Noreena Hertz

Eyes Wide Open "takes issue with the rise and rise of unchecked data, and suggests simple solutions to allow her readers to take control of their lives." The book has received praise from prominent social psychologists and best-selling authors, including Robert Cialdini, author of Influence. He writes; "With 10 sensible steps to take, Noreena Hertz charts a sound decision-making route for us through a world in hyper-drive. I’d recommend a prudent first step-get this book". John Crace, reviewing for The Guardian, wrote: "Every week, another 150 self-help books are published. How do you know this one is any different from the others? It isn't." He summarised the book as "Eyes fast closing." The Guardian's media commentator, 'Media Monkey', wrote: "Assuming he follows his wife's tips, [Danny] Cohen will usually sport noise-reducing headphones; use a meditation app to gauge his own feelings; avoid having to make distracting non-important choices by always buying-eating-wearing-doing the same thing; go for lots of pre-crunchtime walks; ensure he's neither sex- nor sleep-starved; and only take decisions on a full stomach and bladder. A potentially problematic requirement for someone whose job entails scores of decisions a day." Toby Young, for the Mail on Sunday, wrote: "Her aim is to alert us to myriad ways in which irrational factors influence our decisions. Some suggestions fall into the category of the 'bleedin' obvious' - we're told not to follow the crowd and to get second and third opinions on our health - but for the most part, her advice is excellent and surprising." Daisy Goodwin, for the Sunday Times, wrote: "[A]lthough it is written in the adjective- and bulletpoint-heavy style of the airport book, it is actually a practical guide to critical thinking in the digital age that is as useful for students as it is for CEOs." Despite finding the book "slightly exhausting", she concluded it was "an admirable guide to predicting the factors that affect our decision-making."

Although the Nurses’ hardship fund raised £750,000 after some of the Premiership's best-paid stars pitched in with a day's pay, the campaign received a "mixed response" and was described by some commentators as "intellectually flawed" and "a thinly-veiled form of blackmail." Gareth Southgate, then the manager of Middlesbrough F.C., cancelled his club's donation after Hertz published a list of footballers who had contributed, "effectively 'outing' those who had not." Southgate said: "I am disgusted with the manner in which this campaign has gone about its fundraising. Mayday for Nurses is a worthy cause, but there are many others. The players at this club support any number of local and national charities and good causes, either via financial support, giving up their own time or both. This is often done privately, meaning they neither receive nor ask for any public gratitude or praise." Moritz Volz, then playing for Fulham F.C., explained in The Times: "Everyone in our squad decided to donate a day's pay to the Mayday for Nurses appeal. But [Hertz's] ignorance [of football and the media] is what caused it to backfire. Instead of focusing on poor pay for nurses, the media coverage ended up being primarily about footballers and their money.".

On 19 May 2016, it was announced that Hertz was joining ITV News as its Economics Editor.

In 2015 Professor Hertz began researching what she has called Generation K - 13- to 20-year-olds. K is for Katniss Everdeen, the feisty heroine of the global franchise The Hunger Games. Noreena presented her initial thinking on Generation K in 2015 at the World Economic Forum and at the Women in the World Summit in New York City. Here she unveiled results from her 2015 study of 2000 American and British Teenagers. Key findings include that this Generation is more anxious than previous ones, more intent on being unique, and more concerned about inequality. She posits that they have been profoundly shaped not only by technology but also by the recession and an increasing sense of existential threat. She writes "unlike those currently aged between 20 and 30, the “Yes we can” generation, who grew up believing the world was their oyster, for Generation K the world is less oyster, more Hobbesian nightmare."

Hertz acts in an advisory capacity for "major multinational corporations, CEOs, NGOs and politicians, as well as start-up companies, and sits on various corporate and charitable boards." She is a member of the Inclusive Capitalism Task Force, chaired by Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director of McKinsey & Company. She is also an advisor to the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media and a Trustee of the Institute for Public Policy Research. In May 2014 Hertz joined the board of Warner Music Group.

Hertz defines this generation as having been profoundly shaped by three global forces: the rapid development of technology – this is the first smartphone generation, the worst recession the West faced in decades, and the increased existential threat from evolving terrorist groups.

Hertz is married to Danny Cohen, the former Director of BBC Television. They were married in 2012 at the Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London. The ceremony was conducted by Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, and attended by guests including Rachel Weisz, Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi. She lives with her husband in Primrose Hill, London.

Julian Baggini, for the Financial Times, was more critical, observing: "[T]he more confidently a book claims to help you make better choices, the less it is likely to do so. Noreena Hertz's Eyes Wide Open is a case in point. Reading it, I did, indeed, often find myself wide-eyed, startled by its bold, simplistic claims. There is a need for a synthesis of the many insights gathered by recent research into cognitive biases and the other often hidden processes that shape our decisions. Unfortunately for Hertz, the distinguished psychologist Daniel Kahneman has already written it. His Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) is sober, measured, rigorous and practical, all things Eyes Wide Open is not... Hertz ends up sounding like a physician who is not just unable to heal herself but intent on ingesting all the toxins she warns others about."

In 2009, Hertz was appointed Professor and chair of Globalisation, Sustainability and Finance at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Duisenberg School of Finance.

In April 2007 Hertz launched the Mayday for Nurses campaign in Britain to alleviate the problems of low pay in nursing. Hertz promised nurses at the Royal College of Nursing annual conference that she would make sure that every football player in the Premier League would, by the end of the season, have donated one day's pay (totalling around £1.5 million) to a hardship fund for nurses struggling in their first few years. The campaign was filmed for a Channel 4 documentary, The Million Pound Footballers' Giveaway, broadcast on 7 June 2007.

Hertz was a precocious child and began her schooling aged just 3 years, taking her A levels at age 16. She first attended North London Collegiate School followed by Westminster School. She graduated from University College London in philosophy and economics at the age of 18. She then attended The Wharton School, Philadelphia, where she majored in finance and earned her MBA at age 21. Hertz then worked for a short period at Triad Artists, a talent agency in Los Angeles, California, where she originally planned to break into the film industry as a producer, before taking up a position as a consultant for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Disillusioned by what she perceived as failings in the World Bank's approach to post-Soviet reforms, she quit her post and worked briefly for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Of the IFC, she said: "Early on I raised the issue of social safety nets and was quite shocked to see how clearly my concerns were dismissed." Having returned to the UK she studied for a PhD in economics and business at King's College, Cambridge. Her Cambridge doctoral thesis, Russian Business Relationships in the Wake of Reform was published in 1997 by St. Martin's Press.

Generation K (also known as "Gen K" or Post-Millennials) is the term given to the age group born between 1994 and 2005. The label was coined by author, economist and strategist Professor Noreena Hertz who is one of the world's most foremost researchers on this demographic. She first mooted her initial findings on Generation K at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2015.

Richard Adams, for The Guardian, wrote: "There is nothing here that will surprise readers of Susan George's 1988 book A Fate Worse than Debt, which remains the most forceful call for undoing the burden of the developing world." Hertz's proposed solutions were, he wrote, not well defined. "Some of her suggestions are patronising - setting up panels of international "overseers" for aid funding is a bit rich given her diatribes against external IMF and World Bank meddling - while one is downright dangerous: that wealthy nations hypothecate the taxes paid by immigrant workers for use as overseas aid (so removing their last shield against the xenophobe or racist, that they too pay taxes for the NHS)." Adams also found the book "littered with errors... that smack of economic illiteracy and careless research." Of her style, he observed: "Readers may also be unimpressed with Hertz's informal prose style and strangled syntax... The first chapter, especially, reads like a rejected screenplay for an unhappy episode of The West Wing." Adams concluded his review by writing: "While no one can doubt Hertz's good intentions, the road to hell is paved with books like IOU. Developing-world debt is a serious issue, and it deserves more judicious treatment than this."

Noreena Hertz (born 24 September 1967) is an English academic, economist, author and has hosted her show, "MegaHertz: London Calling," on SiriusXM's Insight channel since August 28, 2017. She has been Honorary Professor at the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College London since 2014. She also acts as SiriusXM's chief Europe correspondent. In 2001 The Observer newspaper dubbed her "one of the world's leading young thinkers" and Vogue magazine described her as "one of the most inspiring women in the world.". In September 2013 Hertz was featured on the cover of Newsweek Magazine. Describing herself as "a campaigning academic", critics have called her "a do-gooder who moves like a grasshopper from one high-profile good cause to another." She has been called the "Nigella Lawson of economics" by the UK media,"because she combines striking beauty with a formidable mind." Fast Company magazine has named her "one of the most influential economists on the international stage" and observed: "For more than two decades [her] economic predictions have been accurate and ahead of the curve." Vivienne Westwood has said of her writing: "That is what punk was all about".