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.

Hertz attended Westminster School, University College London, UK, where she earned her Bachelor's degree, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, U.S. where she earned her MBA, before gaining a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge (King's). At the invitation of a professor at Wharton, she then went to Russia to work for the World Bank and played a role in setting up the Russian stock exchange and in advising the Russian government on its privatisation programmes. Her disenchanted and highly critical Cambridge doctoral thesis, "Russian Business Relationships in the Wake of Reform", dispelling the myth of Russia's successful transition to a market economy and questioning the bank's requirements, was published in 1996.

In 2000, the UK newspaper The Observer described Hertz as 'one of the world's leading young thinkers'; in 2001 Management Today named her amongst the top 35 women under 35,http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/news/spotlight/2004/oct_faculty_hertz.html http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20010628/ai_n11972702 and Vogue magazine named her 'one of the world's most inspiring women'.

In 2002 The Silent Takeover was published. Hertz then turned her attention to the Middle East Peace Process, where she headed a 40-member research team of Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians and Egyptians. She was selected as a 'Young Global Leader of Tomorrow' by the World Economic Forum in 2004.

In 2005, Hertz was appointed a Fellow of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. That year IOU: The Debt Threat was published. A popular treatise on the dangers of irrational lending, it was publicly endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof and Bono. During 2005, Hertz also served a 6 month professorship at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

As of 2006, Hertz is a fellow and associate director of the Centre for International Business & Management (CIBAM), at Cambridge's Judge Business School.

In 2006, Hertz played a leading role in the development of (RED) - an innovative commercial model to raise money for AIDS victims in Africa. The singer Bono was also closely involved in the project and has described Hertz's writings as the inspiration for the (RED) project. That year she was appointed Fellow of the Centre for Global Governance at the London School of Economics.

In 2008, Hertz took up a Visiting Professorship at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the business school of Erasmus University Rotterdam, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Harpers Bazaar chose her as "one of the most powerful women in Britain" and described her as "one of the greatest communicators of our generation."

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

Hertz is engaged to Danny Cohen, the Channel controller of BBC Three, a British digital television channel aimed at 16—34-year-olds.

Prof. Hertz has published several studies on globalization and Russia. She has written several popular books based on her experience at the World Bank, including:

• 1997: Russian Business Relationships in the Wake of Reform (ISBN 0-333-71083-5)
• 2001: The Silent Takeover : Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy (ISBN 0-7432-3478-2)
• 2005: The Debt Threat : How Debt Is Destroying the Developing World (ISBN 0-06-056052-5)
• 2005: IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It (ISBN 0-00-717899-9)

Hertz is regarded as being on the centre-left, rather than the further left position of Naomi Klein, to whom she is sometimes compared.

In April 2007 Hertz launched a campaign in Britain to alleviate the problems of low pay in nursing. She asked several hundred top-flight footballers and managers to contribute a day's pay to a hardship fund for nurses struggling in their first few years, and above all to draw public attention to the issue. [1]

The Royal College of Nursing is collecting and administering the fund, and as of October 2007 began the distribution process.