World 50 is an invitation-only, peer-to-peer community aimed at Fortune 2000 C-suite execs [20]. Its mission? To help members become better leaders.
Founded in 2004, it has around 5,000 members from organizations like Pepsi, Disney, Ford, Boeing, Shell, and Bank of America. Members include CEOs, board directors, and executives, for example, Jessica Graziano CFO at US Steel, Dirk-Jan van Hameren CMO at Nike, and Tim Campos CIO at Apple [18].
It can be hard for executives to find trusted confidants they can discuss their daily challenges with [14]. That’s what World 50 provides, and in doing so, they help members stay ahead. With revenues of over $100M a year, a recent sale valued the company at $1.2B [16]. As Ola Arvidsson, member and CHRO at Arla Foods, notes World 50 is “one of the places where you really have a retreat and where you find people that understand your situation” [17].
In this deep dive, we uncover how World 50 became a billion dollar exec network. Including, how the community got started, grows, functions, and makes money.
World 50 was created by Rick Smith. Rick had been working in consulting before moving into executive recruitment. “I was doing fairly well at it, but I wasn't very fired up… on nights and weekends, I started doing research reports” digging into successful careers. He ended up writing a “book on career success. To our surprise, it really started to take off,” says Rick [2]. Published in 2003, The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers became a Wall Street Journal bestseller [1].
But “the week my book hit number one on the career bestseller list, I was actually laid off,” says Rick [2].
This forced him to reevaluate things. In late 2003, Rick began working on the idea of creating a network for top executives. “The initial concept for World 50 was not well received,” notes Rick. “I spent the next four months having this original concept summarily dismissed as awful and unrealistic.”
But that didn’t stop him.
“I absorbed everyone's input, no matter how negative, and each time tweaked my idea.” Feedback improved with each iteration, and by late 2004, almost a year since his original idea, World 50 launched. His earlier work had enabled him to build up solid connections with high-flying executives. He used this network to recruit the initial members [3].
“We serve the full C-suite, so CMOs, CHROs, CIOs, you name it, general counsels, chief financial officers, et cetera,” says David Wilkie, World 50 Chairman. “It's basically the head of whatever role is in the Enterprise, we probably have a community for you” [9]. The average annual revenue of a member organization is $30B with 85% of the Fortune 100 represented. “They join, not for us,” says David. “We're the facilitators. They join to learn from each other” [15].
“We're in the business of basically helping these executives stay ahead,” says David. To do that, World 50 creates forums for executives to collaborate, exchange ideas, and discuss key topics. Programming focuses on addressing today’s critical business challenges.
Explaining how World 50 works, David says, “We have a term that we like to use, ‘artisanal at scale’,” which captures well what the World 50 member experience is like. “We want your experience… to feel handcrafted, like it's built just for you… but to do that for [thousands of] members, you have to have systems” [15].
Digital community
At the heart of those systems is One°, its custom-built digital platform. Custom platforms are common among exclusive peer-to-peer communities. Accessible across both desktop and mobile, One° has existed for several years but saw accelerated development during COVID. They invested considerably in shifting its content online and making more of the member experience available virtually.
One°, named because it means members are “one degree” of separation away from the answers they need, is a gated digital community platform for members to connect, discuss ideas, and network. Members can livestream events and catch up on prior event recordings on-demand. Members can also poll the collective wisdom using its Q&A functionality.
Summits
At the core of its offerings are summits, which are loved by its members. Members can go to 2 semi-annual, in-person gatherings each year [9]. It runs summits almost every week throughout the year, and they are known for their mix of special guests and facilitated discussions on the issues most critical to members. One of the Summits is group-only while the other one is cross-functional, encouraging connection-building between new members.
It is summits that keep members coming back year after year. They typically last 24 hours, beginning and ending with lunch. There are no podiums, stages, or branding - they’re designed to enable meaningful conversation. No press or solicitation of services is allowed and discussions are led by experienced moderators. While there is an agenda, it serves only as a guide with the content ultimately being decided by attendees.
Member connections
Having access to such an experienced group is a huge part of the value of World 50. To make the most of that, they facilitate introductions and discussions at the request of members. “We'll connect you with other executives who are working on something… like what you're working on,” David explains [15]. Adding:
“Maybe they're six months ahead of you and they've just broken through the ice a little further than you and they can share those experiences and provide a shortcut or two.”
