Nicholas Gruen (born 1957) is a prominent Australian economist and commentator on economic reform, innovation and the CEO of Lateral Economics. He is a visiting professor at King's College London's Policy Institute. He was formerly chair of the Australian Centre for Social Innovation, the Australian Government's Innovation Australia and Kaggle. Former Australian Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner called him "Australia's foremost public intellectual" while Martin Wolf described him as "the most brilliant economist you've never heard of".