Last week I attended the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. It was a unique experience that enabled me to catch up with old friends, make new professional acquaintances, and continue to connect and collaborate with people I've been working with to change the world. Specifically my avenue to change the world is through finance, and it was inspiring to see how many major players shared my vision to challenge the status quo.
On day one of the Annual Meeting, I was invited to speak and participate on a panel with the exciting theme -- Exploring Our Limits -- a brilliant metaphor for me to articulate the epiphany I had in 2008 following my life changing extreme sports injury to devote my professional capacity to changing finance. Whilst I'm accustomed to speaking on the world stage, never before has a Crown Prince from a European monarchy approached me before a speech to tell me how excited he is to meet me after previously watching my TED talk.
Needless to say being in Davos was phenomenal experience for so many reasons, least of which because I had travelled 30 hours from my home in Sydney, Australia, to be there. In addition, I was one of the youngest delegates amongst the cadre of celebrity and CEO's, and one of the few people bold enough to actively question the elephant in the room and challenge the accepted wisdom as to the values that permeate in finance.
On the subject of values in finance, I'm currently writing my book called The Noble Cause: How Finance Can Change the World. My thesis is that if we can change the culture in finance, we can change the world. As I explained in my interview with Ahmed Shihab-Eldin for HuffPost Live, values define the culture, which leads to behavior, expressed in action. In other words, we will change the culture in finance and by definition change the world, by getting the values question right. Being described as the "Anti-Wolf of Wall Street" is certainly a conversation starter at Davos!
As a result I was left inspired by my bilateral discussions with people who "get it" like Cardinal Turkson, Dominic Barton, Andrew Liveris, Arianna Huffington, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Ajay Banga, Nouriel Roubini, Jimmy Wales and Sir Martin Sorrell.
At the end of my address to the Annual Meeting, I summarized Davos in 3 P's.
1.Privilege: being amongst the world's elites is an incredible honor and responsibility for which I take very seriously. It is imperative to remember the many people who weren't in Davos that should have been.
2.Platform: it is therefore incumbent upon us to represent the views of those not in attendance and empower their ideas on the world stage. More importantly we need to leverage our resources to embolden the unsung heroes doing remarkable things in our home communities.
3.Perseverance: re-shaping the world is a marathon, not a sprint. We can't allow this meeting to be just another talk fest, rather it ought to be the catalyst to plant new seeds and germinate others.
As we all return to the four corners of the globe my humble hope is that we reflect on the Privilege, Platform and Perseverance, that being in Davos enabled, and we continue to work towards re-shaping the world.