Schwab — with enhanced influence, several people said.
Both Hoffmann and Fink will imminently drop the “interim” from their titles, one of the people added.
This year’s Davos gathering was viewed internally as a success, with US President Donald Trump’s attendance underscoring the WEF’s continued convening power.
But Lagarde attracted attention when she left a speech by US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick before it concluded. Her departure was interpreted by some attendees as awkward given the high-profile American contingent.
Revelations about ties between the WEF president Børge Brende and Jeffrey Epstein have also disrupted succession planning, three of the people said, prompting discussions about a wider reboot of leadership. The forum announced an investigation into Brende this month.
For decades the WEF was viewed as a stable, founder-led institution but in recent years it has been confronted with a succession of governance controversies that have unsettled its tight-knit structure.
The timing of any transition for the chair role has long been uncertain. While Lagarde is planning to step down from the ECB before the end of her eight-year term, which runs to October 2027, it is unclear exactly when that would be.
Lagarde, through an ECB spokesperson, declined to comment on the WEF. But a person familiar with her thinking said this week that she wants to leave the central bank before the French presidential election in April next year.
The ECB said she was “totally focused on her mission and has not taken any decision regarding the end of her term”. The WEF declined to comment.
The FT has previously reported that Lagarde met Schwab in Frankfurt in April last year and discussed cutting her ECB term short to facilitate a move to the WEF.
Days after the Frankfurt meeting, Schwab was forced to step down following a whistleblower letter to the governing board alleging serious misconduct.
An investigation concluded in August and found no material wrongdoing by the Davos founder.
But the episode triggered a wider reshuffle and fundamentally altered the succession calculus, people familiar with the situation said. In the wake of Schwab’s exit, some within and around the organisation have grown wary of appearing too closely tied to the previous leadership.
Given the desire to signal a clean break, elevating someone so closely associated with Schwab could prove difficult, one person said. “There is a desire to show the board is doing this properly with headhunters rather than elevate someone’s pick with no proper process,” they added.
“Christine should not be viewed as a foregone conclusion,” a second person said, although another described her as a “great candidate” who still had a strong chance.
Two senior WEF executives with knowledge of the leadership discussions said the American political and business contingent in Davos this year had conveyed that Lagarde was not the preferred US choice.
Fink’s increasingly visible engagement with US political figures this year — including at Davos — made some believe he would seek to influence the eventual selection as a means of shifting the outlook of the organisation.
He has also privately discussed moving the flagship summit from its Alpine location in Davos.
The investigation into Brende’s links with Epstein has added to unease within the organisation, three of the people said, reinforcing a view among some trustees that further upheaval should be avoided.
Documents published by the US Department of Justice this year revealed that the former Norwegian foreign minister had several business dinners with Epstein as well as a series of text exchanges.
“While the Brende investigation should take only a few weeks, there is a sense that appointing new chairs this year is not sensible,” one person familiar with the board’s thinking said.
Additional reporting by Eric Platt and Arash Massoudi