How did you get to where you are?
I began at Euromoney magazine, then Business magazine, the Sunday Times business desk, its Insight investigative team, and then the Sunday Express. I then moved to the Independent on Sunday, spending four years as a Westminster correspondent and was made deputy editor under Rosie Boycott.
What are your main tasks?
Editing the business pages, writing articles, writing a column and weekly profile.
What are the most important things you need to do this job?
You need to be able to decide very quickly if something is important and not. That comes from experience and intuition. We are often on our own on the Standard. We are first with the news, so I have to make decisions on business stories.
Advice for rookies?
You need to have an interest in business and how money is made, the dynamics of the City, how people interact and not be afraid of tackling the rich and powerful. Anthony Bevins [legendary Independent political editor who died in 2001] told me the best piece of advice I ever got early on: ‘Never walk past a bin without looking inside it, never walk past a photocopier without lifting the lid.”
Best and worst aspects of your job?
The best thing is that I have a very good team and we like to think that we set the agenda for the City and the other papers follow us. I do get to meet lots of fascinating and interesting people.
The things I don’t like are that it’s relentless, there’s never a day when nothing happens. And the truth is that while there are people who are fascinating and interesting, there are an awful lot of people who earn an awful lot of money who are quite dull.
Interview by Patrick Smith
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