Anthony Hilton
Boards are taking strategic decisions against a financial backdrop most leadership teams no longer feel fluent in. Interest rates, pensions liabilities, corporate governance and market sentiment have all moved from the finance function to the top of the agenda. Senior teams want a reading of the City, the economy and the press coverage around them that connects to the decisions they are actually making.
Anthony Hilton is Senior Commentator for The Independent and The London Standard and one of Britain’s longest-serving business journalists, helping leadership teams read the City, the economy and the pensions landscape with the clarity of a working columnist rather than a textbook.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Anthony Hilton
- Five decades inside the City press, from trainee on The Guardian in 1968 to City Editor of The Times and the Evening Standard, give audiences a working memory of how UK financial crises, regulatory shifts and market cycles actually play out.
- A named position of record. As Senior Commentator for The Independent and The Standard his arguments on markets, pensions and the economy are already in public circulation, so organisations get a writer whose views are testable.
- Specific authority on pensions and long-term savings, an area he has covered as a weekly columnist for more than 30 years and on which he has been singled out by UK pensions industry awards.
- A track record of calling the 2008 crash, recognised by the University of Aberdeen with an honorary degree in 2010 for articles from 2005 to 2007 warning that the financial system was heading for trouble.
- Deep fluency in corporate and financial communication, drawn from his book How to Communicate Financial Information to Employees and a career running the editorial operation at the Evening Standard as Managing Director.
Biography highlights
- Senior Commentator for The Independent and The London Standard, writing on markets, pensions, investor relations and the economy.
- Former City Editor of The Times (1981 to 1983) and City Editor of the Evening Standard (1984 to 1989), then Managing Director of the Evening Standard from 1989.
- Author of City Within a State: A Portrait of Britain’s Financial World, a study of how the City of London really works.
- Wincott Prize for Business Journalism; Business Journalist of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Financial Journalism at the 2014 ABI Financial Media Awards; Association of British Insurers Commentator of the Year (twice); Decade of Excellence Award, World Press Awards, 2007.
- Honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen, 2010, for services to journalism, including articles from 2005 to 2007 predicting the financial crash; MA in Economics, University of Aberdeen.
- Joint founder and past non-executive chairman of Newsdesk Media Group; Visiting Professor in Economics at London Metropolitan University, 2010 to 2012; former Editor of Accountancy Age.
Biography
The 1970s sterling story, the 1980s Big Bang, the dotcom crash, the 2008 banking collapse and the pensions and inflation shocks since: the same journalist has covered them in real time for a general reader, inside the British national press. That continuity is unusual, and it is the reason senior audiences listen when Anthony Hilton explains what is happening in the City.
He joined Fleet Street in 1968 as a trainee on The Guardian, moved to New York in 1978 as Business Correspondent for the Sunday Times, and returned in 1981 to become City Editor of The Times. From 1984 he was City Editor of the Evening Standard, then its Managing Director from 1989, before returning to writing. He is now Senior Commentator for The Independent and The London Standard.
The published argument is the other half of the case. City Within a State set out how the City of London actually works as a system of firms, regulators and capital flows. How to Communicate Financial Information to Employees codified what he has observed boards and finance chiefs get wrong when talking about money to their own people. His weekly columns on pensions, investor relations and the economic outlook have run for more than 30 years.
The recognition is from bodies that matter in the field. The Wincott Prize for Business Journalism, Business Journalist of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Financial Journalism at the 2014 ABI Financial Media Awards, and Commentator of the Year from the Association of British Insurers, twice. The University of Aberdeen awarded him an honorary degree in 2010 in recognition of columns from 2005 to 2007 that warned the financial system was heading for serious trouble.
Key speaking topics
- UK economic outlook and policy
- City of London, markets and investor relations
- Pensions, long-term savings and retirement policy
- Corporate governance and financial communication
- Financial journalism and the media view of business
- Economic history and lessons from past UK financial crises
Ideal for
- Boards and CEOs in financial services, asset management, insurance and pensions needing an informed macro and markets read
- CFOs, heads of investor relations and corporate communications teams preparing for scrutiny from the City press
- Pensions trustees, scheme sponsors and providers running strategy or member communication programmes
- Conferences and industry dinners needing a senior City commentator as host, moderator or after-dinner speaker
Audience outcomes
- A clearer read on how UK economic policy, Bank of England decisions and market conditions intersect with their own sector
- A working columnist’s view on how the City press is interpreting their industry and their company
- Named historical reference points for making sense of current market and pensions stress
- A sharper frame on pensions and long-term savings policy for employers and trustees
- An argument on where the UK economy is heading and what that implies for strategy and communication