Ardern thinks world leaders need more kindness

NEW ZEALAND

- ALISHA HARIDASANI GUPTA

It is easy to forget that Jacinda Ardern is a former prime minister of New Zealand.

Standing in line at a cafe in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wearing a suit by New Zealand designer Juliette Hogan, with sneakers and gold hoops, she flashes a disarming smile and says to call her “just Jacinda”. As she orders a cappuccino the cashier wonders why she looks so familiar. Was she, by any chance, that person on TV? “Toni Collette?” they ask, referring to an Australian actress.

Ms Ardern, without security detail, waves off the misidentification and doesn't set the record straight.

The cafe is a 10-minute walk from Harvard University, where Ms Ardern, who resigned as prime minister in 2023, now holds three fellowships. In the aftermath of her voluntary resignation, she married her longtime partner, Clarke Gayford, and temporarily moved her family to Massachusetts.

The day before we met, students and faculty had gathered for their commencement and remnants of the ceremony are everywhere: tents, stacks of foldable chairs lying in yards and students milling around with cardboard boxes. The ceremony capped a school year in which the institution has been entangled in a legal standoff with the Trump administration over allegations of antisemitism, with federal funding and the visas of international students enrolled at the university in jeopardy.

It is in that tense environment that Mr Ardern, who during her time in power was frequently referred to as the “anti-Trump”, is publishing her memoir, A Different Kind of Power. The book, which was released last Tuesday, makes the case that leading with empathy and kindness might be the solution for a range of global crises — an argument that has also been the subject of one of her fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School. Whether such a book will resonate in a highly charged moment is an open question.