Who Is Your Gen-Next 'Davos Man' This Year ?

Posted: 1/23/2013

The Davos summit is almost a déjà vu moment for most businesses.

Every year top 500 journalists and over 2500 business and political leaders gather in the quaint Alpine city of Davos for their "King Arthur" meet up.

What should businesses watch out for this year? Being a high-end gathering of the elite leaders, should individual business owners be concerned about the policy trappings? Who are the new table-turning young guns, bursting off the seams to make an impact?

That's enough intellectual pasta to simmer your thought process for starts! This Summit may not directly influence your business practices, but it does have a snowball effect surely.

Known for its cantilever-like power brokering abilities that shape global economic policies, the annual Davos Summit is getting as frosty a look as its Alpine location this year.

The godfather of the WEF (World Economic Forum), Klaus Schwab who founded this in 1971, made an powerful statement in Geneva last week in this regard. "There's a fatigue now in globalism, even a backlash" and the CEO's need to "approach global affairs with more optimism".

The global picture isn't very rosy at the moment. Although the meat of the European debt crisis has been taken care off, but the stalemate seems to be unending. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will surely drive her policy measures as other heavyweights- Marios Draghi (President of European Central Bank), Monti (Italian PM) and David Cameroon speak of European domestic issues.

However the main players will again be, the 14-member American delegation. Freshly out of the "fiscal cliff" debate, they will look to soothe the concerns of global leaders even though the scenario back home in terms of jobs and growth rates, still looks stark.

So where is the ray of hope and optimism that's got Schwab concerned?

Here are some business entrepreneurs who have garnered special attention even before the meet has begun.

1. Tom Hulme, CEO of IDEO

He may not be a Warren Buffett or Richard Branson but this Bristol Physics major once wrote in his blog Weiji "I believe that now is a great time to innovate. We're in a time of great flux economic, technological and cultural, which will shake up markets and be the making of many businesses. [Weiji] comprises the symbols for 'danger' and 'opportunity' . . . I present context as 'danger' and a company's creative approach as 'opportunity'."

He founded IDEO as an open innovation platform with 36,000 users in 160 nations. IDEO has made inroads into commercialization of innovative products and services with investments in sectors of technology to retail to fashion and financial services. Starting off his career with sports-car manufacturers Marcos, he holds the patent rights for magnetic filtration system used in Formula One majorly. Tom leads the line up of Young Global Leader of WEF as well as is listed among UK's top 100 "digital power brokers" consecutively in 2011 and 2012.

2. Ken Howery, Co-founder of Founders Fund

The Standford graduate is perhaps more well known as one of the founders of revolutionary online money transfer service provider Paypal and director of corporate development for eBay. With a short stint at these works, Ken moved to work full time on start-ups and started Founders Fund in 2005. His company currently has stakes in top firms like Facebook, Quantcast, Geni and ZocDoc.

3. Ashish Thakkar, CEO of Mara Group

He's truly the face of global entrepreneurship. Born in Britian after fleeing the Rwandan genocide, Ashish calls himself "a native son of Africa with strong Indian roots, of British nationality and a resident of the UAE".

Starting off as a computer dealer aged 15 in Uganda, he currently heads the Mara Group with branches in 26 countries. They have active investments in the sectors like IT, real estate, media as well as developmental projects in Africa and the Commonwealth nations. Innovation is his credo, as he is looking to become the 2nd African astronaut to go on a space mission.

4. Kristin Groos Richmond, co-Founder Revolution Foods

Now that's your woman of substance. The Americans owe her for the way the kids are fed. Her enterprise spans over 9 US states with 800 community members. With a background in corporate finance, she has pioneered education reforms as the Vice-President of RISE organisation. Rated as Education Activist (2011) by Time's Magazine and Entrepreneur of thr Year in 2012, she sure is an inspiration for all the women entrepreneurs globally.

5. Jasandra Nyker, CEO BioTherm Energy

This pioneering South African was a Merrill Lynch scholar at London Business School and a short term investment banker at Lehman Brothers. Her corporation leads the "energy and independent project development platform" in sub-Saharan Africa focussing on green infrastructure projects to generate renewable solar, wind and water energy.

Now that's a real power-pack of global young guns. While the Davos Summit may not impact the small business owners really but it lays the cards open so far as the industry trends are concerned and which direction innovation is headed. Now that's a sure addition to your learning curve, young entrepreneurs!

Watch this interesting video below by Bloomberg for more insights:

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