David McWilliams

Why organisations work with David McWilliams

• He publicly forecast the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, and the rise of US trade nationalism – while the institutional consensus pointed elsewhere. That track record changes how boards receive his analysis.
• Money: A Story of Humanity was named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times and Book of the Year by The Economist in the same year. That combination of endorsements is rare and signals intellectual authority, not just popular appeal.
• He frames monetary and economic forces as historical and civilisational patterns rather than cyclical fluctuations, giving leadership teams a much longer analytical lens than conventional macro forecasting provides.
• His podcast has passed 40 million downloads across 130 countries – which means his frameworks have already been tested against non-economist audiences, and translate directly into board conversations without requiring prior economic knowledge.
• His festival Kilkenomics was described by the Financial Times as “simply, the best economics conference in the world” – a peer endorsement that signals the quality of dialogue he convenes and the seriousness with which other economists take his work.

Biography highlights

• Adjunct Professor of Global Economics, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin; Masters in Economics, College of Europe, Bruges
• Former economist at the Central Bank of Ireland; subsequently Senior European Economist at UBS and Head of Emerging Markets Research at Banque Nationale de Paris
• Author of six books, including Money: A Story of Humanity – named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times, Book of the Year by The Economist and The Observer, Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and an international No.1 bestseller (2024)
• Weekly columnist, The Irish Times; regular contributor, Financial Times; contributor to TIME magazine
• TED2023 main stage speaker; “The Power of Unconventional Thinking” has exceeded one million views
• Founder of Kilkenomics; co-founder of the Dalkey Book Festival; World Economic Forum Young Global Leader

Biography

When organisations need economic foresight, they typically turn to the same institutions – banks, consultancies, research houses – whose consensus forecasts missed the 2008 crash, Brexit, and the rise of trade nationalism. David McWilliams, Adjunct Professor of Global Economics at Trinity College Dublin, was among the very small group who called all three in advance. He trained at Trinity College Dublin and the College of Europe in Bruges, and worked as an economist at the Central Bank of Ireland before moving to UBS and Banque Nationale de Paris, where he held senior roles in European and emerging markets research.

His most recent book, Money: A Story of Humanity, argues that money is not a financial instrument but a civilisational technology – the primary force shaping power, politics, and social structure across five millennia of human history. Named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times and Book of the Year by The Economist in 2024, it became an international No.1 bestseller translated into 21 languages. Its central argument – that the stability of today’s monetary system is largely illusory, built on mechanisms most decision-makers do not understand – speaks directly to organisations navigating interest rate risk, currency exposure, or fiscal stress.

A weekly columnist in The Irish Times and regular contributor to the Financial Times, McWilliams has built one of the broadest non-specialist economics audiences of any working economist. His podcast has passed 40 million downloads across 130 countries. His TED2023 main stage talk has exceeded one million views. The reach matters in leadership settings: his frameworks have been tested against audiences who are not economists, which means they translate directly into board conversations.

He founded Kilkenomics on the premise that the best economic thinking happens when it is challenged from outside the discipline – a view the Financial Times endorsed by calling it “simply, the best economics conference in the world.” The same argument runs through his TED talk, “The Power of Unconventional Thinking”: that institutions which reward consensus produce the overconfidence that precedes every major economic failure. For leadership teams navigating the current period of monetary, geopolitical, and structural instability, that is not an abstract point.

Key speaking topics

• Monetary systems and the history of money
• Global macroeconomic trends and forecasting
• Geopolitics and the political economy of trade
• Financial market dynamics and systemic risk
• The future of currencies and digital money
• Economic nationalism and the fracturing of global trade
• Unconventional thinking and institutional groupthink

Ideal for

• Board-level and C-suite leadership conferences focused on strategic risk, long-range planning, or capital allocation in conditions of macro uncertainty
• Financial services and banking audiences navigating monetary policy, interest rate cycles, and regulatory change
• Corporate strategy and scenario planning forums requiring grounded macroeconomic and geopolitical context
• Economic policy and public affairs conferences where eurozone dynamics, EU-UK relations, or global trade architecture are on the agenda

Audience outcomes

• A structured understanding of how monetary systems and debt cycles create predictable patterns of economic stress – and what indicators to watch for
• A longer historical lens for interpreting current macro conditions, including inflation, currency risk, and fiscal instability
• Practical context for the geopolitical and structural forces driving trade nationalism, eurozone tensions, and dollar dependency
• Confidence in interrogating economic consensus rather than deferring to it uncritically
• A framework for communicating economic complexity to non-specialist boards, investors, or stakeholders