Web Summit struggles to find direction without Paddy Cosgrave

Web Summit is in disarray. That’s hardly surprising since the company responsible for a series of conferences focused on technology and start-ups has been synonymous with Paddy Cosgrave, its co-founder, chief executive and majority shareholder.

Having remained defiant for a week in the face of mounting criticism over comments he made about Israel in the context of its conflict with Hamas, Cosgrave finally bowed to pressure from investors and conference participants over the weekend and announced his resignation with immediate effect.

The announcement was an effort to staunch the flow of key sponsors and speakers from the event which is scheduled to open in Lisbon in three weeks’ time.

Naturally, it will take a while for Web Summit to appoint a replacement. Given the need to restore sponsors’ confidence, getting such an appointment right will be crucial and, anyway, Cosgrave had not got around to succession planning and had no designated deputy.

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How Paddy Cosgrave lost his grip on Web Summit

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But in the meantime, who’s running the show as it enters its busiest weeks of the year?

Web Summit is remarkably coy on the subject. For a conference featuring the movers and shakers of the corporate world, it seems the event organiser was somewhat remiss in a number of the basics of corporate life, including having in place a crisis management plan – just in case.

When pressed, Web Summit will only say that, pending the longer-term naming of a new CEO, Web Summit has a strong executive team and an independent board of directors who will be leading staff...

All of which would leave you to suspect that no one has assumed the reins.

Certainly none of the listed executive team or board directors has stuck their head above the parapet. Which is an issue when you are trying to restore confidence in your core event and the wider business, not least when such a strong-willed founder continues to control 81 per cent of the group’s equity.

And it is hard to see how such leadership by committee, if that is what it is, will persuade hard-nosed executives leading the tech behemoths such as Intel, Meta, Google, Siemens and Amazon – whose decision to turn their backs on Cosgrave forced his hand – that they, their money and their critical endorsement of the event should return.