Entering the information society, characterized by the intensive implementation of innovative technologies (robotics, artificial intelligence, additive technologies, big data, cloud computing, augmented reality, etc.), business and government increasingly pay attention to the problem of strategic talent management, starting with professional selection, diagnostics (identification), adaptation, retention and ending with training, development, promotion, motivation and control. Along with specific methods for determining the outstanding abilities of an individual, with a wide range of HR tools, the political and economic conditions of strategic talent management have a decisive influence. In particular, if we resort to the currently widespread PESTEL analysis, it becomes obvious that political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors largely shape conceptual and methodological approaches to strategic talent management. A talented person, from our point of view, arises as a response of society to the challenge of the era. It is he who creates the socio-cultural environment, builds relationships with the authorities and other socio-political forces, creates innovative tools and technologies (regardless of the sphere of their application), changes the boundaries of the legal field (talent is freedom-loving by nature). These circumstances, in turn, most significantly affect the relationship between man and society, determine his needs and interests. Traditionally, Russian literature, which to a certain extent took on the functions of Russian philosophy, raises the theme of the disgraced hero, and then the «superfluous man» and, finally, the «little man», each of whom is in a complex relationship with society. Recently, in modern history, the subject of research in social and humanitarian science has become the «mass man», as well as the other extreme - the «leader». In the context of behavioral economics, we believe it is extremely important to analyze the transformation of a new economic subject from a mass man into an intellectual leader - a key driver of an innovative breakthrough in the conditions of a systemic crisis, which is the purpose of this article