By Fabian Lukas Goslar & Enya Eggenberger

The Re:Generation Lab, launched in 2022 as part of the St. Gallen Symposium’s “New Generational Contract” with the Club of Rome, is a core element of the annual programme, co-creating solutions to key intergenerational equity challenges such as intergenerational leadership, future thinking, and sustainability + innovation. 

As part of the Re:Generation Lab at the 54th St. Gallen Symposium, the NGO geneintelligence hosted a powerful co-creation session fostering cross-generational dialogue to lead with the oldest generation in heart and the next generation in mind. The session began with a testimony from Holocaust survivor Dr. Eva Umlauf, which opened a space for shared reflection on how remembrance—eighty years after the end of World War II—can be reimagined as a force for ethical leadership, civic courage, and intergenerational responsibility. 

Set against a backdrop of growing extremism, war on the European continent, and a fading connection to lived memory, the session invited participants to re-engage with the lessons of Europe’s darkest chapter. As the generation of witnesses grows smaller, the question becomes ever more pressing: How can their experiences continue to guide us—not only in remembrance, but in shaping a more empathetic, peaceful, and democratic future? 

In line with the St. Gallen Symposium’s longstanding commitment to fostering dialogue across generations, Leaders of Today and Tomorrow jointly developed concrete outputs—strategies, ideas, and calls to action. Each group addressed one guiding question: 

Politics: How can memory politics become more everyday, innovative, and intergenerational?  

Economy: How can ESG frameworks integrate cultural memory to promote democratic stability in Europe? 

Education: How can survivor testimonies be made emotionally accessible and digitally engaging for youth?  

Across all domains, participants agreed: remembrance must be cross-generational and woven into everyday practice—shaping how we govern, lead, and educate.  

Building on Dr. Umlauf’s reflections and group discussions, the session surfaced a range of insights and proposals: 

• Framing memory culture as part of Corporate Political Responsibility (CPR) is complex and often underrecognized. Businesses could play a stronger role by using their internal structures—such as employee communications—to actively promote historical awareness. 

• There is a pressing need to make educational offerings more accessible and inclusive. Formats must be adapted to reduce barriers and meet people where they are. 

• A degree of fatigue exists among some audiences toward conventional remembrance formats. However, this contrasts with a continued and widespread need for historical connection—signaling that new, more relatable approaches are required. 

• Memory culture must be embedded into daily life—not as a separate ritual, but as part of democratic and civic culture. 
  
• In discussion with Dr. Umlauf, the importance of reaching young people much earlier became evident. Families—especially in Southern Europe—play a critical role in early value formation and historical education. 

To sustain and scale these approaches, three enabling factors emerged: 

Narrative reframing: Memory must be presented as forward-looking, not only backward-facing. 

Cross-sector collaboration: Governments, businesses, educators, and civil society must jointly foster democratic memory practices. 

Platform design: Digital tools and co-creation formats can help carry eyewitness knowledge into the future in compelling and participatory ways.  

The insights gained in the session will directly shape the design and mission of the geneintelligence platform and the project Enkel Europas / Grandchildren of Europe. They form the foundation for strategic stakeholder dialogues with policymakers, educators, foundations, and business leaders. Furthermore, they will guide the methodology of an upcoming research initiative—featuring surveys and co-creation formats involving eyewitnesses—to explore how memory culture can serve as a living foundation for democratic engagement and intergenerational solidarity in Europe. 

Author: Fabian Lukas Goslar, Enya Eggenberger 

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By Jonas Friedrich & Enya Eggenberger

The Re:Generation Lab, launched in 2022 as part of the St. Gallen Symposium’s “New Generational Contract” with the Club of Rome, is a core element of the annual programme, co-creating solutions to key intergenerational equity challenges such as intergenerational leadership, future thinking, and sustainability + innovation. 

In times of rapid transformation, the expectations of customers and employees are evolving. Yet leadership structures—especially at the board level—remain largely shaped by age and seniority. This disconnect limits innovation, reinforces silos, and risks leaving valuable perspectives untapped. 

At the 54th St. Gallen Symposium, a co-creation workshop—organized in collaboration with the Board Foundation and ZEAM—brought together Leaders of Today and Tomorrow to explore what truly inclusive, cross-generational leadership could look like. The goal: to translate the often abstract concept of age-diverse leadership into tangible ideas that can be (easily) implemented at the highest levels of organizational decision-making. 

Participants identified several domains where age-diverse thinking is particularly powerful: from sustainability, customer behavior and strategy to education, healthcare, and human resources. In these areas, younger leaders bring digital fluency and unfiltered curiosity, while senior executives contribute experience and resilience in the face of uncertainty. When these strengths are combined—not contrasted—they lead to more future-proof decisions. 

Inspired by impulses from Michael Hilb (NextGen Board Leaders) and Yaël Meier (Reverse Mentoring), participants then cross-generationally co-prototyped practical interventions during a four step hackathon: rotating “Yes Days” where junior voices shape bold decisions without veto; temporary leadership swaps that allow Gen Z to take the reins—and responsibility—for one week; anonymous decision-making formats that flatten hierarchy and elevate ideas; and structured spaces for informal exchange like intergenerational breakfast dialogues or the “Sherpa model,” pairing young talent with senior mentors in reverse roles. 

To make such initiatives stick, three enablers stood out. First, mindset: generational exchange must be seen not as a risk to authority, but as a strategic opportunity and as an investment in relevance. Second, culture: psychological safety and mutual respect are essential to unlock honest cross-generational collaboration. Third, proof of concept: visible success stories help build senior-level buy-in and make the abstract real. 

The St. Gallen Symposium has long championed cross-generational dialogue. Yet across the DACH region, the average age of board members is 60—and rising. To counteract this trend, the Young Leaders on Board Initiative was launched in 2022. In collaboration with partners such as the Board Foundation (on board readiness) and ZEAM (on reverse mentoring), the initiative promotes structural change toward more inclusive and future-ready leadership. 

Author: Jonas Friedrich, Enya Eggenberger 

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By Dr. Anna Brzykcy, Dr. Nora Keller, & Prof. Dr. Gudrun Sander 

As part of the Re:Generation Lab at the 54th St. Gallen Symposium, the Competence Centre for Diversity, Disability and Inclusion of the University of St. Gallen and Merck Switzerland hosted a co-creation session on the fertility gap. Leaders of Today and Tomorrow looked at how low fertility awareness, stigma, and policy blind spots contribute to a growing imbalance from an affected individual perspective—and on what employers and policymakers can do to close the gap. 

Career advancement and family planning remain a binary choice for many—especially women. In Switzerland, the anticipation that pregnancy will harm career prospects leads many to delay parenthood, often increasing the risk of age-related infertility. As life expectancy and professional timelines shift, fertility has become not only a medical and personal issue, but an urgent societal and economic one.  

Did you know that…
… 20% of the Swiss population experiences or will experience infertility problems in their lifetime? 

… 50% of men and women want to have two children, but only 38% actually have two children? 

… over 50% of Gen Z and Millennials know little to nothing about factors influencing their own fertility? 

… in vitro fertilisation (IVF) is not a quick fix and that only 1/3 of women who undergo this treatment end up delivering a baby? 

… men‘s infertility is more often the reason for IVF treatment than women‘s infertility? 

… 44% of all promotions go to employees aged 31-40? That is, during the family prime time. With women still taking on a huge amount of care work, it is not surprising that 2/3 of senior management positions in this age group go to men. 

…69% of women with a tertiary degree expect pregnancy to have a negative impact on their career prospects.  

… singles and male couples cannot access fertility treatments in Switzerland? 

… Switzerland is the only country in Western Europe where no percentage IVF or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is covered by insurance or public funding? This means that the costs of fertility treatments have to be covered privately and can amount to over 50% of annual income.

• Talk more openly about family planning and (in)fertility 

• Create safe spaces at work and in private for such sensitive topics 

• Support colleagues and friends with fertility issues in a helpful way: Ask (What they need), offer (to help how you can), follow up (later) 

• Recognize family planning, pregnancy and childbirth as a normal part of life  

• Create career tracks that enable employees to have the careers AND families they want 

• Make fertility treatments accessible and affordable for everyone 

If generational equity is the foundation for future-fit leadership, then fertility policy must become part of the conversation. A system that discourages family formation—through financial barriers, institutional silence, or career penalties—harms not just individuals, but the workforce and society as a whole. Forward-looking leadership includes enabling people to lead full lives, across all life stages. 

Download our white paper on fertility and family planning: 

English: Read and download “If only I knew: Fertility policy and family planning in Switzerland” here 

Deutsch: Lesen und laden Sie sich den vollständigen Bericht “Hätte ich nur Bescheid gewusst: Familienplanung und Fertilität in der Schweiz” hier herunter 

Français: Veuillez lire et télécharger ici le rapport complet intitulé “Politique de la fertilité et planification familiale en Suisse”

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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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About the Ongoing Process

In April 2024, the team met with the Managing Partner, who provided the initial requirements for a potential candidate to advise the group on matters of Enterprise Resource Planning, logistics, and sales. The aim was to make existing structures more agile while supporting the current digitisation processes in logistics, which require special software systems. Given the company’s long family tradition and drive for innovation, with the younger generation working and being prepared for succession, they sought a young profile capable of engaging younger customer segments and advising on process optimisation in logistics. The team listened carefully to the company’s needs and concentrated on researching ten profiles that could meet these requirements. Considering the company’s strong roots in the DACH regions, the search primarily focused there. The team aimed to find two to three candidates for each high-priority area.

After conducting initial research within the 10,000+ candidate pool, the team compiled a selection of ten profiles, which were then presented to the company’s Managing Partner with a brief discussion and debrief. From this selection, the Managing Partner expressed initial interest in two to three profiles. Currently, the Managing Partner will be discussing the profiles internally with current advisory board members, the other executive board members, as well as the younger generation members of the family working in the company. A follow-up meeting will determine the outcome and the next steps regarding which candidates will be connected with the company for a get-to-know interview.

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About the Process

In January 2024, the team met with the CEO and Board Member, as well as the Chief People and Culture Officer who provided the initial requirements for a potential candidate to advise the group on matters of people, planet and patient. The aim was to find the right profiles for at least two of the three dimensions to foster the values of sustainability at the core of the company culture, also being a certified B Corp. Given the company’s drive for innovation and the very strong expertise within the pharma industry, especially in product development, they sought young profiles who already demonstrated a strong commitment in their domain of expertise and who can be considered key players in their sustainability area of focus. The team listened carefully to the company’s needs and concentrated on researching 10 profiles that could meet these requirements. Considering the company’s strong roots in the DACH regions, the search primarily focused there, but did not exclude strong international profiles. The team aimed to find 2-3 candidates for each sustainable dimension highlighted by the company.

After conducting initial interviews with the candidates, the team compiled a selection of 10 profiles, which were then presented to the company’s CEO and Chief of People and Culture Officer, as well as its investors. From this selection, the boards expressed interest in three profiles: one candidate had a strong expertise, coming from the own academic research and the friction obtained through the own start-up in the domain of organisational culture, another had more of an activist background, working in an organisation based in the German capital, and a third candidate had a strong expertise and experience in advising corporate clients regarding the key metrics related to carbon emissions. The team facilitated connections between these candidates and both company representatives. All candidates had the opportunity to connect with the company and get to know better the field of business, as well as the aim behind the advisory board mandate to clarify expectations and showcase their strengths. In the end, two candidates were found to be very convincing and were deemed the best match in terms of what the company was looking for their vision of sustainability.

The two candidates will be starting their advisory board mandate at the beginning of 2025 and will be advising the company on the planet and people spheres of sustainability. The team congratulates the young leaders on this nomination and wishes all the best for the mandate and professional growth.

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About the Process

In May 2023, the team met with the Chief Executive Officer who provided the initial requirements for a potential candidate to advise the group on matters of digital marketing, sales, and logistics. The aim was to make existing structures more agile while appealing to younger generations. Given the company’s long family tradition and drive for innovation, they sought a young profile capable of engaging younger customer segments with a focus on sustainability. The team listened carefully to the company’s needs and concentrated on researching 10 profiles that could meet these requirements. Considering the company’s strong roots in the DACH regions, the search primarily focused there. The team aimed to find 2-3 candidates for each high-priority area.

After conducting initial interviews with the candidates, the team compiled a selection of 10 profiles, which were then presented to the company’s CEO, as well as both the executive and advisory boards. From this selection, the boards expressed interest in two profiles: one candidate had a background in logistics and AI, with extensive experience in digitizing logistics processes and optimizing ERP systems, while the other was an entrepreneur who founded a social business with products present in almost every German convenience shop. The team facilitated connections between these candidates and the company board. Both candidates had the opportunity to connect with the family business and familiarize themselves with its activities and its 5000+ employee organization. In the end, the German entrepreneur was found to be very convincing and was deemed the best match.

The German entrepreneur was nominated at the end of 2023 as a board advisory member and has already attended the first meetings to the full satisfaction of the group. The new member’s energetic and fresh perspective has brought a renewed dynamic compared to previously established advisory structures, which confirmed their willingness to renew the mandate. The team congratulates the young leader on this nomination and wishes all the best for the mandate and professional growth.

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About the Process

In May 2023, after the Symposium, the team met with Laura Viscovich, the Executive Director of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Laura provided the initial requirements for a potential candidate to succeed a retiring member of the foundation board. Given the foundation’s global impact, its board members reflect the necessary diversity to maximise its influence. Therefore, the team attentively listened to the foundation’s needs and focused on researching 20 profiles that could meet the requirements.

After conducting initial interviews with the candidates, the team compiled a selection of 15 profiles, which were then presented to Laura. From this selection, Laura and the board expressed interest in two profiles. The team facilitated connections between these candidates and Laura and the foundation board. Both candidates met with the board, and one in particular, Christian Benimana, a young founder and architect from Rwanda, was found to be very convincing and the best match.

Christian was nominated at the beginning of 2024 as a board member and has already attended his first board meeting. His full profile can be found here. The team congratulates with Christian on his nomination and wishes him all the best for his mandate as well as professional growth.

Interview with Laura Viscovich

Laura Viscovich, Executive Director of the Holcim Foundation for sustainable construction

What motivated you to work with the project, and what strategic priorities did you aim to bring to your board?

I was fortunate to find out about the Young Leaders on Board initiative at a time where I was actively looking to propose some younger talent for the Holcim Foundation Board renewal. An initial discussion with the project team gave me confidence that we were fully aligned around goals and values. The network that the project team has access to is also a highly valuable resource, particularly when sourcing international profiles from different disciplines.

Where do you see the value in terms of expertise and perspectives added to the board through Christian?

Christian brings the geographic and cultural perspective of the African continent to our Board, along with the disciplinary perspective of being both a practitioner and educator in the field of architecture. He expresses his opinions in a very thoughtful way, with the right combination of conviction and humility, which I believe is key to creating value as a Board member.

How was your experience working with the project team?

I really enjoyed my interactions with the team. They were careful to fully understand my needs and expectations, and we agreed on a project timeline that worked for everyone. The materials I received enabled me to easily review the longlist of potential candidates, and communication with the team was seamless. I also appreciated the follow up from the team which demonstrated their commitment to the project.

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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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Szenarioplanung in Zeiten globaler Unsicherheit

Erkenntnisse des branchenübergreifenden „Zukunftsforum DACH“ im Rahmen des 53. St. Gallen Symposiums

Wie können sich Unternehmen angesichts zunehmender globaler und regionaler Krisen erfolgreich vor geopolitischen Risiken schützen? Mit dieser Frage beschäftigte sich der Executive Roundtable des „Zukunftsforums DACH“. 14 teilnehmende Top-Führungskräfte aus der DACH-Region identifizierten gemeinsam geopolitische Risiken in ihren Unternehmen und erarbeiteten Handlungsempfehlungen zur Steigerung der unternehmerischen Krisenresilienz. Die Veranstaltung fand im Rahmen des 53. St. Gallen Symposiums statt, welches vom 2. bis 3. Mai rund 1000 internationale Expert:innen, junge Führungskräfte und Wissenschaftler:innen unter dem Motto „Confronting Scarcity“ zusammenbrachte.

Der Executive Roundtable mit dem Thema „Szenarioplanung in Zeiten globaler Unsicherheit“ wurde gemeinsam mit der geopolitischen Strategieberatung Agora Strategy Group durchgeführt. In einem Impulsvortrag mit dem Titel „Szenarioplanung in Zeiten globaler Unsicherheit“ analysierte Dr. Timo Blenk, Partner und CEO der Agora Strategy Group, aktuelle geopolitische Herausforderungen für Unternehmen und erläuterte die Notwendigkeit, sich mit Hilfe von Szenarioplanung auf diese Risiken vorzubereiten.

In drei Breakout-Gruppen diskutierten die Executives geopolitische Risiken für die Unternehmensbereiche Beschaffung, Produktion und Absatz und identifizierten folgende zentrale Herausforderungen:

Beschaffung: Die Gefährdung globaler Lieferketten durch eskalierende geopolitische Konflikte, die Abhängigkeit von einzelnen Rohstofflieferanten, sowie zunehmende Cyberattacken auf kritische Zulieferer oder das eigene Unternehmen.

Produktion: Die wirtschafts-, sozial- und innenpolitische Stabilität des Produktionslandes, regulatorische Vorgaben zu lokaler Wertschöpfung, sowie der Schutz geistigen Eigentums und kritischer Infrastruktur.

Absatz: Politisierung der Handelspolitik mit Trend zu protektionistischen Massnahmen, Komplexität weltweiter Regulatorien und Sanktionsregime, sowie der Wegfall von Absatzmärkten durch zunehmende politische Spannungen oder Kriege.

Die Teilnehmenden erarbeiteten folgende Handlungsempfehlungen, um geopolitischen Risiken für Unternehmen zu begegnen:

Beschaffung: Diversifizierung der Zuliefererbeziehungen mit Fokus auf regionale Beschaffung (Nearshoring, Friendshoring), der Aufbau von Lagerkapazitäten zur Überwindung kurzfristiger Lieferengpässe, sowie die Prüfung der analogen und digitalen Resilienz von Zulieferern.

Produktion: Bestimmung derRisikoexposition der Produktionsstandorte, Einführung eines geopolitischen Risikomonitorings für Produktionsstandorte und -länder, sowie digitale Nachmodellierung („Digitale Zwillinge“) der Produktionsstandorte.

Absatz: Diversifizierung von Absatzmärkten, Szenarioplanung (z.B. Einschränkungen oder Wegfall von Absatzmärkten), sowie Förderung von unternehmerischer Innovationsstärke und Agilität.

Das Bewusstsein für geopolitische Risiken ist in Unternehmen seit der russischen Invasion der Ukraine gewachsen. Dennoch fällt es Firmen häufig schwer, geostrategische Massnahmen in ihre Geschäftsstrategie zu integrieren. Um der „Scarcity of Stability“ erfolgreich zu begegnen, ist ein tiefgreifendes Verständnis geopolitischer Herausforderungen für Unternehmen von besonderer Bedeutung. Der Workshop hat aber ebenso gezeigt, dass sich aus der Mitigation geopolitischer Risiken auch neue Chancen für Führungskräfte ergeben. Die Erhöhung der unternehmerischen Resilienz ist ein signifikanter Wettbewerbsvorteil und in Zeiten wachsender globaler Unsicherheiten bedeutender denn je.

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