The World Economic Forum strives to model world-class corporate governance, where values are as important as rules.

Under the leadership of its chief financial officer (CFO) during the fiscal year 2025–2026, the Forum continued to strengthen governance and processes across all its finance functions, including procurement.

The Forum continued to enhance end‑to‑end accounting processes with robust data validation routines, expanded analytics capabilities and improved efficiency. End-to-end direct funding, accounting, governance and processes have also been enhanced. Structured planning and forecasting processes were improved, and additional workflows and automation tools were implemented to improve budget monitoring and analysis. Process and control improvements have been documented to ensure comprehensive compliance and operational clarity.

The Forum continued to strengthen its treasury and investment risk management framework in a persistently challenging macroeconomic environment, updating policy limits to safeguard assets and support portfolio resilience. It continued to implement measures to mitigate foreign exchange risk and support effective treasury management. The Forum also improved the sustainability profile of its gold holdings by moving from industrial traceable gold to Swiss Better Gold, reflecting a strong commitment to positive impact across the gold value chain.

The 2025–2026 fiscal year was marked by continued efforts to build strong financial foundations, resulting in greater efficiency and operational excellence. These efforts are a continuation of a multi‑year transformation, and the Forum will continue to enhance processes, technology and governance.

Over the past year, the Forum has continued to strengthen its people and culture priorities, building on its focus on performance, reward and development. These efforts reflect a commitment to aligning the organization’s values and methods, ensuring that both individual contribution and collective impact are recognized and supported.

A key milestone of the reporting period was the introduction of the objectives and key results (OKRs) framework across the organization. Designed to support the delivery of the Forum’s institutional strategy, OKRs provide a clear line of sight between individual work and organizational priorities. They also reinforce a culture of accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement, while embedding the Forum’s values of excellence and respect into day-to-day performance and development conversations.

Increased investment in training and development, supported by clearer processes and systems, also strengthened internal mobility. During the reporting period, 41.2% of open requisitions were filled internally, while women’s representation in leadership increased by 3.4 percentage points from the 2024–2025 fiscal year, reaching 48.6%.

Leadership development remained a priority through the third wave of leadership assessments, extending to additional senior leaders and people managers across offices. Through a combination of personality insights and 360° feedback exercises, leaders were supported in deepening self-awareness, strengthening effectiveness and identifying areas for growth in line with the Forum’s leadership model.

The Forum also advanced its approach to reward and benefits. Drawing on a global benchmarking exercise conducted with an independent partner, alongside insights from a high-engagement employee survey, benefits were enhanced and tailored across offices to better reflect local needs and expectations. This data-driven approach underscores the Forum’s commitment to providing competitive and meaningful support to employees globally.

The Forum’s values – independence, impartiality, integrity, respect and excellence – were updated. The organization engaged employees globally in a series of workshops to define what these values mean in practice. This process emphasized the behaviours that underpin a strong, inclusive and high-performing culture.

In support of the 2026 Annual Meeting, the Forum delivered targeted training focused on empathy, composure and service excellence, equipping employees with skills to navigate high-pressure situations while reinforcing a partner-centric mindset. At the same time, improvements to participation criteria and the staff selection process introduced greater transparency and fairness, ensuring broader access to participation opportunities.

Finally, the Forum continued to invest in tools and platforms that enhance the employee experience. Externally, updated career pages now reflect the Forum’s refreshed values and employer proposition, while Forum Circle, the Forum’s alumni network, continued to grow, strengthening connections beyond the organization.

The Forum continued its efforts to reduce emissions from its operations and events. Scope 3 emissions continued to account for the majority of its total carbon footprint. To address this, the Forum further encouraged travel to events by train where possible and also advanced circular economy practices through partnerships such as the GreenShare initiative with GreenUp and by embedding sustainability considerations into the design and delivery of its events and office operations. This includes reducing waste, extending the life cycle of materials and prioritizing responsible sourcing.

The geothermal heating plant in Davos, which the Forum helped fund, was fully operational for the first time in 2026. In addition, a comprehensive review of the current sustainability strategy was initiated to identify new opportunities for enhancing environmental performance.

Externally, the Forum continued to mobilize its platform and convening power to support high-impact initiatives in nature conservation, climate resilience and economic transformation.

Value creation is key to the Forum’s mission. Through its initiatives, the work of its centres and its communities, the Forum continues to drive positive change in society and economies. Bringing together stakeholders with diverse outlooks and experiences and creating spaces for them to collaborate remains central to the Forum’s work.

It also values making this process as transparent and inclusive as possible. The Forum’s Global Communications Group (GCG) engages audiences and enhances understanding of both global challenges and the Forum’s work to address them.

During the reporting period, public access to Forum events and their sessions reached an all-time high. Livestreamed sessions from the 2026 Annual Meeting gathered 32 million views, spotlighting insights and research.

The Forum engages its partners – the world’s leading companies and business leaders – through gatherings, communities and initiatives to encourage dialogue, navigate complex issues and find long-term solutions to shared challenges. During the reporting period, the Forum’s partner community grew by 5%, reaching a record 973 partners worldwide.

Priorities for the reporting period included greater focus on value delivery to partners at gatherings and in the work of its centres. The Forum sought to be at the cutting edge of industry transformation through its global industry communities, with particular attention to the impact of macroeconomic shifts and the deployment of Intelligent Age technologies. It also aimed to deepen engagement in key regions and countries in line with geopolitical change, to ensure continued partner retention and high-quality, targeted growth.

The Forum has long sought to pioneer the use of technology in advancing its mission. In keeping with this ethos, it launched a large-scale AI transformation programme during the reporting period, with the dual ambition of championing responsible, high-impact AI adoption and helping the Forum evolve into an agentic organization, where work is accomplished through collaboration between people and AI agents.

The programme advanced on two complementary fronts. First, it unlocked bottom-up innovation across the organization through training, hackathons and an AI Champions community that seeded peer-learning networks among staff.

In parallel, the Forum built targeted agentic workflows in high-impact areas: capturing meeting notes, synthesizing research and conducting blind-spot analysis to strengthen thought leadership; personalizing partner engagement; and supporting session planning and programming. At the 2026 Annual Meeting, these capabilities reached participants directly through the Forum Support Agent, which delivered instant answers to operational questions, and the Event Virtual Assistant, which enriched the in-person experience.