Noreena Hertz is best known for exposing the hidden costs of how modern economies are built. An economist and author, she examines what happens when systems optimise relentlessly for scale, speed, and profit, and neglect the social fabric that makes growth sustainable.

Her work connects inequality, loneliness, political volatility, and declining trust not as separate crises, but as symptoms of economic design choices made over decades. Hertz argues that backlash against globalisation, institutions, and elites is not irrational anger, but a rational response to systems that delivered efficiency while stripping people of agency, security, and voice.

She brings clarity to why legitimacy is eroding across business and politics, why younger generations feel economically excluded, and why ignoring these dynamics now creates strategic, reputational, and systemic risk for leaders operating at scale in increasingly polarised, low-trust environments where authority is no longer assumed.