Lausanne is small and strangely concentrated. Within fifteen kilometres sit a business school that teaches sitting chief executives, a federal institute of technology that produces companies faster than the canton can house them, the International Olympic Committee and the headquarters of dozens of international sports federations. The circles here are professional rather than social, and they overlap more than they do in Geneva or Zurich. That is the region's advantage, and it is also the reason its leaders rarely leave their own orbit.
IMD and its alumni
IMD was formed in 1990 by the merger of IMEDE in Lausanne and the International Management Institute in Geneva, and it is an independent institution built around executive education rather than degrees for young graduates. Its programmes put sitting leaders in a room together for days at a time, and its alumni clubs, several dozen of them around the world, keep that contact alive afterwards. For a leader in the region it is the most reliable way to meet peers who are not competitors.
EPFL and the innovation park
EPFL sits on the lake at Ecublens with hundreds of laboratories and research groups. The EPFL Innovation Park, on the campus, hosts startups alongside the research units of large companies, which puts founders and corporate research directors in the same coffee queue. Innovaud, the canton's innovation agency, backed by the Vaud department of the economy, offers free support to startups, growing companies and small firms, and functions in practice as the region's introduction service.
The Olympic capital
The International Olympic Committee has been in Lausanne since 1915, and the city has carried the title of Olympic Capital since 1994. Close to sixty international sports organisations and federations are established in the city and the canton, which makes Lausanne one of the few places where the governance of a global sector is conducted from a medium-sized town. That community keeps its own calendar and its own circles, and it meets local business less often than the numbers suggest.
The chamber and the entrepreneurs' networks
The CVCI, the Vaud chamber of commerce and industry, is an independent association of more than three thousand member companies representing around one hundred and thirty thousand jobs, close to a third of private employment in the canton. It runs legal, export and training services alongside its meetings. The Swiss Venture Club is active in Romandie, where its Prix SVC brings the heads of family companies together for an evening, region by region.
The Forum des 100
Created in 2005 and run by Le Temps since 2017, the Forum des 100 holds its annual conference at the University of Lausanne and takes its name from the newspaper's yearly list of the hundred personalities who make French-speaking Switzerland. It is the one day when the region's business leaders, elected officials, scientists and cultural figures are reliably in the same building. It is a conference, which makes it excellent for meeting people and unsuited to working on a decision.
The companies of the Lake Geneva region
Nestlé has been in Vevey since the nineteenth century, Philip Morris International runs its operations centre in Lausanne, Logitech keeps its headquarters on the EPFL campus and Medtronic's European entity is established at Tolochenaz near Morges. Their executives form an informal circle of their own, reinforced by the service clubs, Rotary and Lions above all, which remain active in every town along the lake and are entered through a member who proposes you.
What is missing
The region has a school for leaders, an agency for founders, a chamber for companies and a global sports community, and very little that puts a company head, an elected official and a foundation director in the same small room under a rule of confidentiality. Lausanne is very good at introductions. It is not built for the conversation that comes after the introduction, when a leader needs to say what is not working.
The World Leaders Society for Lausanne leaders
The World Leaders Society is an international association founded in Paris in 2025 under French association law. Its peer forums bring together eight to twelve members, mixing business leaders, elected officials and senior public officers, and civil-society figures, under the Chatham House rule; they are formed by region as members join, Europe and Africa first, and Switzerland belongs to the Europe region, one of the founding two. The association holds no office and no event in Lausanne: members based there join the Europe forums, and Paris, where the founding summit takes place on 12 June 2026, is a short trip away. It also holds prestige lunches with guests of honour and an annual summit, and publishes the WLS 100, an editorial selection of one hundred leaders across forty-four countries, six continents and eight categories. Admission is by application with two recommendations, reviewed by an independent approval committee, with no age limit, and fifty inaugural seats are open for 2026. Its governance includes local chapters for regional anchoring.
Lausanne introduces people brilliantly. The harder thing is a room where they can be honest.WLS Editorial
An editorial analysis from the World Leaders Society.
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