She wrote the dissertation "Economic Statecraft: United States Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Policy" to obtain her PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1991[1] and was the commencement speaker at LSE in 2013 and 2016.

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, The Institute for International Strategic Security and the Royal Geographical Society.

She served as a non-executive board member of the Department for International Trade in the British Government from 2016-2019.

Malmgren is the author of Geopolitics for Investors, Signals: How Everyday Signs Help Us Navigate the World's Turbulent Economy, The Leadership Lab (winner of the 2019 Business Book of the Year Award) and The Infinite Leader (winner of the 2021 International Press Award for Best Book on Leadership).

[3] Her father is Harald Malmgren,[4] who served as a senior aide to US Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford.