When Klaus Schwab told trustees of the World Economic Forum last month that he planned to “start the process of stepping down” from the organisation he founded 55 years ago, he reeled off a list of achievements.

The WEF’s annual winter meeting of political and business leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos had become a “global village” where common challenges could be addressed, making it “essential to avoid war”, he wrote in an email on April 1.

Schwab’s own “intellectual, political, economic and social contributions to the world” had been recognised with “international and national distinctions”, while “the small non-for-profit foundation” he had created was now an international body granted special status by Switzerland because of its role in the country.