Welcome Address at the 41st St.

Gallen Symposium

Ali Wyne

St. Gallen, Switzerland

May 12, 2011

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Imagine that we, the Leaders of Tomorrow, are invited back to St. Gallen 40 years from
now, as global figures in government, business, philanthropy, and other fields. The Leaders
of Tomorrow of that time will ask us: what have you done to improve our world? And what
did you do that your predecessors did not?

How will we answer them?

I can’t say for sure, but I’d like to offer a few thoughts.

We have the right, and indeed the obligation, to challenge the Leaders of Today—to ask
them why they didn’t do more to address the problems that our generation has been asked
to solve. But when we fulfill our responsibility to challenge, we assume two other
responsibilities: to propose alternatives to the policies that we question, and to take steps to
implement those alternatives when our opportunity arrives.

The good news is that for all that is unacceptable in our world—and, indeed, there is an
intolerable amount that is unacceptable in our world—in many ways, we live in the best of
times. World wars are a remnant of the past, the prospect of nuclear annihilation is
increasingly distant, the rate of global poverty continues to fall, and the life expectancy of
the average individual continues to rise.

But each of these “good news” stories has a concerning counterpart. Competition over basic
resources such as food and energy is intensifying, the nuclear nonproliferation regime is
eroding, the basis for an even worse financial crisis is emerging, and climate change is
accelerating.

Making matters more complicated is that the “good news” stories and the “bad news” stories
derive from precisely the same flows and networks that bring us together. In that sense,
globalization is a formidable gamble: it promises ever-greater opportunities to improve the
human condition and ever-greater risks of disasters that could undercut that progress.

It follows, then, that ever-greater global cooperation is needed to increase the opportunities
and decrease the risks. But achieving that cooperation is unlikely unless we agree on a few
propositions:
• First, that as more actors, state and nonstate, participate in global politics, it will
become increasingly difficult for any one of them to dominate;
• Second, that attempts to achieve such dominance will increasingly undermine global
peace and prosperity; and

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 • Third, that our future is less likely to be determined by the ambitions of individual
actors than by the urgency of shared challenges—challenges that lie far beyond the
control of any one actor.

If we accept these propositions, it behooves us to think creatively and boldly about how we
can exercise power—not over one another, but with one another. And accepting these
propositions requires us to be brave—to take a leap of faith that the greatest hope for our
own progress lies in the empowerment of others.

Why do we have to take this leap of faith? Because the threats to our world will not wait for
us to do otherwise. They will not wait for us to settle old scores. They will not wait for us
to settle old rivalries. And they most certainly will not wait for us to establish a hierarchy
among countries and among peoples before we get on with the business of cooperation. If
we mistakenly go down that route, we may find ourselves overwhelmed by challenges that
were once within our capacity to solve.

And so: what is our task? Our task is to prove that a world in which just power prevails is
not only necessary, but also, more importantly, attainable.

It’s a daunting task, one that raises an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: will we, the
Leaders of Tomorrow, rise to the occasion?

I don’t know if we will. But I know that we must. And I know that we can. For if there’s
one lesson that the past holds for an uncertain future, it’s this: the brilliance of our minds
and the strength of our characters scale with the magnitude of our calling.

Welcome to St. Gallen.