Borge Brende, the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, announced on Thursday that he is stepping down, weeks after the forum launched an independent review into his relationship with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
Borge Brende, the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, announced on Thursday that he is stepping down, weeks after the forum launched an independent review into his relationship with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Brende, who took over as WEF president in 2017, made the decision following disclosures from the US Justice Department showing that he had three business dinners with Epstein and had also communicated with the disgraced financier via email and text messages.
“After careful consideration, I have decided to step down as President and CEO of the World Economic Forum. My time here, spanning 8-1/2 years, has been profoundly rewarding,” Reuters quoted Brende, a former Norwegian foreign minister, as saying in a statement.
The official statement from the WEF did not mention Epstein, but Brende told Norwegian media he regretted how he had managed his interactions with the American financier and did not want the matter to distract from the forum’s work, including the annual Davos summit.
Brende has maintained that he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal history prior to meeting him in 2018 and expressed regret for not investigating him more thoroughly.
His resignation comes amid growing scrutiny over Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor. The revelations surrounding Epstein have sent shockwaves through global business and political circles, including the British royal family.
Independent review
In their own statement, Andre Hoffmann and Larry Fink, co-chairs of the Geneva-based WEF, said an independent review conducted by outside counsel into Brende’s ties with Epstein had concluded and had found no additional concerns beyond what has already been disclosed.
Brende told Norwegian business daily Dagens Naeringsliv that while the review had not uncovered any previously unknown issues relating to Epstein, the case risked drawing attention away from the forum’s work.
He said he regretted he had not been more open about the dinners and subsequent communications he had with Epstein.
“Like many others, I have felt a great deal of discomfort at being linked to Jeffrey Epstein, and I was afraid that the contact would be portrayed as something other than what it was. That is the honest answer,” Brende told the newspaper.
Text messages from 2018-19 released among the Epstein files appear to show a friendly tone between the two men, with Brende calling Epstein a “brilliant host” and saying “missing you Sir” after a dinner with Epstein, former Trump aide Steve Bannon and a former Norwegian government minister. Their last communication was a week before Epstein was arrested in 2019.
Zwinggi to serve as interim CEO
Hoffmann, vice-chair of Swiss pharma giant Roche, and Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, thanked Brende for his contributions to the forum.
“His dedication and leadership have been instrumental during a pivotal period of reforms for the organization, leading to a successful annual meeting in Davos,” they said.
WEF Managing Director Alois Zwinggi will serve as interim president and CEO, and the forum’s Board of Trustees would oversee the leadership transition, including a plan to identify a permanent successor, they added.
The U.S. Justice Department has released more than 3 million pages of documents relating to Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
His ties to a long list of business and political leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are under close scrutiny.
Abroad, the revelations have prompted criminal investigations of Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Duke of York, and other prominent figures.
Brende’s resignation follows the departure last year of the WEF’s founder and longstanding chair Klaus Schwab after he came under pressure from a whistleblower alleging misconduct.
The WEF subsequently said an internal investigation had found no evidence of material wrongdoing by Schwab.
With inputs from agencies
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