The Big Con – How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Economies and Harms Democracy

Mariana Mazzucato

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy’s highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. Most recently, Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing ‘more humanity’ to the world.  As well as The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013), she is the author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (2018), Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (2021), and most recently The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023). She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Recent roles include being Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, and a member of the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council.

Rosie Collington

Rosie Collington is a PhD candidate at IIPP whose writing has been published in the Guardian, OpenDemocracy and the Independent. Her academic research Economics, United Kingdom, Great Britain has been published by New Political Economy and the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Kamal Ahmed