Dr. Malmgren is an economist who makes sense of the world economy and geopolitics by writing books, by founding tech businesses, by advising policymakers around the world and through public speaking and teaching. Her speciality is understanding the nexus between geopolitics, tech innovation, strategic security and markets. She is a Strategic Advisor to C10 Labs, the MIT Media Lab based AI Venture Builder Studio. She is also on the Board of Premios Verdes which holds the annual “Green Oscars” to support the best cleantech start-ups in emerging markets. She is on the YPO Faculty from 2023 through 2025. She is also a Founder member of LUNARC, a project to ensure the first human institution on the moon represents the arts and humanities. She has also served on the Judging Panel of The King’s Awards for Enterprise since 2017 and a Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI, the world’s leading defence think tank. She is also an advisor to several start-ups in various areas: space, nuclear fusion, batteries and lunar logistics. She writes a column about the world economy and geopolitics on Substack. She served President George W. Bush in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and on The National Economic Council. She served on the President’s Working Group on Corporate Governance and The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. After 9/11 she was also assessed Terrorism Risks to the Economy and Pentagon procurement from tech startups. Before joining the White House, she ran the Bankers Trust Asset Management business in Asia and then served as the Global Chief Currency Strategist. She was then named the Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS. More recently she advised the British Cabinet on trade issues as a Board Member for The Department for International Trade from 2017-2019. In 2014, she co-founded a robotics firm that made industrial drones which won the 2020 Cog X Award for Autonomy, the 2020 National Technology Award and Power Product of the Year 2020. She was a Senior Advisor to The Monaco Foundry, a European start-up incubator for impact-led founders from 2020-2024. She previously served on the Advisory Boards of the Legatum Center at MIT, The Ditchley Foundation, and Indiana University. She was a Fellow of the The Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation for 2022-2024. Her most recent bestseller, The Infinite Leader, won the International Press Award for the Best Book on Leadership for 2021. Her book, The Leadership Lab, was named Business Book of the Year and Best Book on Leadership in 2019 and won the International Press Award 2020. She is also the author of: Geopolitics for Investors (2015) and Signals: How Everyday Signs Help Us Navigate the World’s Turbulent Economy (2016/7). She has been named one of the Fifty Top Inspiring Women in the UK and one of the Top 100 in Tech by @WATC_WeAreTech. In 2024 she was awarded the Mission College Women in Leadership Prize. She has a BA from Mount Vernon College and an M.Sc. and PhD from LSE. She completed the Harvard Program on National Security. She gave the graduation address at the London School of Economics in 2013 and 2016. She is an occasional lecturer in the Duke Fuqua Global Executive MBA Program, Sandhurst and The Royal College of Defence Studies. Commercial firms like Google, Rolls Royce, American Express, PWC, major banks like Citigroup and Barclays and asset managers like State Street, various governments and military leaders regularly retain her to speak on leadership, the future of the world economy, tech innovation and geopolitics.
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Episode 417
Pippa Malmgren
Narrative Collapse & the Search for New Theories | Pippa Malmgren
Dr. Malmgren is an economist who makes sense of the world economy and geopolitics by writing books, by founding tech businesses, by advising policymakers around the world and through public speaking and teaching. Her speciality is understanding the nexus between geopolitics, tech innovation, strategic security and markets. She is a Strategic Advisor to C10 Labs, the MIT Media Lab based AI Venture Builder Studio. She is also on the Board of Premios Verdes which holds the annual “Green Oscars” to support the best cleantech start-ups in emerging markets. She is on the YPO Faculty from 2023 through 2025. She is also a Founder member of LUNARC, a project to ensure the first human institution on the moon represents the arts and humanities. She has also served on the Judging Panel of The King’s Awards for Enterprise since 2017 and a Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI, the world’s leading defence think tank. She is also an advisor to several start-ups in various areas: space, nuclear fusion, batteries and lunar logistics. She writes a column about the world economy and geopolitics on Substack. She served President George W. Bush in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and on The National Economic Council. She served on the President’s Working Group on Corporate Governance and The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. After 9/11 she was also assessed Terrorism Risks to the Economy and Pentagon procurement from tech startups. Before joining the White House, she ran the Bankers Trust Asset Management business in Asia and then served as the Global Chief Currency Strategist. She was then named the Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS. More recently she advised the British Cabinet on trade issues as a Board Member for The Department for International Trade from 2017-2019. In 2014, she co-founded a robotics firm that made industrial drones which won the 2020 Cog X Award for Autonomy, the 2020 National Technology Award and Power Product of the Year 2020. She was a Senior Advisor to The Monaco Foundry, a European start-up incubator for impact-led founders from 2020-2024. She previously served on the Advisory Boards of the Legatum Center at MIT, The Ditchley Foundation, and Indiana University. She was a Fellow of the The Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation for 2022-2024. Her most recent bestseller, The Infinite Leader, won the International Press Award for the Best Book on Leadership for 2021. Her book, The Leadership Lab, was named Business Book of the Year and Best Book on Leadership in 2019 and won the International Press Award 2020. She is also the author of: Geopolitics for Investors (2015) and Signals: How Everyday Signs Help Us Navigate the World’s Turbulent Economy (2016/7). She has been named one of the Fifty Top Inspiring Women in the UK and one of the Top 100 in Tech by @WATC_WeAreTech. In 2024 she was awarded the Mission College Women in Leadership Prize. She has a BA from Mount Vernon College and an M.Sc. and PhD from LSE. She completed the Harvard Program on National Security. She gave the graduation address at the London School of Economics in 2013 and 2016. She is an occasional lecturer in the Duke Fuqua Global Executive MBA Program, Sandhurst and The Royal College of Defence Studies. Commercial firms like Google, Rolls Royce, American Express, PWC, major banks like Citigroup and Barclays and asset managers like State Street, various governments and military leaders regularly retain her to speak on leadership, the future of the world economy, tech innovation and geopolitics.
Episode 417 is the fourth episode in the Hundred Year Pivot podcast series. In it, Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams speak with some of the smartest and most plugged-in people they know to help them navigate the once-in-a-century economic, political, and geopolitical reordering that is currently underway.
In this episode Kofinas and Williams speak with political-economist Pippa Malmgren about the wide-range of socio-political, economic, and technological challenges facing societies today. They discuss:
The narrative collapse stemming from a loss of faith and trust in political leaders and institutions
The informational overwhelm and confusion that accompanies technological modernity
The lack of credible voices and decline of journalistic ethics in media
The increase in conspiratorial thinking and popularization of alternative theories of reality, some of which have improved our understanding of the world, while others have left us more confused and less well equipped to find common ground in pursuit of the public interest.
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Dr. Malmgren is an economist who makes sense of the world economy and geopolitics by writing books, by founding tech businesses, by advising policymakers around the world and through public speaking and teaching. Her speciality is understanding the nexus between geopolitics, tech innovation, strategic security and markets. She is a Strategic Advisor to C10 Labs, the MIT Media Lab based AI Venture Builder Studio. She is also on the Board of Premios Verdes which holds the annual “Green Oscars” to support the best cleantech start-ups in emerging markets. She is on the YPO Faculty from 2023 through 2025. She is also a Founder member of LUNARC, a project to ensure the first human institution on the moon represents the arts and humanities. She has also served on the Judging Panel of The King’s Awards for Enterprise since 2017 and a Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI, the world’s leading defence think tank. She is also an advisor to several start-ups in various areas: space, nuclear fusion, batteries and lunar logistics. She writes a column about the world economy and geopolitics on Substack.
She served President George W. Bush in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and on The National Economic Council. She served on the President’s Working Group on Corporate Governance and The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. After 9/11 she was also assessed Terrorism Risks to the Economy and Pentagon procurement from tech startups. Before joining the White House, she ran the Bankers Trust Asset Management business in Asia and then served as the Global Chief Currency Strategist. She was then named the Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS. More recently she advised the British Cabinet on trade issues as a Board Member for The Department for International Trade from 2017-2019. In 2014, she co-founded a robotics firm that made industrial drones which won the 2020 Cog X Award for Autonomy, the 2020 National Technology Award and Power Product of the Year 2020. She was a Senior Advisor to The Monaco Foundry, a European start-up incubator for impact-led founders from 2020-2024. She previously served on the Advisory Boards of the Legatum Center at MIT, The Ditchley Foundation, and Indiana University. She was a Fellow of the The Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation for 2022-2024.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
