Spear’s Review

The first woman to become editor-in-chief of the Economist joined the influential title (which still insists on calling itself a ‘newspaper’) in 1994 as an emerging markets correspondent.

After reading PPE at Oxford (St Hilda’s) Zanny Minton Beddoes studied at Harvard before taking up a role as an adviser to the minister of finance in Poland and later joining the IMF. Having become a journalist, she worked her way up the ranks at the Economist and became editor-in-chief in 2015.

The single largest shareholder of the Economist Group is the Agnelli family, through its holding company Exor. Other notable shareholders include the Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroder and Layton families.

In 2023 alone, Minton Beddoes interviewed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, statesman Henry Kissinger and JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon.

‘We have significant influence,’ Minton Beddoes told Vanity Fair that year. ‘And because we have that, we also have extraordinary access.’

In 2025, the Economist launched a new ‘premium video product’, The Economist Insider, which it promised would provide ‘front-row access to the spirited debates and candid conversations behind the Economist’s world-class journalism’, with several regular shows – including one hosted by Minton Beddoes herself. 

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