The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, seems to have been around forever, although it started only in 1971.

But the founder and leader of the forum, Klaus Schwab, who turns 70 in March, won't be around forever and there have been questions about succession.

While a life-long jogger and a physical-fitness addict, Schwab is a cancer survivor. Several years ago, he had successful surgery to treat prostate cancer.

In the past, he has spoken of sharing leadership at the forum and relying on the advice and guidance of the forum foundation's board, which includes Queen Rania of Jordan, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and Rajat Gupta, senior worldwide partner at McKinsey.

"I like to believe that leadership at the forum had always been a collaborative process," he has said.

Several top colleagues at the forum, however, have fallen out with Schwab. Late last year,  Jonathan Schmidt, an American who had organized the Forum's annual meeting in Davos for the last two years, abruptly left.  Claude Smadja, once a trusted Schwab ally, resigned in 2002.

Schwab's leadership came under scrutiny in 2000 after the Wall Street Journal raised questions about an apparent overlap between his  work for the forum and  his personal, for-profit ventures. Several months later, Swiss regulators said they had found no improprieties.

"I don't think that anyone can question my integrity," Schwab once told this reporter. "I take great pride in transparency—both personally and for the forum. I believe in leading the ethical life, and I have always tried to do so."

Born to German parents, Schwab—who calls himself a Swiss-German—often comes across as a rigid disciplinarian. But those who know him well testify to his wit and hearty sense of humor. He is also an accomplished dancer. At a Davos party not long ago, he matched a pair of frenetic Brazilian dancers step for step, beat for beat, and drew sustained applause for his agility and stamina.

That energy is also evident in the nearly nonstop globe-trotting that Schwab undertakes.

Since the forum's founding in 1971, its activities have expanded to more than 80 countries. In addition to the annual Davos meeting, it holds regional "mini-Davos" sessions in a dozen countries; the forum also has scores of initiatives with regional business groups, universities around the world, and with leading nongovernmental organizations. Schwab's presence is ubiquitous at these meetings.

And at these meetings, his mantra always is, "Entrepreneurship in the global interest."

"What we have to do is to strengthen entrepreneurship and, at the same time, social cohesion," Schwab has said.

Schwab met his wife, Hilde, at the forum, where she worked as an assistant. In time, she became one of the forum's driving forces, and a prime mover behind the creation of the Klaus and Hilde Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship exactly a decade ago.

More than 2,500 participants, plus 500 journalists will participate in this year's meeting at Davos, including dozens of C.E.O.'s and other senior executives of nearly 900 corporations, more than half of them from developing countries. The Forum said that 27 heads of state or government will attend, as will Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

There have been scores of imitators of Davos. Perhaps the most prominent is the Clinton Global Initiative, begun by former President Clinton, who used to be a regular at Davos. The Clinton gathering is held annually in New York, but it draws nowhere near the numbers of top-level political and business leaders who attend Davos.

"Davos" has become a metaphor for setting the global agenda, and its status is unlikely to be challenged any time soon.

"Davos is a true multi-stakeholder summit,'' Schwab said this week.  "We have defined 12 different stakeholder groups. The world needs such a group. We know business, government, and civil society cannot meet all challenges. So this is a truly global meeting—global not only in a geographical sense, but a meeting approaching issues in a multidisciplinary, integrated, and systemic, ways. This year's theme is the power of collaborative innovation. I feel that essential success factors are innovative minds and collaboration."