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 71 in March, won't be around forever, and there have been questions about succession.

While a lifelong jogger and a physical-fitness addict, Schwab is also 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. Jonathan Schmidt, an American who had organized the Forum's annual meeting in Davos, abruptly left in 2007. 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 non-governmental organizations. Schwab's presence is ubiquitous at these meetings.

And at them, his mantra is always "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 a decade ago.

More than 2,500 participants will participate in this year's meeting at Davos, including dozens of C.E.O.'s and other senior executives of 1,000 corporations, many of them from developing countries. The Forum said that 41 heads of state or government will attend, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

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.

"The Annual Meeting 2009 is one of the most crucial in the near 40-year history of the World Economic Forum," Schwab said last week. "The extraordinary participation in terms of political and business leaders and other stakeholders demonstrates that our Annual Meeting will be the place where key actors can address both a crisis of unprecedented scope and, at the same time, the sort of world we collectively want to see emerging once the crisis is over."