Sandra Navidi - SuperHubs - How the Financial Elite and Their Networks Rule our World

—BORIS COLLARDI, CEO of Bank Julius Bar, and author

“As a colleague, confidante, and sometimes critic of prominent financial personalities from Nouriel Roubini to George Soros, Sandra Navidi is in a unique position to observe the factors that give these titans their power. Though brainpower and personalities are important, Navidi shows how the networks they have developed are crucial. Her writing blends personal anecdote and wry observation with a sound grasp of the science of complex self-organizing systems, making $uperHubs a uniquely intelligent and engaging insight into financial power.”

—PROFESSOR STEVE KEEN, Head of the School of Economics, Politics and History at Kingston University London, and author

“$uperHubs is dedicated to a vitally important topic: the state of our financial system and its implications for society. To the non-expert reader, Sandra Navidi’s profound analysis of financial systems is made easily comprehensible by illustrating network science-theory with real-life examples. It makes for a tremendously informative and entertaining read. If you want to understand how our world works, this book is for you.”

—PROFESSOR DIMITAR D. SASSELOV, Phillips Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University, Director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, and author

“The 1 percent isn’t an abstraction; it’s people. And here they are, described with clarity, pity, horror, and sympathy by a woman who gained their confidence, traveled the globe as part of their inner circles, offered them counsel, and—after this book—will be remembered as the woman who revealed how they maintain their plutocracy.”

—PROFESSOR DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY Queens, author, and documentarian

“Power rests in the network—but the network itself is a complex and moving target. In this personal account of rising from outsider to insider among today’s levers of global power, Sandra Navidi explains how the many high-profile names, readers will recognize in these pages, are themselves hubs and connectors, and how their relations to each other are the bonds of influence that shape the world.”

—PARAG KHANNA, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, global strategist, author, Managing Partner of Hybrid Reality, and Cofounder & CEO of Factotum

“This book is unique in describing and analyzing the human behavior in the upper circles of the global financial system. I agree with the author that unethical behavior has aggravated the increasing wealth gap and social stratification, and thus has fundamentally shaken society’s trust in our financial system. The need for political action to save banks in the crisis of 2008, made clear that the financial system is not just a private sector but also a common good. It is this focus on the common good and the wellbeing of ordinary people that has to be considered in capitalism in general and in the financial sector in particular. This book will empower readers to advocate for change.”

—AART DE GEUS, Chairman and CEO, Bertelsmann Foundation, and author

“Whether a ski weekend in a luxury chalet in Davos or billion-dollar deals on Wall Street—the financial world’s exclusive networks make it possible. $uperHubs is a must-read for those who want to understand how these discrete circles tick, who the most important players, the “superhubs,” are who pull the strings behind the scenes, and how their networks should be reformed to avoid future global crises. Navidi describes vividly and without taboos how the financial elite have created their own cosmos and why it is about time we scrutinize the rules upon which this system is based.”

—ANNETTE HEUSER, CEO, Professor Otto Beisheim Foundation

“Taking an original—and innovative—approach, Sandra Navidi applies network science as a conceptual lens to explain the financial system’s structure. Using personal anecdotes, she illustrates how network dynamics play out in practice and substantiates the far-reaching economic and social implications with further research. $uperHubs is a timely and stimulating reflection on the ramifications of globalization driven by exclusive networks, and an important contribution to the public discourse.”

—STEVEN E. SOKOL, President American Council on Germany

“Sandra Navidi has been a keen observer of the world’s financial power elite for many years. Her book $uperHubs deftly takes the reader through the global and societal consequences of those people’s relationships, power, and money.”

—BILL BROWDER, Cofounder and CEO of Hermitage

Capital Management, human rights activist, and author

“$uperHubs is indispensable for readers who want to understand the financial world’s dynamics. As a financial markets expert, Sandra Navidi is predestined to explain complex economic and financial issues as she has successfully demonstrated for years as an expert on n-tv. Her fascinating insider’s perspective reveals complex linkages among the financial elite and the resulting far-reaching consequences. $uperHubs is a blockbuster!”

—HANS DEMMEL, CEO of n-tv (RTL Group)

“Sandra Navidi is intimately familiar with the financial power brokers and describes them straightforwardly in her book $uperHubs. Superhubs are the people who by virtue of their many superb connections have become gravitational centers in the international financial universe. Sandra Navidi grants us insights into the characters who currently rule our world. She correctly points out that those who influence financial markets influence the entire world. We will see how financial oligarchs—who may be at their zenith, or are perhaps facing their coming demise—tick and how they have instrumentalized most governments to realize their interests. We will see how it has been possible for financial power and wealth to accrue in ever fewer hands. Towards the end, Sandra Navidi suggests solutions. Ultimately, reform can only successfully be achieved through the primacy of politics, but we are very far away from that. $uperHubs demonstrates how far off.”

—PROFESSOR MAX OTTE, University of Applied Sciences, Worms; head of the Cologne-based IFVE; and author

“Money + information + social capital = infinite opportunities. That’s the magic formula of the financial elite according to Sandra Navidi. She vividly describes how homogeneous alpha males maximize their opportunities at glamorous parties and exclusive conferences. Readers will wish that this type of financial elite will disappear, or at the very least, include more women.”

—PROFESSOR THOMAS MAYER, former Chief Economist of

Deutsche Bank Group, Head of Deutsche Bank Research, and author

“Sandra Navidi has written an absorbing portrayal of the financial elite’s power structures. The internationally renowned financial expert takes readers to the world’s power epicenters, where an exclusive circle of the most influential people, the “superhubs,” rules the world. She demonstrates conclusively how the financial elite’s power self-perpetuates. While her analysis is sometimes benevolent and sometimes critical, it is always differentiated. $uperHubs is a definite “buy”!”

—DIRK MÜLLER, financial markets expert, and author

$UPERHUBS

How the Financial Elite and Their Networks Rule Our World

SANDRA NAVIDI

First published in German in 2016 as Super-hubs: Wie die Finanzelite und ihre Netzwerke die Welt regieren by FinanzBuch Verlag