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Engage calls and Roundtable discussions
Another way they connect members with the answers they're looking for is through Engage calls. These are facilitated conference calls on time-sensitive and evergreen issues, often with special guests.
For example, when members wanted to learn about AI, they set up a session with Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI [30].
They pride themselves on having access to the smartest people on the planet on any given topic. Contributors include Condoleezza Rice, Alan Greenspan, President George W. Bush, Richard Branson, and Tony Blair [4]. They also bring the star power, too. With folks like the Williams sisters, Spike Lee, Robert Redford, Bono, and Francis Ford Coppola being known to attend events [1].
How do they get the best speakers to say yes? By keeping the ask light. According to David [15]:
“Our format is just going to be conversation… you don't bring any slides or anything. We're just going to talk and you can ask questions of them.”
Top-quality speakers doesn’t just mean well-known, though. For example, David recalls when members wanted to know how to make faster decisions. So they brought in “pediatric trauma teams… they gave unbelievable insights into how they go about making these decisions and how they practice… so that they get better in real-time when the stakes count” [15].
They also organize topic-specific and community-centered gatherings in local member cities to discuss important topics.
Executive advisor connections
Another interesting benefit is access to a set of accomplished, recent CEOs. Members get one-on-one sessions for in-depth advice from the 25+ advisors they keep on retainer. Advisors include former leaders of United Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, and Xerox and they arrange hundreds of connection calls between members and advisors each year.
Innovation roundtables
Following the acquisition of Employer Health Innovation Roundtable (EHIR) in 2021, they “curate and facilitate interactions between innovative companies” and members. These are an opportunity for members to discover, evaluate, and leverage innovative early-stage companies. This is done through twice-yearly roundtables where voted-in innovators present to a cohort of members. Innovators come from a range of business areas, including Employee Benefits, Enterprise AI, Health Plans & Health Systems, HR & DEI, Legal, Marketing, and Procurement & Supply Chain [22].
The whole process is organized through the EHIR platform. Companies submit their interest via the platform, members vote on the solutions they want to see, and then Innovators present – they get 20 minutes to demo with five minutes for follow-up questions. If members are interested, then Innovators are introduced to them for further exploration [22]. Sessions are run both in-person and virtually. In some cases, member organizations have been able to discontinue their own internal innovation programs because they have access to World 50 Roundtables. They also provide members with access to the database of all the vetted solution providers [24].
Programs
They run a program called Next. David says “It's a development program” and it’s for those who are “a few layers down into the organization.” They get C-level members to help deliver the program “and they love doing it,” remarks David. “They love to give back, and we make it easy for them. We formalize the opportunity” and it works like a mentorship program [9].
It’s run over 4 days and is designed to prepare functional leaders to grow to the next level. You’re led through a real-world simulation that’s deliberately a scenario outside of a participant’s functional area of expertise. It provides a safe environment to role-play a real-world scenario that you would encounter as a C-level officer [19].
Groups
A key part of how World 50 works revolves around groups. David says it’s the thing that has been most important for the community to work. “The winning thing was we put executives in groups so they can learn from each other” [15].
Each member is part of a core group that they have regular sessions with and one of the summits is based around. They also run several interest or topic-based groups. For example, there’s the Executive Women’s Forum, which brings together senior women leaders for private conversation on the topics that matter most to them [5]. There’s Growth50, which is for “mid-market CEOs who maybe don't have quite the resources of the Fortune 500, but at the same time, have a lot of responsibility.” There’s another group for sustainability, one for DEI, etc [9]. DEI is something they've championed for several years, producing a yearly report and now an annual Impact awards ceremony in a rare publicity driving activity [28].
David “leads our CEO community,” says Jenn Cooper, President of World 50. “It takes a little bit of bravery because you're putting your metrics up against all the other business units… as an equal to the group leaders.” But by dogfooding their own product in this way, “the connection to the product and the customer is so tight,” says Jenn [9].
To get access to World 50, members pay an average of $50,000 per year [25].
This might be an eye-watering figure for some, but at the level members operate at “One better decision can more than pay for the cost of the membership,” says Dave Stephenson, member and CBO at Airbnb [17]. Prospective members can inquire about eligibility, but they need to at least report to the C-suite and work for an organization with revenues of $1B+ [18].
World 50 now has ~5,000 members, although it’s not “actively marketed,” says David. They have a muted presence on social media, but not much else. “Trust is an imperative in having a high-quality community.” So “we don't splash our clients on our website. We don't… proclaim a lot about what we do because we believe our members want it to be all about creating that privacy” [9].
Surprisingly, though, that constraint works for them, not against them. David says [15]:
“The fact that it's kind of hard to understand or it seems a little bit under the radar makes people more curious about it.”
Their discretion is not without challenges, though. Its website is a single page with scant details. So when members expense their $50k dues, it can take some explaining to Finance when they can’t find any real info about it.
It hasn’t stopped their growth, though. World 50 has grown membership and revenue in each of the 20 years it has been going, bucking multiple financial downturns along the way. As of Jan 2024, 1500 organizations were represented [29].
World 50 has grown mostly through word of mouth and member referrals, both externally and within organizations, too. Many organizations have a few employees with some having a dozen or more as members.
They deliberately foster this intra-company growth through with the Next acceleration program. Next is aimed at C-suite members' direct reports. These are future leaders and it acts as a feeder program with many participants going on to become World 50 members.
In recent years, acquisition has been another key growth channel. Both adding to its offering to make it more valuable, but also expanding the network in terms of members.
In July 2019, World 50 acquired Procurement Leaders, a community of CPOs and their leadership team representing 775 companies. Leaders has 6 locations globally, enabling World 50 to increase its presence in Europe and Asia [26].
World 50 acquired Employer Health Innovation Roundtable (EHIR) in January 2021. EHIR is a private community focused on accelerating healthcare innovation by connecting business leaders with digital health solutions. That acquisition also included Chief Medical Officers on Demand (CMOD), a company that provides access to a panel of leading chief medical and chief health officers for large corporations seeking medical and health advice [11].
In October 2020, World 50 merged with G100, another peer network for business leaders [12]. Interestingly, G100 was also founded by Rick Smith. Rick sold World 50 in 2007, becoming Managing Director of G100 in 2010. World 50 acquired another one of Rick’s companies, Talent Academy, too [4].
The combined memberships of World 50, G100, Procurement Leaders, and EHIR covers more than 75% of the Fortune 1000 [11].
World 50’s ownership history is complex, too. It was acquired in 2007 by EquaTerra who divested it to a consortium of buyers in 2010 [10]. It was subsequently owned by Chicago Growth Partners CIP [7], then Pamlico CIP [6], before being acquired by Morgan Stanley Capital Partners in 2020 [13]. In March 2024, they sold World 50 to a continuation fund managed by an affiliate of Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, recapitalizing it with $465M to accelerate its growth [20].
Its new owners are bullish on World 50’s growth prospects [20]. Almost all its revenue comes from member subscription fees. Of that, most is from the C-suite officer level, with a small portion coming from the executive level and Next program.
There’s scope then for greater penetration of the US market, in particular, at the exec level especially within mid-enterprise organizations. International expansion is another priority, a minority of members live outside the US. Plus, it can expand services beyond Next, its innovation Roundtables, and Leaders into other verticals.
An essential part of the community is confidentiality. For the community to be valuable to members, they must be able to share openly about their challenges without fear that information will be leaked. “It was exclusive by nature on purpose,” says David [15].
“Our clients need to have a high degree of trust. And most of that trust, or a lot of that trust is built on privacy or confidentiality or candor.”
Participation in all events comes under the Chatham House rule: “Participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed” [27]. It’s an agreement which has been used in intelligence and military circles for decades to encourage open debate on sensitive issues.
Running all of this is a significant operational undertaking and World 50 employs around 400 members of staff. A range of tools supports them. Beyond its custom community platform, World 50 uses Mixpanel, Pendo, and Segment to track member behavior across its platform and website. While Pardot is used for marketing automation and Salesforce for their CRM.
Its one-pager website uses WordPress, although they have several other sub-sections on their website that just aren’t linked from the homepage. Google Analytics and Hotjar are used to monitor and optimize those pages. They have a few public videos, hosted on Vimeo, and use ZoomInfo for lead enrichment.
David notes they have “a lot of data on what our members care about and what topics they're interested in… and we're always looking to use that to their benefit” [15]. That data helps them keep up with member needs.
“We're in the business of helping them stay ahead,” says David. “The only way we can help them stay ahead is if we are ahead.” That means they’re always looking to optimize and improve their offering. “Every time, we build a beautiful Ming vase, we celebrate it, and then we smash it on the floor and we go build another one” [15]. And that’s why they keep growing year after year.
