by Andre Hoffmann, Nolita Thina Mvunelo and Felix Rüdiger

This article was first published by the World Economic Forum, see here

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report in 2024 highlights that we live in times marked by multiple overlapping crises: extreme weather events, AI misinformation and societal polarization top the list of risks marking our present moment.

At the same time, the Report doubles down on the need to anticipate and act now on longer-term timescales by higlighting the most severe risks ten years from now. Here, environmental threats come to the fore, including critical changes to Earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, as well as natural resource shortages.

This makes it clear that a key challenge across businesses and policy institutions is to boost our ability to simultaneously face immediate crises, while pursuing a longer-term transition to a regenerative economy serving people and the planet. The current gap between the aspirations set out in the Sustainable Development Goals and their implementation shows how difficult it is to bring both perspectives together. Too often, focusing on immediate challenges and needs trumps our concern for meaningful, systemic change.

Current leadership structures exclude younger generations

Rebalancing the short- and long-term requires more than technical innovation. We also need a change in the beliefs, mental models and relationships informing organizations and institutions.

A key dimension of this shift is the generational perspectives and voices included in strategic direction-setting and decision-making. Younger generations hold huge stakes in the environmental crises threatening their future. Yet, they’re largely absent from the decision-making on policies and business strategies shaping our collective way forward.

The average hiring age of CEOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies has risen significantly over the past decade – from 51 to 55 years old – while the average age of board members stands at 63. According to a 2023 report of the International Parliamentary Union, only 2.8% of the world’s parliamentarians are aged 30 and 18.8% of the world’s MPs are aged 40 and under. On the world’s most youthful continent, Africa, the population’s median age is 19.7, while the median age of Africa’s political leaders is 62.

It’s not surprising that the 2024 Voices of the Leaders of Tomorrow Report – a global survey of emerging policy-makers, entrepreneurs and researchers under 35 conducted by the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions and the St. Gallen Symposium – finds that young leaders see a large gap between their willingness to take over responsibility and the older generations’ willingness to pass on responsibility.

The potential of intergenerational leadership: 3 pathways of change

The New Generational Contract, a joint initiative of the St. Gallen Symposium and the Club of Rome, supported by InTent, seeks to close this gap. We are convinced that enabling a greater involvement of younger generations in leadership is an ethical and a strategic imperative, helping to rebalance perspectives across different timescales and to shift towards regenerative strategies. Emerging evidence on three key pathways helps us understand why.

First, the current approach of selecting leaders primarily for their experience is sensible if the future environment is expected to be similar to that of the past. Yet, in our volatile times, experience can quickly become obsolete and comes with the risk of becoming prisoners of the assumptions and paradigms that have underpinned past successes. Meaningfully involving younger generations can help us escape this success trap and overcome aversion to changes in the status quo.

Research finds, for example, that more age-diverse leadership teams are best equipped to enable sustainable business model innovation. This is because they combine exploitative learning from past experience and explorative learning towards new, at times risky ideas – enabling hindsight and foresight.

Second, the youth-led climate movement of recent years is a prominent example of how, on a global level, younger generations have succeeded in raising commitment to change. The same can happen on the organizational and institutional level. A wealth of findings shows that greater age diversity on corporate boards is associated with greater awareness and results on corporate social responsibility and ESG. A recent study in Nature finds that younger parliamentarians are more likely to put meaningful environmental action and long-term perspectives on the agendas of national parliaments.

Our third argument centres on trust. Trust in the eyes of key stakeholders is fundamental for sustainable collective action. Unfortunately, as the Edelman Trust Barometer shows, public trust in effectively addressing climate change has decreased for businesses and public institutions, particularly among young people. Here again, greater intergenerational leadership will be essential for organizations and policy institutions to address the mounting crisis of institutional trust to be able to shift towards a regenerative economy.

Moving towards a regenerative future together

Intergenerational leadership is not yet a well-defined space for action. It requires bold experimentation. On the political level, several governments and multilateral institutions have created youth parliaments or advisory councils. Unfortunately, as a recent UN Policy Brief finds, such existing mechanisms “struggle to make an impact on decisions taken.”

In recent years, a growing number of businesses have experimented with shadow boards and reverse mentoring initiatives. Yet, such structures risk becoming empty shells, disconnected from the senior leadership team and board, while questions of businesses’ environmental responsibility and impact are rarely raised.

It’s time to move from a mere ‘consultation’ mode towards true co-leadership. The UN Summit of the Future, which will be held on 22-23 September in New York, could potentially be a key catalyst to this end. The Summit will pass the ‘Pact for the Future’ with an entire chapter devoted to ‘Youth and Future Generations’ and seeks to improve the meaningful involvement of young generations at the national and multilateral level. At a moment when systemic change is urgently needed, joining forces across generations can serve as a powerful lever to reimagine corporate strategies and public policies for a regenerative future.

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A key challenge across businesses and policy institutions is to boost our ability to simultaneously face immediate crises while pursuing a longer-term transition to a regenerative economy serving both people and the planet. The current gap between the aspirations set out in the Sustainable Development Goals and their implementation shows how difficult it is to bring both perspectives together. Too often, focusing on immediate challenges and needs trumps our concern for meaningful, systemic change. 

Rebalancing the short- and long-term requires more than technical innovation. Instead, we also need a change in the beliefs, mental models, and relationships informing organizations and institutions. A key dimension of this shift is the generational perspectives and voices included in strategic direction-setting and decision-making. Younger generations hold huge stakes in the environmental crises threatening their future. Yet, they’re largely absent from the decision-making on policies and business strategies shaping our collective way forward: For example, only 18% of global parliamentarians are under 40, while the average age of corporate board directors stands at around 63. 

The New Generational Contract, a joint initiative of the St. Gallen Symposium and the Club of Rome, supported by InTent, seeks to close this gap. We are convinced that enabling a greater involvement of younger generations in leadership is not just an ethical but a strategic imperative, helping to rebalance perspectives across different timescales and to shift towards regenerative strategies. Emerging evidence on three key pathways helps us understand why.

The Potential of Intergenerational Leadership: Three Pathways of Change

First, the current approach of selecting leaders primarily for their experience is sensible if the future environment is expected to be similar to that of the past. Yet, in our volatile times, experience can quickly become obsolete and comes with the risk of becoming prisoners of the assumptions and paradigms that have underpinned past successes. Meaningfully involving younger generations can help us escape this success trap and overcome aversion to changes in the status quo. For example, research finds that more age-diverse leadership teams are best equipped to enable sustainable business model innovation. This is because they combine exploitative learning from past experience and explorative learning towards new, at times risky ideas – enabling both hindsight and foresight. 

Second, the youth-led climate movement of recent years is a prominent example of how, on a global level, younger generations have succeeded in raising commitment to change. The same can happen on the organisational and institutional level: A wealth of findings show that greater age diversity on corporate boards is associated with greater awareness and results on corporate social responsibility and ESG. A recent study in Nature finds that younger parliamentarians are more likely to put meaningful environmental action and long-term perspectives on the agendas of national parliaments. 

Our third argument centres on trust. Trust in the eyes of key stakeholders is fundamental for sustainable collective action. Unfortunately, as the Edelman Trust Barometer shows, public trust in effectively addressing climate change has decreased for businesses and public institutions, particularly among young people. Here again, greater intergenerational leadership will be essential for organisations and policy institutions to address the mounting crisis of institutional trust to be able to shift towards a regenerative economy. 

Moving Towards a Regenerative Future, Together 

To leverage intergenerational leadership for a regenerative economy, our initiative for a New Generational Contract focuses on three workstreams: 

Research: To understand the reasons of where we stand on intergenerational equity, what hinders more meaningful involvement of younger generations in decision-making, and where solutions might lie, we engage in several research projects. For instance, the NextGen Value Creation Barometer is the first-of-its-kind global ranking of national economies’ intergenerational fairness. The Voices of the Leaders of Tomorrow Report surveyed young and senior leaders globally to identify conflicts as well as common ground and a way forward. Lastly, global, cross-generational workshops in the spring of 2023 helped us develop seven principles that detail how younger and older generations envision meaningful and ambitious intergenerational leadership to look like. 

Awareness & Advocacy: Grounded in such evidence and cross-generational consultations, the initiative has focused on raising decision-makers’ awareness on the need to experiment with more meaningful involvements of younger generations both in the business and policy sphere. That’s why “A New Generational Contract” was chosen as the annual theme of the 52^nd St. Gallen Symposium in May 2023, to serve as a global sounding board of the seven principles, and co-create tangible impact across the ca. 50 sessions of the symposium and among the 1000 global participants and ca. 400 corporate, public and non-profit organizations they represent. We sustain this momentum through high-level engagements, such as at the SDG Tent at the World Economic Forum, the United Nations Civil Society Conference, and our annual Cross-Generational Transformation Lab at the St. Gallen Symposium.  

Next to such focused, in-person engagements, global reach of our ideas and insights are enabled through strategic media interventions that specifically target decision-makers, incl. through articles in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fortune Magazine, Yahoo Finance, the World Economic Forum’s Content Agenda, Manager Magazine, and a stream of articles in I by IMD (see here and here). 

Impact Projects: To move from vision and insights to tangible impact, the initiative partners implement a stream of impact projects. These include our Young Leaders on Board project, which brings young, outstanding leaders under 40 into the non-executive boards of forward-looking companies, to foster more long-term, sustainable strategies, and the Intergenerational Skill-share program, which facilitates a skills exchange between generations, upskilling for sustainable development and building tangible opportunities for intergenerational collaboration. 

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The United Nations Summit of the Future, held in September 2024, aimed to address pressing global challenges and enhance international cooperation. A key outcome was the adoption of the Pact for the Future, which includes a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations. These agreements focus on sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, and human rights, with a strong emphasis on the needs and rights of younger generations.

Younger Generations at the Center of the Pact for the Future

For younger generations, the Summit underscored the importance of their active participation in global decision-making. In particular, Chapter 4 of the Pact, focuses on “Youth and Future Generations”, outlining several key actions:

Investing in Youth Development: Committing to the social and economic development of children and young people to help them reach their full potential.

Protecting Youth Rights: Promoting, protecting, and respecting the human rights of all young people, while fostering social inclusion and integration.

Enhancing Youth Participation Nationally: Strengthening meaningful youth participation at the national level, ensuring their voices are heard in policymaking processes.

Enhancing Youth Participation Internationally: Strengthening meaningful youth participation at the international level, including contributions to the UN Youth Fund to facilitate stronger youth engagement.

In addition, the Declaration on Future Generations highlights the importance of foresight and long-term thinking in policy-making, including through evidence-based, forward-looking impact assessments of today’s decisions, and a whole-of-government approach on the assessment, development, implementation and evaluation of policies that safeguard the needs and interests of future generations.

Two NGC Side-Events to Move From Idea to Impact and Action

The aim of the St. Gallen Symposium’s and the Club of Rome’s joint initiative for “A New Generational Contract” is to leverage intergenerational leadership and learning for a more regenerative economy. Given the Summit of the Future’s strong resonance with this vision, the two organisations, alongside diverse partners, engaged closely with the development of the Pact for the Future. This included an engagement with the language of the Pact in the months leading up to the Summit, incl. at the UN Civil Society Conference in May 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya.

In New York, the St. Gallen Symposium partnered with the NYU School of Professional Studies to host a joint dialogue on the theme of “Intergenerational Leadership for Sustainability and Innovation”, including the perspectives of Mamphela Ramphele, Honorary President of the Club of Rome, Derek Walker, the Future Generations Commission for Wales, Angela Sun, Member of the Board of Directors of Cushman & Wakefields and The Western Union, Pape Demba Kane, Executive Director of the African Leaders Factory.

The Club of Rome engaged with a collective of partners, including the UNESCO-Bridges coalition and Globethics, on the theme of “Mobilising the Outcomes of the Summit of the Future”, featuring, among others, Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO, and Prof. Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice provost of Global Futures at Arizona State University.

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Key Insights Were Shared by High Level Participants

The 2024 UN Civil Society Conference (UNCSC), featuring global leaders including UN Secretary General António Guterres and Kenyan President William Ruto, brought together around 2,000 participants in Nairobi, Kenya. The main agenda: Preparing for the Summit of the Future in September 2024, which aims to pass the Pact for the Future. This Pact, negotiated by UN Member states, is pivotal in evolving the meaningful involvement of young generations in politics at both national and multinational levels.

Intergenerational Leadership Session at the 2024 UN Civil Society Conference in Nairobi

In light of this focus on the role of young generations in decision-making, the Club of Rome, the St. Gallen Symposium and the Kenya Climate Change Working Group co-hosted an official side event of UNCSC, focused on accelerating the sustainability transition in business and politics through intergenerational leadership. This insightful session, led by Lynn Modester, skillfully bridged the global themes of the conference with tangible local actions in Kenya. Esteemed speakers included Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of The Club of Rome; John Kioli, Chair of the Kenya Climate Change Working Group; Wanjiku Thiga, Communications Specialist and Politics Advocate; and Felix Rüdiger, Head Content and Research at the St. Gallen Symposium. Their collective expertise illuminated pathways for intergenerational collaboration in advancing sustainability.

Cultivating Healthy Intergenerational Leadership and Learning

Wanjiku Thiga is the founder of Gears for Change Initiative, a grassroots organisation focused on youth development. She also serves as a political inclusion advisor and a communications expert. Sharing her expertise from local politics in Kenya, Thiga challenged the notion that young leaders are less credible due to their lack of experience, and emphasised the many challenges young political challengers can encounter when running for political office.

Thiga’s vision for more sustainable politics and democracy focused on senior leaders actively supporting emerging leaders. She advocated for creating a healthy and inclusive environment where experienced leaders guide and mentor the next generation, fostering a collaborative and supportive leadership landscape.

John Kioli, Chair of the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, stressed that policy-makers need to be deliberate in their actions towards intergenerational inclusion, as youth represent the future. He also underlined the importance of recognising when it is time to hand over responsibilities, emphasising that the sooner this transition occurs, the better it is for ensuring continuity and addressing issues related to poor leadership.

Lynn Modester, Youth Coordinator at the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, emphasised the importance of respecting ideas and opinions across generations so that healthy connections can take place in terms of leadership and engagement.

Felix Rüdiger shared key learnings from a wealth of research findings that demonstrate the tangible benefits of involving diverse generations in decision-making. He focused on three mechanisms through which intergenerational leadership can accelerate sustainability in businesses and policy institutions: increasing commitment, fostering sustainable business model innovation, and rebuilding trust.

Watch the recap video interviewing three speakers of our session below.

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Future Leadership Decoded: How Do Businesses Need to Change in an Era of Scarcity?

This session was co-hosted with the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions in the context of the release of the Voices of the Leaders of Tomorrow Report 2024. NIM researcher Fabian Buder, SGS Leader of Tomorrow Anushka Purohit, and Claudia Suessmuth Dyckerhoff, Member of the Board of Roche, led a compelling discussion on the imperative for businesses to innovate amidst dwindling environmental resources followed by a workshop with five group breakouts. The session emphasised the importance of fostering generational insights and understanding diverse viewpoints to collaboratively create sustainable business practices. Participants explored actionable paths towards addressing the challenges posed by resource scarcity.

Inclusive Capitalism: The Role of Private and Family-Owned Businesses

This session, featuring IMD Professor Peter Vogel, Novata CEO Alexander Friedman, Familiy Business Network CEO Alexis du Roy de Blicquy, DIHK Training specialist Laura Jorde, and Jura CEO Emanuel Probst, highlighted the significant role private and family-owned businesses play in tackling climate change and social inequalities. The speakers shared strategies for these businesses to measure and report their ESG impacts effectively, aiming to include the vast majority of enterprises in the drive towards a sustainable future.

Intergenerational Leadership for Sustainable Development

Marine Hadengue, Executive Director of Higher Education for Good, Lindiwe Mazibuko, CEO of Futurelect and Nolita Mvunelo from the Club of Rome facilitated a workshop focusing on the need for intergenerational leadership to transition towards a regenerative economy. The session explored how youth engagement and diverse generational perspectives can transform organisations and policy institutions, highlighting pathways towards prosperity that benefit both people and the planet.

Envisioning the Future of Human Work Through Science Fiction

The workshop was co-hosted with the BCG Henderson Institute. Adam Job and Charikleia Kaffe led this innovative session that used science fiction as a tool to reimagine the future of work. Participants engaged in exercises imagining dystopian and utopian futures, developing creative strategies to tackle present challenges. The session demonstrated the power of science fiction for envisioning desirable futures and engaging in imaginative thinking.

Future-Forward Nations: The NextGen Value Creation Barometer 2024

Leader of Tomorrow Santiago Bulat and University of St. Gallen economists Prof. Guido Cozzi and Prof. Tomas Casas i Klett presented the NextGen Value Creation Barometer, a collaborative project between the St. Gallen Symposium, the Foundation for Value Creation, and the Board Foundation. The session explored the political economy of creating long-term value for young and future generations. Participants compared the Barometer’s top-ranked economies with those lagging behind, in terms of key dimensions such as sustainability, economic opportunities, and health.

Soul Sanctuary: Revolutionising Mental Health Care

In this session, co-hosted with Bertelsmann Stiftung, SGS Head of the Student Organizing Team Alisha Thüler, entrepreneur Mona Ghazi, athlete Louisa Grauvogel, krisenchat Co-CEO Melanie Eckert, and WHO Youth Council member Enow Awah Georges Stevens discussed innovative approaches to mental health care. The panelists explored the intersection of mental health with societal norms, technology, and policy frameworks. The discussion aimed at breaking stigmas and carving a path towards a future where mental health takes center stage in holistic well-being.

St. Gallen Talks! Change Your Mind in an Eye-Opening Dialogue

The “St. Gallen Talks!” session, held in collaboration with ZEIT ONLINE, provided a unique and engaging platform for participants to challenge their perspectives and engage in deep, meaningful discussions. This interactive format facilitated conversations through five bold questions designed to provoke thought and encourage rethinking of stances on various issues. The session used an advanced algorithm to pair participants with opposing views, fostering open and honest dialogue. It aimed to bridge generational and political divides, promoting respectful discourse. Key speakers included moderator Stephan Lendi, Ulrike Zimmermann of ZEIT ONLINE, and Martin Reeves of the BCG Henderson Institute, who provided insights on managing diverse perspectives and leveraging differences for innovation. Participants left with a renewed understanding of the importance of engaging with differing viewpoints and the value of civil discourse.

Watch the session here.

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Published Insight: Emergence from Emergency

In 2021, this pivotal piece introduced the concept of “Emergence from Emergency.” It details a dual strategy for confronting global challenges. This includes the need for immediate crisis responses (Emergency) and the necessity for holistic societal changes, particularly in culture (Emergence). The publication argues that our environmental and societal dilemmas originate from a civilizational crisis. This crisis arises from neglecting essential relationships – with nature, each other, and the flow of time.

Historical Context and the Need for Transformation

Since the 1970s, the Club of Rome has highlighted the critical crossroads at which humanity stands. It suggests that future progress requires a fundamental shift in societal frameworks, venturing into new territories. While considering potential adversities, the paper also highlights the promise of the Emergence approach. This offers hope through existing initiatives that could lead to a brighter future for humankind.

Shifting Mindsets for a Sustainable Future

The article raises a crucial question: How can we alter our mindset within our current thinking paradigms? It aims to empower individuals, especially those feeling powerless, to find and implement solutions independently. It advocates for an educational approach that merges ancient wisdom with modern scientific insights. This model encourages inclusive learning, inviting individuals from diverse backgrounds to jointly address existential threats, crafting contextual solutions.

Collective Journey Towards a Thriving Planet

The uncertain future, as suggested by the Club of Rome, can be navigated positively through collective effort. It resonates with Aurelio Peccei’s call to learn essential knowledge for the future with open hearts and minds.

