Gillian Tett
Gillian Romaine Tett (born 10 July 1967) is a British author and journalist. She is the chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large, US of the Financial Times. She writes weekly columns, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues and co-founded Moral Money, the FT sustainability newsletter. She has written about the financial instruments that were part of the cause of the financial crisis that started in the fourth quarter of 2007, such as CDOs, credit default swaps, SIVs, conduits, and SPVs. She became renowned for her early warning that a financial crisis was looming. Since October 2023 she has also been Provost of King's College, Cambridge. Early life and education Tett was born on 10 July 1967. She was educated at the North London Collegiate School, an independent school for girls in Edgware, in the London Borough of Harrow in northwest London, during which time, at the age of 17, she worked for a Pakistani nonprofit. After leaving school, Tett studied at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Archaeology and Anthropology. She then undertook a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Social Anthropology based on field research in Tajikistan in the former Soviet Union. Her doctoral thesis was titled "Ambiguous alliances: marriage and identity in a Muslim village in Soviet Tajikstan". She expressed frustration with an academic anthropology career that in her view was like committing "intellectual suicide" and decided instead to pursue a career in journalism. Life and career In 1993, Tett joined the Financial Times as a correspondent from the former Soviet Union and Europe. In 1997, she was posted to Tokyo, where she later became bureau chief. In 2003, she became deputy head of the Lex column. Tett was then U.S. managing editor at the FT, before working as an assistant editor and columnist before returning to the U.S. managing editor position. She is also the chairwoman of the board of trustees for the Knight–Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism with Columbia University. During the years 2005 to 2007, Tett applied her skills in ethnographic research to J.P. Morgan and discovered that the insular culture was leading to the creation of financial instruments that had little basis and that could cause severe economic disruption. In a series of articles in the Financial Times between 2006-07, she wrote about the dangers posed by securitization and financial derivatives, and the unreliability of credit rating agencies. Her 2009 book Fool's Gold recounts the lead-up to the economic crisis and the eventual collapse. She also played a significant role in the 2010 documentary Inside Job about the financial crisis of 2008. In 2010 Tett interviewed author Sebastian Mallaby on C-SPAN about his book More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite providing a very clear image of hedge funds. Mallaby introduced "James Simons, founder of the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund and arguably the most successful investor of all time" but who was virtually