About
Denise Hearn is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Long Now Foundation and an applied researcher in economic policy, technology, and long-term governance.
She is co-author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians (2024) with Vass Bednar – a finalist for the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy. Denise also co-authored The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition with Jonathan Tepper – named one of the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2018.
Denise advises governments, financial institutions, companies, and nonprofits, and her research spans institutional design, competition policy, macroeconomics and new economic thinking. She is also a Fellow at the Berggruen Institute, where she is researching planetary data governance.
Her work has been endorsed by Nobel prize-winning economists, former governors of central banks, and elected officials across political parties. Her writing has been translated into 12 languages and featured in publications including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Globe and Mail, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Washington Post. She has spoken at venues worldwide, among them the Oxford Union, the Goethe Institute, the Long Now Foundation, the Principles for Responsible Investment, the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club, and the International Women's Forum.
Denise has an MBA from the Oxford Saïd Business School and a BA in International Studies from Baylor University.
Get to Know Denise Personally
I’m committed to maintaining curiosity and wonder at this vast, complex, and enchanting place that we call home – the earth and all its many inhabitants. I feel immense gratitude to be alive, right now, in all our collective challenges and opportunities.
Growing up, I moved every few years internationally. This made me appreciate that reality can often only be – at best – triangulated between many worldviews, perspectives, and data points. For this reason, I’m drawn to systems thinking, and also to mystical spiritual traditions which make ample room for paradox, complexity, and a deep understanding of our collective interbeing. We all unequivocally belong here.
I am curious about what biological and natural ecosystems might have to teach us about human-made systems, and I love learning about small creatures like nudibranchs, diatoms, and tardigrades.
I enjoy scuba diving, backpacking, singing and songwriting (I released a CD in college), reading and writing poetry, appreciating beauty in small things, and hanging out with my eight nieces and nephews. I recently took up stained glass making.
