The Curious Economics Of Authenticity

Find out more about this event on our website: https://bit.ly/3WjobK1 We live in an age when the pursuit of authenticity – from living your ‘best life’ to eating artisan food – matters more than ever before, and yet we have created a world riddled with inauthenticities, from counterfactual conspiracies to the carefully curated profiles that dominate social media. Authenticity itself has become a valuable commodity, with companies variously packaging it as a new form of conspicuous consumption or using it as a handy adjunct to reputation management. In her award-winning Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality In A Counterfeit Culture, Alice Sherwood describes how our counterfeit culture has been shaped by the powerful forces of evolution, economics, and technology. Taking examples from worlds as varied as the art market, elk hunting, luxury brands, and Isaac Newton’s battles against counterfeiters - as well as the tale of the ‘authentic’ drinks brand that was anything but – she argues that we can still come together to reclaim reality. Speaker: Alice Sherwood is currently a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at The Policy Institute at King’s College London, director of an open-source intelligence company, and author of the award-wining Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality In A Counterfeit Culture. Alice has worked as a management consultant for Accenture, in retail strategy consultancy and private equity, and for the BBC in multimedia and education. She has undergraduate degrees in philosophy and in chemistry, an MBA from INSEAD, and an MA in literary criticism and narrative non-fiction. She chairs the Rising Tide women’s network, and lives in London and Wales.