Professor Noreena Hertz (born 24 September 1967,
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) is an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
economistAn economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, author and campaigner.
In her 2002 book
The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and The Death of Democracy, Hertz warned that unregulated markets, corporate greed, and over-powerful financial institutions would have serious global consequences that would impact most heavily on the ordinary citizen. Following the financial meltdown and recession of 2008-09, many commentators have described Hertz as insightful.
Hertz's books have been published worldwide. Since the publication of
The Silent Takeover in 2002, she has regularly appeared on television and radio programmes to discuss economics, politics, and globalisation.
Life and career
Noreena Hertz is a great-granddaughter of
British Chief RabbiChief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
Joseph H. Hertz----Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz, CH was a Jewish Hungarian-born Rabbi and Bible scholar. He is most notable for holding the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1913 until his death in 1946, in a period encompassing both world wars and The Holocaust.- Early life :Hertz was born in the...
, and was born and brought up in London, England. When she was 20 years old, her mother, the fashion designer and feminist activist Leah Hertz, died of cancer.
Hertz attended
North London Collegiate SchoolNorth London Collegiate School is an independent day school for girls founded in 1850 in Camden Town, and now in the London Borough of Harrow.The Good Schools Guide called the school an "Academically stunning outer London school in a glorious setting which, in 2003, demonstrated its refusal to rest...
,
Westminster SchoolThe Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
, and
University College LondonUniversity College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, UK, where she earned her Bachelor's degree. She then attended the
Wharton School of the University of PennsylvaniaThe Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
,
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
where she earned her MBA, before gaining a
PhDPHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Economics from the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
(
King'sKing's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
). At the invitation of a professor at Wharton, she then went to Russia to work for the
World BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
and played a role in setting up the Russian
stock exchangeA stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...
and in advising the Russian government on its privatisation programmes. Her disenchanted and highly critical Cambridge doctoral thesis, "Russian Business Relationships in the Wake of Reform", dispelling the myth of Russia's successful
transitionA transition economy or transitional economy is an economy which is changing from a centrally planned economy to a free market. Transition economies undergo economic liberalization, where market forces set prices rather than a central planning organization and trade barriers are removed,...
to a
market economyA market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
and questioning the bank's requirements, was published in 1996.
In 2000, the left-leaning UK newspaper
The Observer described Hertz as 'one of the world's leading young thinkers'; in 2001
Management Today named her amongst the top 35 women under 35, and
Vogue magazine named her 'one of the world's most inspiring women'.
In 2002
The Silent Takeover was published. Hertz then turned her attention to the
Middle East Peace Process, where she headed a 40-member research team of Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians and Egyptians. She was selected as a 'Young Global Leader of Tomorrow' by the
World Economic ForumThe World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
in 2004.
In 2005, Hertz was appointed a Fellow of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. That year
IOU: The Debt Threat was published. A popular treatise on the dangers of irrational lending, it was publicly endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Bob GeldofRobert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...
and
BonoPaul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
. During 2005, Hertz also served a 6 month professorship at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
As of 2006, Hertz is a fellow and associate director of the Centre for International Business & Management (CIBAM), at Cambridge's
Judge Business SchoolCambridge Judge Business School, formerly known as the Judge Institute of Management Studies, is the business school of the University of Cambridge. Established in 1990, the School is a provider of management education and is consistently ranked as one of the world's leading business schools. It is...
.
In 2006, Hertz played a leading role in the development of (RED) - an innovative commercial model to raise money for AIDS victims in Africa. The singer Bono was also closely involved in the project and has described Hertz's writings as the inspiration for the (RED) project. That year she was appointed Fellow of the Centre for Global Governance at the London School of Economics.
In 2008, Hertz took up a Visiting Professorship at
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus UniversityRotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University is the international business school of the Erasmus University Rotterdam located in Rotterdam, Netherlands...
, the business school of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Harpers Bazaar chose her as "one of the most powerful women in Britain" and described her as "one of the greatest communicators of our generation."
In 2009, Hertz was appointed Professor of Globalisation, Sustainability and Finance at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Duisenberg School of Finance.
Books
Hertz has published several studies on
globalizationGlobalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and Russia. She has written several popular books based on her experience at the
World BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, including:
- 1997: Russian Business Relationships in the Wake of Reform (ISBN 0-333-71083-5)
- 2002: The Silent Takeover : Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy (ISBN 0-7432-3478-2)
- 2005: The Debt Threat : How Debt Is Destroying the Developing World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
(ISBN 0-06-056052-5)
- 2005: IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It (ISBN 0-00-717899-9)
Politics
Hertz is considered to be on the
centre-leftCentre-left is a political term that describes individuals, political parties or organisations such as think tanks whose ideology lies between the centre and the left on the left-right spectrum...
, rather than the further left position of
Naomi KleinNaomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...
, to whom she is sometimes compared.
Campaigns
In April 2007 Hertz launched a campaign in Britain to alleviate the problems of low pay in
nursingNursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....
. She asked several hundred top-flight footballers and managers to contribute a day's pay to a hardship fund for nurses struggling in their first few years, and above all to draw public attention to the issue.
The Royal College of Nursing is collecting and administering the fund, and as of October 2007 began the distribution process.
External links
Footnotes