Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, is stepping down from his position.

The transition will be finalized before the next edition of the forum, which will be held in the exclusive ski resort of Davos in the Swiss Alps in January 2025. No successor has been named yet.

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum who became the face of the annual gathering of elites in Davos, Switzerland, will step down from his role as executive chairman in the coming months.

The World Economic Forum announced in a statement on Tuesday night that the 86-year-old Schwab will leave his “executive leadership” position to take on a role as chairman of the board.

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum who became the face of the annual gathering of elites in Davos, Switzerland, will step down from his executive leadership role in the coming months.

The World Economic Forum announced in a statement on Tuesday night that the 86-year-old Schwab will leave his “executive leadership” position to take on the role of chairman of the board.

The transition will be finalized before the next edition of the forum, which will be held at the exclusive ski resort of Davos in the Swiss Alps in January 2025. No successor has been named yet.

The announcement of Schwab’s departure after more than 40 years at the helm of the Forum marks the culmination of a transformation initiated in 2015, moving from an “organization managed by its founders to one in which a president and a board assume executive responsibility,” the entity stated.

Schwab, born in Ravensburg, Germany, in 1938, was a business professor at the University of Geneva and relatively unknown internationally when he founded the precursor to the current Forum, an entity with a European focus.

He later expanded the event, which evolved into a gathering of major business leaders, influential figures, and politicians who engage in roundtable discussions and hallway conversations at the Forum.

However, critics argue that these meetings provide a free space for corporate lobbying.