Noreena Hertz Quotes

Noreena Hertz

Profession : Author

Birth : September 24, 1967

When Apple introduced its game-changing iPhone in 2007, Nokia was caught sleeping on the job. Although it had actually developed an iPhone-style device - complete with a color touchscreen, maps, online shopping, the lot - some seven years earlier. Astonishingly, it never released the product.

Noreena Hertz

Back in the 1970s, Kodak tried to give $25m to a black civil rights organisation in Rochester, New York. The company's shareholders rose up in arms: making this politically charged offering wasn't the reason they had entrusted Kodak with their money. The donation was withdrawn.

Noreena Hertz

Goodwill and reputation are intangibles, but they are the keys to business success. Since they are also inexorably linked to social values, it follows that a change in social norms will have a significant impact on profits.

Noreena Hertz

We are living in a time in which movies such as 'Super Size Me' and 'An Inconvenient Truth' have made box-office history, and books such as 'No Logo' and my own, 'The Silent Takeover,' are bestsellers.

Noreena Hertz

The term 'glass ceiling' was coined in 1984. More than 20 years later, the ceiling has barely cracked. There isn't a single country in the world that has as many female as male politicians. In business, the situation is even worse. Its highest echelon - the board - remains a chauvinist's dream.

Noreena Hertz

When it comes to getting more women into parliament, politicians have at least started to take active measures. The British Labour Party introduced all-female shortlists in 1997.

Noreena Hertz

Having women on boards is good for women, good for the economy and good for society. A win-win-win outcome: how rare.

Noreena Hertz

Philanthropists today want input into how their monies are being deployed. The big question is, can governments use this insight to sell the rich the idea of paying more tax rather than spend more on charitable giving?

Noreena Hertz

It's not that I am against the rich giving money to charities. I'm all for it, and we should think of ways of encouraging more of it. But I also believe that states, rather than individuals, are ultimately a better bet for delivering a fair and just world and reconciling differing interests.

Noreena Hertz

Most philanthropists would still rather donate to elite schools, concert halls or religious groups than help the poor or sick.

Noreena Hertz

At the end of the day, philanthropy can only ever be an adjunct to what governments provide. And government coffers need to be replenished.

Noreena Hertz

I grew up in a highly political home. My mother was the co-chair of the 300 Group, an organisation whose aim was to get more women MPs into parliament, and she herself stood in the 1987 election, the year before she died.

Noreena Hertz

If power lies more and more in the hands of corporations rather than governments, the most effective way to be political is not to cast one's vote at the ballot box, but to do so at the supermarket or at a shareholders' meeting. When provoked, corporations respond.

Noreena Hertz

Child labour may be distasteful to westerners, but does boycotting goods made with child labour improve or exacerbate the lot of third world children? Trusting the market to regulate may not ultimately be in our interest.

Noreena Hertz

Rather than empowering all, consumer and shareholder activism gives greatest voice to those with the most money in their pockets, those who can switch from seller to seller with relative ease. Consumer and shareholder activism is a form of protest that favours the middle classes, an outpouring of the dissatisfaction of the bourgeoisie.

Noreena Hertz

We must embrace a new agenda based on inclusiveness; a commitment to reconnecting the social and the economic; a relinking of the latter to a plausible redistributive system; and a determination to ensure that everyone has access to justice. All these things are within our reach.

Noreena Hertz

Terrorism and trade cannot be the only issues on which the world unites. We must commit ourselves to a global coalition to deal with exclusion, too.

Noreena Hertz

All company bosses want a policy on corporate social responsibility. The positive effect is hard to quantify, but the negative consequences of a disaster are enormous.

Noreena Hertz

With consumers having ever more choice, corporations must invest more and more in courting public opinion.

Noreena Hertz

Consumers, unlike voters, expect an immediate response to their concerns; and companies, unlike governments, do not have the luxury of a mid-term lull.

Noreena Hertz