Ivan Zhitenev took part in the 50th St. Gallen symposium

In 2021, the theme topic of the 50th anniversary symposium was “Trust matters”. The symposium brought together 30 nations and in total 128 speakers took part in the discussions, including: Satya Nadella (CEO Microsoft), Vasant Narasimhan (CEO Novartis), Mark Schneider (CEO Nestle), Rich Lesser (CEO BCG), Thomas Gottstein (CEO Credit Suisse), Sebastain Kurz ( Federal Chancellor, Austria), Karin Keller-Sutter (Minister of Justice, Switzerland), Ong Ye Kung (Minister of Health, Singapore), and many others. 

Recently, the topic of public trust in political and economic institutions, new technologies, and the media has been causing more and more questions and controversy. Today, in the light of unprecedented global challenges, finding ways to maintain and build confidence is the key to sustainable recovery and further development. But what is trust? After all, the understanding of this word is so ambiguous not only for different cultures, but it may not coincide even among members of the same family or change with our experience. 

Can there be trust without freedom?
How can we combine trust and intellectual property rights?
Is trust possible in such state institutions as the army?
What is business trust?
Where are the boundaries between system transparency and privacy? 

Symposium participants tried to define these terms, find answers to questions and propose solutions in order to increase the level of trust in society and make it the norm.
The main idea of ​​Ivan Zhitenev's speech was that welfare in society (economic, political, creative) depends on the effective division of labor, which is based on trust both within the system and between systems and its external partners. Public trust, in turn, depends on the transparency of a system and is the result of collaborating, meaning, the development of trusting relationships is possible only with a positive cooperative experience.