Davos Man is hard to pin down. He was officially born in January, 1971 in the eponymous ski resort in Switzerland when the first European Management Forum (forerunner of the World Economic Forum) convened.
But in fact he is ageless.
He could be a dynamic "social entrepreneur" in his 20s, or the political leader of a nation-state in his 50s, or a businessman or financier in his early 70s. He could also be a musician, a writer, an academic or a philosopher.
He is not only ageless, but timeless. He was there as a "philosopher king" in ancient Greece, as a wealthy merchant-patron in Renaissance Italy, and as a capitalist benefactor, such as Carnegie or Cadbury, in 19th century Europe and America - rich, powerful men with a social conscience and an eye for the arts.
Davos Man shares with these spiritual ancestors a deep concern for humanity, a selfless resolve to confront the problems of the world, as well as an abiding affection for the good things in life, material and spiritual. And he plans to do all this with his partner and soul-mate, Davos Woman.
She is rather easier to identify. Younger than her husband by several years, she is less likely than he to be European, and is passionately involved, as much as her busy social diary can allow, in the three Cs: culture; charity; and cuisine. A dinner invitation from Davos Woman, at any one of their homes in Europe, California or the Caribbean, is a much sought after thing.
If you had to pin down Davos Man more specifically, this is the stereotype: a businessman in his early 70s who has amassed a fortune in finance or industry, who wants to "give something back" to society (apart from taxes, which he is dead against), and who, perhaps because of his declining years, wants to stay in touch with the younger generation and its new technology and philosophy.
But at the same time, he values the old, especially in cultural matters. He is as well versed in Mozart as in Eminem. Refine him down further, and this is how his life and career went: born in war-torn central Europe, he was brought up on the necessity for hard work and a love of culture - Mozart and Beethoven, Goethe and Schiller.
His instinct was to be an engineer, and he graduated with a first-class degree to win employment in one of the big German car manufacturers at a time when that industry was rebuilding itself.
He was spotted as executive material early on, and the promotions and perks followed: he soon found himself being chauffeured in one of the top-range vehicles he had helped design.
International travel, still his passion, followed. The US was then the engine of international capitalism, and his visits to New York, Chicago and California made him a true trans-Atlantic citizen. It also introduced him to Mary, his first wife, whom he encountered as a budding Hollywood starlet on one of his trips. Two children followed in quick succession.
By 1970, as an ambitious 30-something, he met one of the two people who changed his life forever. Klaus Schwab was then a professor of economics at a Swiss university. Of similar age and background, the professor and Davos Man were instant friends and collaborators in Prof Schwab's pet project: a management forum that would bring together the best brains in the business world.
The European Management Forum was born, and Davos Man had found his spiritual home. Over the next 40 years, he and the forum grew together. He became the chief executive, then the chairman of his motor company and widened his circle of influential friends via a carefully tended portfolio of non-executive jobs with global corporations. The jet-set travel introduced him to new cultures and philosophies and he became a cosmopolite, fluent in several non-European languages and as at home in Shanghai as in Switzerland.
The forum, meanwhile, went from strength to strength. Prof Schwab had a talent for giving the power-players the intellectual diversions they needed, while simultaneously salving their consciences by persuading them that a few days of chat in the Swiss Alps was helping the rest of mankind. Davos Man loved it. He was truly, as Prof Schwab put it, a "partner in shaping history". In 1979, the first participants from China took part in the forum (the beginning of a long love affair with the country); in 1982 he was present as a witness (Prof Schwab swung it for him) at the first Igwel - or informal gathering of world economic leaders - where he met top policymakers from every conceivable country of the world, including many where his motor company could do good business.
In 1987, to reflect its growing gravitas on the global stage, it officially declared itself the World Economic Forum (WEF). The following year, the forum moved into the diplomatic arena, with Prof Schwab helping to smooth the way for a peace pact between Turkey and Greece that became known as the Davos Declaration.
For Davos Man, who had never contested an election in his life, this was political influence of the sweetest kind.
In the early 1990s, his cup overflowed. Communism was defeated and his beloved Germany reunited; Nelson Mandela attended the forum, his first trip outside South Africa after his release from many years in prison.
In the 21st century, things started to hot up. The WEF was held outside Davos for the first time in its history, in New York, as a gesture of solidarity with the victims of 9/11. Then, later in the decade, the financial crisis of 2009 made circumstances difficult or the "masters of the universe".
It made little difference to Davos Man. He had made a fortune, and after the crisis cash was king, in the Swiss Alps as much as anywhere else.
But he was changing, physically, emotionally and philosophically. Now a senior world figure in his 60s, he still craved new challenges, and found them in China, where he met Li Lu, who became his second wife. He found her youth and intellectual vigour exciting after years of enervation with Mary, who took the divorce well enough (though she also took the houses in New York and California, one of the jets, and a big chunk of cash).
Li Lu led Davos Man down new avenues. He became aware of the younger generation as never before, and revelled in the wealth of new ideas the new generation of social entrepreneurs brought to Davos. Li Lu taught him how to use an iPhone, and later an iPad, which he now finds indispensable. She taught him, too, about street wisdom and the coolness of the new music, as well as introducing him to Buddhism.
Sometimes, he finds it hard to keep up with the youngsters at the après-forum parties that rave on all night at Davos and, when he's honest with himself, he would rather the security of his childhood Lutheranism than the exoticism of Buddha.
But he takes comfort in the fact that he is, after all, "improving the state of the world", and anyway, if Davos gets too tedious, or the anti-capitalist protesters too loud, he is so rich he can jet off to anywhere in the world, any time he likes.
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