Davos: Old Boys' Club Makes Firms Send Women

Women are usually in short supply at the World Economic Forum, the business world’s annual getaway in Davos, Switzerland. And this year, organizers are doing something about it. They’ve demanded that at least one out of every five senior executives companies send to the event be a woman, the Guardian reports. The quota applies only to the forum’s “strategic partners,” a group of roughly 100 giant companies including Goldman Sachs, Barclay’s, and Deutsche Bank.

Executives from the strategic partners are expected to make up 500 of the roughly 2,500 participants at the conference. “The World Economic Forum annual meeting engages the highest levels of leadership,” says the head of the WEF’s gender parity program, “and participation figures are a reflection of the scarcity of women in this external pool.” (More World Economic Forum stories.)