A Call to Action: Shaping a Sustainable World

This article not only urges a paradigm shift in addressing global crises but also outlines a path to sustainable change. It calls for widespread participation in transforming our world for the betterment of current and future generations.

Continue Reading on the Club of Rome Website

Authors:

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Embracing New Perspectives

Younger generations play a crucial role in leadership, not just for representation but as a strategic necessity for businesses facing complex challenges. Often sidelined in decision-making, youthful leadership brings vital innovation and risk-taking abilities, essential in today’s fast-paced technological and societal landscape.

Fostering Intergenerational Leadership

Picking up on our research insights published in Harvard Business Review and Fortune, Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, recommends five strategies: consultation, co-leadership, and both vertical and horizontal separation, along with leadership substitution. These methods not only highlight the strengths of young leaders but also promote a culture of ongoing learning and adaptation.

Innovating Leadership through Diversity

The highlighted insights suggest a shift from traditional hierarchies to inclusive models that respect contributions from all generations. Adopting co-leadership allows businesses to combine the experience of veteran leaders with the fresh perspectives of younger ones, forging a leadership team that drives sustainable growth and resilience.

This approach to leadership, recognising the synergy between generational knowledge, is essential for companies facing economic, technological, and environmental changes. Embracing intergenerational leadership becomes not just a strategic decision but a necessity for those committed to innovation, sustainability, and enduring success.

Continue Reading on The Globe and Mail

Author: Harvey Schachter

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Bridging the Generational Divide in Africa

In their recent article for Business Insider Africa, Mamphela Ramphele, Honorary Presient of The Club of Rome and Aya Chebbi, founder of Nala Feminist Collective and former African Union Special Envoy on Youth, shine a spotlight on Africa’s pronounced generational gap. Despite the continent’s youthful demographic, leadership remains predominantly older. Hence, the piece advocates for a balanced blend of youthful dynamism with the wisdom of elders to transform governance through intergenerational co-leadership.

A Call to Action for Intergenerational Leadership

The authors thus pick on the key theme of “A New Generational Contract” (NGC), a joint initiative the St. Gallen Symposium and The Club of Rome, in partnership with InTent. NGC works with business and policy organisations worldwide to recognise and bridge the generational gap, by embracing intergenerational co-leadership models. In this vein, Dr. Ramphele and Ms. Chebbi’s piece makes a compelling case for the synergistic power of youth and experience in forging a more equitable and sustainable future.

Towards Actionable Change

Ultimately, the two leaders call for the agenda to move beyond advocacy, offering concrete steps to implement this vision. It underscores the importance of inclusive frameworks that promote generational and gender diversity, emphasising listening, engagement, and mutual respect as keys to addressing complex social, environmental, and economic challenges.

Continue Reading on Business Insider Africa

Authors: Mamphela Ramphele and Aya Chebbi 

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Engaging Youth in Decision-Making

It’s crucial to involve young people in leadership and strategic decisions. Often, young professionals and leaders are left out of such discussions in business and policy-making. This is a problem because the average age of corporate and political leaders is rising. Yet, the younger generation is eager to drive sustainability.

Pathways for Working Together Across Generations

Letting younger voices into leadership is not just the right thing to do. It’s also smart for business. Studies highlight three key ways to mix younger and older leaders successfully: First, combining experience with new ideas can lead to more sustainable business models. Second, projects led by young people can bring more attention to environmental responsibility worldwide. Third, having leaders of different ages can rebuild trust with stakeholders and promote action towards sustainability. These strategies show why it’s good for businesses to welcome generational diversity for both economic and environmental strength.

Co-Leadership for Systemic Change

Our high-level panel at the SDG Tent in Davos on 16 January 2024 highlighted the need to shift from advisory roles to true co-leadership that blends the energy of the youth with the knowledge of the experienced. Our speakers Felipe Paullier, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs, Aya Chebbi, Founder of Nalafem and fmr. African Union Special Envoy on Youth, Christopher Davis, fmr. International Sustainability, Activism and Communications Director, The Body Shop and Till Fust, Head of Finance, Solarify and Member of the Board, StarragTornos, emphasised that adopting intergenerational leadership is key to accelerate the shift towasrds a regenerative economy.

