David McWilliams
About
About David McWilliams - International Economist, Journalist, Author and Broadcaster:
David McWilliams is one of Ireland's leading economic commentators and was the first economist to identify the Irish boom as nothing more than a credit bubble, warning of its collapse and the consequences for the country. His objective is to make economics as widely available and easily understandable on as many platforms as possible. He was made Young Global Leader by the WEF at Davos. His daily financial markets update, www.globalmacro360 is read by tens of thousands of his 96,000 twitter followers.
He is an economist, writer, journalist, lecturer, broadcaster and documentary maker and has written four bestsellers, presented award-winning documentaries and brought a sell-out, one-man economics stand-up show to Ireland's renowned national theatre, the Abbey. He writes two economics columns a week in the Irish newspapers.
David's founded the world's only economics and comedy festival www.kilkenomics.com. In 2013, Kilkenomics was described by the Financial Times in the following simple terms; we've been to lots of festivals and conferences, but Kilkenomics may be the best.
David teaches an online economics course, Economics without and Boundaries
and, his series of animated economics videos, Punk Economics
has been viewed by 500,000 people.
Once upon a time he had a real job working as an economist in the Irish Central Bank and later in the financial markets with UBS and Banque Nationale de Paris. He studied economics at Trinity College Dublin and the College of Europe in Bruges.
Topics and Audience Takeaways
What David McWilliams Talks About:
Economics: The Business of Everyday Life
To most people, economics feels like a foreign language – too technical, too detached, too…boring. But what if economics was actually the most important set of tools we have for decoding the world around us? In eye-opening and entertaining presentations, economist and bestselling author David McWilliams pulls back the curtain on how economics shapes the choices we make every day, from how we shop and save to how we vote, love and build community. With stories drawn from his top-ranked podcast and decades of global market experience, McWilliams shows how economics is fundamentally a story not about markets or models, but about people. Audiences leave this talk equipped with the ability to make sense of anything happening in the world and explain it to others through a new, clearer lens – what McWilliams calls “social ammunition.” Gifted with a flair for injecting humor into even the driest of charts and forecasts, McWilliams presents economics like you’ve never heard it before: accessible, actionable and unforgettable.
Money: The Most Powerful Technology Ever Invented
From Mesopotamian clay tablets to Bitcoin wallets, the history of money is the history of human civilization. In this electrifying presentation drawn from his international bestseller “Money: A Story of Humanity” (titled “The History of Money” in the U.S., set for release in November 2025), David McWilliams traces how money transformed us from tribal groups into complex societies, unlocking religion, rule of law, writing and everything we now associate with modern life. But unlike most economists, McWilliams doesn’t treat money as math, but as magic. As he explains in deeply researched and engaging sessions, money is collaborative, social, degenerate, sexy and profoundly misunderstood. With humor and storytelling prowess, McWilliams’ highly entertaining and provocative presentations make the sociology of money come alive to show leaders how financial systems shape geopolitics, identity and generational opportunity. More than a history lesson, audiences walk away with a fresh understanding on why the next phase of economic evolution – from crypto to climate pricing – demands that we understand money not only as currency, but as a culture.
Recent Publications
Thank you so much for presenting at our Annual Investment Summit last week. We have been putting on this event for several years now, and judging by the feedback from our guests, this year was the best yet and your contribution clearly helped make it so. Your presentation was perfectly pitched and brought exactly what we had hoped to the Summit.
Neil Woodford, Head of UK Equities, Invesco Perpetual
