Davos: An NGO leader's survival guide

SAN FRANCISCO — When Kate Roberts of Population Services International wrote a survival guide for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, she covered everything from what shoes to wear to where to have a nightcap. The senior vice president for corporate partnerships and philanthropy at the global health nonprofit also offered words of warning to individuals that come to Davos with a stack of business cards and a pile of annual reports in hand. “Don’t blatantly sell your company or cause on a panel — listen, learn and make your point clearly and concisely,” she advised. Over the years, Roberts, who was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007, has learned what strategies do and do not work at what she describes as one huge networking fest. Leaders from civil society organizations will join those from government and business next week, at this year’s WEF annual meetings. NGO leaders working on topics from health care to sustainable agriculture to water and sanitation will be a critical part of the conversation on how to create “a shared future in a fractured world.” Devex spoke with veterans of the annual meeting of global elites and asked for their advice for how leaders in global health, international development, and humanitarian response can maximize their time at Davos. Come with a message in mind Erica Kochi will be traveling from San Francisco for the meetings next week. While she learned last year that it is better to keep her schedule more open to allow for serendipity, she is in high demand on her return trip to Davos. Kochi, co-founder of UNICEF’s Innovation Unit and co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Human Rights, will participate in several sessions in the Congress Center, the main hub of activity at Davos, including one on artificial intelligence and another on drones. Still, she said her main advice — and a lesson she plans to follow herself — is to go with a message in mind. “Go with a plan, and it shouldn’t be a complicated plan,” she told Devex. “Go with a main message and have a plan for where and how you are going to deliver it.” Kochi said she is heading to Davos with two main messages. In her capacity as co-chair of the Global Future Council, she will put forward recommendations on how to prevent discrimination and bias in machine learning. And as an innovation leader at UNICEF, her goal is to have meaningful conversations around how companies can do good through their core business, beyond corporate social responsibility. Don’t be transactional Mark Viso, chief executive officer of the international development organization Pact, is heading to Davos for the fifth time. He told Devex he approaches the annual meeting very differently than the Clinton Global Initiative, the meeting where until 2016, leaders gathered to make commitments on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Whereas CGI was all about making transactions, leaders at Davos who march around handing out annual reports and marketing materials are bound to get funny looks, he said. “When I’m in Davos, I spend zero time trying to connect partnerships,” he said. “What we do spend time trying to do is decipher and then digest the DNA of a partner.” “It’s networking on steroids. You need to be strategic about how you go about allocating your time and seek out people who can help you advance your mission.” --— Kate Roberts, senior vice president for corporate partnerships and philanthropy, PSI While meetings set up in advance via TopLink, the online messaging system available to attendees of World Economic Forum meetings, may be more transactional in nature, that is not the mindset that most people go into Davos with, he said. “Once you’re in the Congress Center, everybody assumes you’re somebody,” he said. “They’re receptive because they know you’re not going to pitch them on something.” “It’s networking on steroids,” Roberts of PSI said. “You need to be strategic about how you go about allocating your time and seek out people who can help you advance your mission.” But she added that her number one piece of advice is not to oversell your own cause. “You go, you listen, you bring your passion, but you really understand other people’s objectives first before your start screaming from the rooftops,” she said. Roberts would know how to make the most out of Davos. Maverick Collective, the philanthropic and advocacy initiative she founded together with the Crown Princess of Norway, Mette Marit, grew out of the annual meeting and connections she made as a Young Global Leader. PSI is now working with other NGOs to replicate this model. At Davos this year, Roberts will be meeting with a range of ultra high net worth individuals to understand their goals and see whether they might translate to solutions for girls and women in developing countries. Go beyond CSR — but remember your audience A major focus of the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit, organized during Global Goals Week in New York City, was how business can be a force for good for what is often referred to as the 3 Ps: People, planet, profit. Devex moderated a session called “Answering the Call for Business Leadership” where Mars, the global candy manufacturer, proposed a new way of going beyond corporate social responsibility, which it describes as “the economics of mutuality.” At Davos, sessions including “Towards Better Capitalism,” “Investing for Impact,” and “Standing Up For Social Progress,” will build on this conversation of how businesses can engage meaningfully in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, said his trips from Geneva to Davos over the years have helped him reframe the way the conservation organization engages with business. His main message this year will be that we can no longer take nature for granted; that we need to move from a hunter-gatherer approach to natural resources toward stewardship, or else we risk losing something that is fundamental to the survival of both people and planet. Davos is an amplifier of contacts and relationships, he explained, but over the years WWF engagement with business has moved from sponsorships to partnerships. “It's not the Global Philanthropy Forum ... You're engaging with industry. So really think about how your issue could be advanced if you engage industry leaders. It took us years to figure that out.” --— Jeanne Bourgault, president and CEO, Internews WWF is not looking for companies that will give them “X amount of money to protect pandas or tigers,” but rather for companies that will make changes to the way they do business in order to protect the environment, he said. “As this ecological crisis deepens we need a stronger reaction from business, and often sponsorship opportunities could be greenwashing opportunities, and that is not an option for us,” he said. One of the challenges Labertini faces is that for many of the leaders who travel to Davos each year, the bottom line is the bottom line. He uses the TopLink messaging system to identify people in advance who he believes could be meaningful partners. “It’s not the Global Philanthropy Forum,” said Jeanne Bourgault, president and CEO of Internews, an international nonprofit focused on local media, explaining that while that conference is a gathering of leaders committed to advancing international causes, Davos is different. “You’re engaging with industry. So really think about how your issue could be advanced if you engage industry leaders. It took us years to figure that out, even though we work in an industry, but once you get there it’s extraordinary,” she said. Bourgault said NGO leaders heading to Davos should consider not just how to make contacts, but how to solve problems differently and ways industry can help them do that, mentioning the Global Media Solutions Coalition as one example of an initiative that grew out of this line of thinking. Branch out and dive in Maximizing the Davos experience requires practice, Bourgault said. In her first couple of trips to the meetings, she focused mainly on pitching Internews. But she said NGOs need to break out of that line of thinking and realize they have an equal voice in the conversation. “Think about the ecosystem in which your work is happening and address it that way,” she said. The World Economic Forum often asks civil society leaders to bring their perspectives to sessions, as Bourgault is doing in a session this year called “The News Industry: Eye or Origin of the Storm?” The more she dives in and participates, the more she is able to raise the profile of Internews, and find partners organically, she said. Pact is organizing a side event on how business, government, and NGOs can ensure equitable progress for all in the Fourth Industrial Revolution — the framework that World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab uses to describe the technological revolution reshaping every aspect of society. Viso said he was initially skeptical of the impact the WEF meetings would have, but he said he has learned over the years that the real power of Davos is the idea that people “are willing to be self reflective in community.” In addition to speaking to the topics he knows well, Viso plans to attend sessions on topics of interest that may not seem to have anything to do with the Pact mission at first glance. “You can have epiphanies that, sticking to your own track, you’ll never find,” he said.