It was established in 2004 and is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.

In 2014, the management of the Club was transferred to the Valdai Club Foundation, established in 2011 by the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, the Russian International Affairs Council, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and the Higher School of Economics.

Stanislav Zas, Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization spoke at Valdai in February 2022.

[11] Daniel W. Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, described Valdai as "a swanky high-level conference put on by the Russian elite" and "the highest-profile Russian equivalent to Davos (minus the corporate presence)".

These he listed as "denazification, demilitarization, the neutrality of Ukraine, and the protection of the inhabitants of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics".