Born on 24th September 1969, Noreena Hertz is the daughter to Israeli parents. Her mother, Leah Hertz was a leading activist in the women’s movement. Noreena studied political economics and Russian, attaining a PhD from King’s College, Cambridge University. Noreena is an economist and the CIBAM distinguished fellow at Cambridge University; she broadcasts regularly and recently authored the acclaimed I.O.U: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It.

Noreena began her career as an expert on Russia and worked for the World Bank advising the Russian Government. She has also worked on the Middle East Peace Process with the Palestinian Authority and governments of Israel, Jordan and Egypt. She is currently a Miliband Visiting Fellow at the Government Department of the London School of Economics, and an Associate Director of the Centre for International Business at the University of Cambridge.

In a 2001 article in The Observer, Noreena argued that governments’ surrender to big business is the deadliest threat facing democracy today. Her recent book on multi-national corporations, also launched in America, has sparked intense debate on both sides of the Atlantic.