Generation K: How to Engage the Post-Millennials
Noreena Hertz is an English author, economist and broadcaster known for her visionary ideas as an influential woman in academia and economics. Her books have been published in 17 languages, and her work was the inspiration for Bono’s (RED) campaign, which partners with the world’s most powerful brands to contribute up to 50% of their profits to help fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in developing countries. Harper Business released Noreena’s book, Eyes Wide Open: How To Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World on September 24th 2013. Eyes Wide Open helps readers sift through the data deluge in their environment to make enlightened and smart choices in every day life.
Noreena Hertz is a renowned thought leader with an impressive track record in predicting global trends. Her best-selling books, The Silent Takeover, IOU:The Debt Threat and Eyes Wide Open, are published in 23 countries. Her latest book, The Lonely Century, will come out in 2020.
Noreena advises a select group of the world’s leading business and political figures on strategy, economic and geo-political risk, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, millennials and post-millennials, and sits on the board of Warner Music Group. Previously, Noreena served on Citigroup’s Politics and Economics Global Advisory Board and RWE’s Digital Transformation Board.
Noreena Hertz is a great-granddaughter of British Chief Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, 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.
Noreena graduated from university when she was 19 years old. Within four years she was advising the Russian government on its economic reforms and investors on M&A transactions as the Russian economy opened up to capitalism. At the age of 29, Noreena was working with the governments of Israel, Egypt, Palestine and Jordan on the role economics could play in the Middle East peace process.
Noreena has a PhD from Cambridge University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Having spent 10 years at the University of Cambridge as Associate Director of the Centre for International Business and Management, in 2014 she moved to University College London where she is an Honorary Professor.
In 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.
The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It comprised a study of debt in developing countries and provided Hertz’s blueprint for development.
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.”
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.
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 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.According to her, distinct traits of Generation K include anxiety, loneliness, a desire for connection, a desire to co-create, a commitment to societal equality, anti-traditional institutions, commitment to the environment and fear about their own financial futures.
~ Source: Wiki