Watch the recording of the event below:

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Addressing challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss will require technical innovations. As such, a strong curiosity for unearthing new approaches is key. But just as crucial is that we are willing, even eager, to change our beliefs and behaviors accordingly. 

Contributing to the global initiative for “A New Generational Contract”, our latest research publication in Harvard Business Review emphasises the need for curiosity and adaptability in driving change, but points out that leadership structures often hinder progress. Older, more experienced leaders may prioritise short-term results and be reluctant to challenge established mental models. In contrast, younger professionals are open to long-term, innovative approaches but lack the influence to effect change within their organisations. 

Building on a joint workshop with BCG Henderson Institute at the 52nd St. Gallen Symposium in May 2023, co-authors Martin Reeves, Felix Rüdiger, Arthur Boulenger, and Dr. Adam Job argue that age diversity in leadership structures is essential to rebalance experience and curiosity, as well as efficient execution and bold exploration. They highlight research indicating that age-diverse leadership teams foster creativity and flexibility, drive the adoption of sustainable business models, and enhance corporate social responsibility outcomes. The authors recommend several approaches for increasing age diversity in leadership, including consulting the next generation, co-leadership models, vertical and horizontal separation of decision-making bodies, and imposing term limits or retirement rules for senior leaders. 

Overall, the article argues that businesses must embrace intergenerational leadership to accelerate their efforts in building a sustainable future and gaining a competitive advantage. To address the challenges of our time effectively, organizations need to combine the wisdom of experience with the fresh perspective of younger talent.

Continue Reading on Harvard Business Review 

Authors: Martin Reeves, Felix Rüdiger, Arthur Boulenger, Adam Job 

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Our initiative was founded by a group of university students in 1969, when student protests across the globe laid bare immense divides between older and younger generations. Ever since, we have been hosting a forum for cross-generational dialogue, addressing clashes and building bridges between leaders of today and tomorrow. We provide a platform for younger generations to voice their concerns and express their ideas, while engaging with and learning from the experiences of older generations. Ultimately, we believe that only through genuine cross-generational collaboration will we be able to achieve decisive progress towards a more equitable and sustainable future.  

The concept of the generational contract refers to an unwritten agreement between different generations to share resources and collaborate on relevant issues. In recent years, however, we notice that the idea of a generational contract as we know it is not viable anymore. Demographic shifts, climate change and rising inequities all demonstrate severe generational gaps – calling for a redefinition of these “ties that bind” generations and our mutual responsibility, ensuring the continued well-being of all generations.  

We see a division forming between generations, threatening to disrupt communication and collaboration. Polarising topics are leading to more and more head-on collisions between young and old. This is why we – as the International Students’ Committee – worked throughout the past year in various ways to help shape an emerging understanding of a New Generational Contract. 

In collaboration with the Club of Rome and involving thousands of cross-generational voices through our Global Essay Competition, our dialogue formats, and our surveys, we formulated a positive vision – consisting of seven principles – for stronger, mutually inclusive relationships between generations: Values like Care, Responsibility and Openness are meant to inspire individuals and organisations to reflect upon and act in new ways. They set a clear guideline, which we, in organising the 52^nd St. Gallen Symposium, think and act upon.  

We intend to help bridge the disparities we are perceiving via dialogue. We want to inspire our guests to lead by example, keeping the principles of this New Generational Contract in mind. This is why our formats are raising key, actionable questions: How can policymakers and business leaders advance long-term transformations, while dealing with the challenges of recent years? What are effective ways to involve all generations in decision-making processes, such as on corporate boards? And how can each of us individuallypractice values such as mutual care and responsibility with members of other generations? 

By taking the New Generational Contract by heart, the community we bring together during the 52^nd St. Gallen Symposium is setting a precedent in their field. Providing principles to guide our decisions, the initiative of the New Generational Contract aims to be the spark igniting the fire of all-encompassing change. 

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