Also: Strikes in Germany, Goldman board shakeup, Adidas CEO's texts.
Good morning.
I’m in Davos, Switzerland, this morning, where the World Economic Forum is getting underway. The 2,800 participants (with thousands more hangers-on) include CEOs from the world’s largest companies, as well as government leaders such as President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Premier Li Qiang of China, President Emmanuel Macron of France, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken from the U.S. Four big topics define the agenda—the economy, the climate transition, the AI revolution, and geopolitics. But it’s that last one that is likely to dominate, given rising tensions in the Red Sea and the escalating war of words over Taiwan.
“Rebuilding Trust” is the official theme for the week. In keeping with that theme, PR guru Richard Edelman this morning will release his annual Edelman Trust Barometer, based on an online survey of 32,000 people around the world. CEO Daily got an early look and found it shows once again that business is more trusted than governments, NGOs or media. Survey respondents in every country except Saudi Arabia and Singapore said that business was both more competent and more ethical than government and media. I’d argue that’s evidence that the increased business focus on people and planet over the past dozen years—while perhaps not popular with Republican politicians—has had a positive impact on public opinion. Trust in business in the 21 countries monitored has risen from 48% in 2012 to 61% today.
The Edelman data also shows that trust is generally in short supply in most developed countries, relative to developing countries. China, India, UAE, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Thailand top the trust list, with overall scores of 70% or higher. At the bottom of the list are the U.K., Japan, Argentina, South Korea, Germany, and the U.S., whose scores were 46% and lower. That gap is a challenge for those who believe trust is necessary to deal with the tough policy issues raised by AI and climate change, among others.
Separately, I had the chance yesterday afternoon to walk the Davos Promenade, which in normal times is lined with boutiques, but this week each year is massively rebuilt to house dedicated event spaces for a who’s who of business service companies—IBM, PwC, Salesforce, SAP, Cisco, Qualcomm, Accenture, Deloitte, C3.ai, Cognizant, Wipro, Workday and many others. This year, the largest storefront is devoted to Neom, the showcase city being built from scratch in Saudi Arabia that promises “an opportunity of unprecedented scope for sustainable living, technological innovation, and human progress.” As always, the Davos street-scape shows where the money is.
I’ll be reporting from Davos for the rest of the week. There’s always more talk than action here, but it provides a unique opportunity to take the pulse of the global business elite. Fortune will assemble 80 CEOs for a working dinner on Thursday to discuss opportunities and challenges in the year ahead. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy will kick off that conversation, and I’ll report back on Friday.
Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
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Strikes in Germany
Farmer protests and a train drivers’ strike are putting pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government ahead of elections in June. Farmers are angry about losing government subsidies, cut after a German court ruled that Scholz couldn’t use leftover COVID money to fund his budget. The German economy shrank by 0.1% in the third quarter of 2023. Fortune
Goldman shakeup
Goldman Sachs is losing its lead independent board director. Adebayo Ogunlesi, founder of Global Infrastructure Partners, is leaving the role after BlackRock bought his company for $12.5 billion. Ogunlesi has defended the investment bank and served as an ally of its at-times controversial CEO David Solomon. Fortune
Transparency at Adidas
Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden, during his first town hall over a year ago, gave his phone number to all 60,000 of the apparel company’s employees in a bid to improve transparency. Gulden says that led to as many as 200 messages a week from employees urging reform at the company as it reeled from its collapsed collaboration with rapper Kanye West. “There was a culture of finding reasons not to do things” at Adidas, Gulden says. The Wall Street Journal
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CFOs: Tech and M&A Signal Hope Deloitte’s 4Q 2024 CFO Signals™ survey reveals 51% of CFOs expecting M&A to spur 1%-10% of their company’s growth in the next 3 years, and 21% of CFOs anticipate more than 11% of growth from M&A. Despite economic and geopolitical factors, plans for Tech and M&A investments signal hope. Read more.
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