David Smith
Boards are being asked to commit capital while the rules around inflation, rates and fiscal policy keep moving. Most macro commentary is either too academic to act on or too partisan to trust. Leaders need a reading of the UK and global economy that is grounded, non-aligned, and connected to what the next Budget, rate decision or geopolitical shift actually means for the year ahead.
David Smith is Economics Editor of The Sunday Times and helps boards and senior leaders read UK and global economic conditions in terms they can act on.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with David Smith
- More than three decades of reading the UK economy from inside the same national-press seat, which gives audiences a continuous interpretive line on monetary policy, fiscal cycles and recovery patterns that no rotating commentator can offer.
- A working journalist’s access. Smith writes the weekly Sunday Times economics column and a Times column, so briefings draw on live contact with policy thinkers, Treasury officials and City economists, not retrospective analysis.
- Authored catalogue covering the Thatcher-era monetarist experiment, the 2008 financial crisis, the China and India growth story, and post-crisis Britain. Few UK economics speakers can place a current decision against that depth of written record.
- Trusted by sector audiences for Budget and Spending Review briefings, including recurring briefings for the Disruptive Innovators Network in housing, which signals he reads as relevant to operational leaders, not just finance specialists.
- Academic credibility without academic remove: Honorary Professor at Nottingham and Visiting Professor at Cardiff, while still writing weekly for the national press.
Biography highlights
- Economics Editor of The Sunday Times since 1989; also chief leader-writer, assistant editor and policy adviser.
- Weekly columnist for The Times since 2016.
- Honorary Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham; Visiting Professor, Cardiff University.
- Author of Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics, The Dragon and the Elephant, The Age of Instability, Something Will Turn Up and earlier titles including The Rise and Fall of Monetarism and North and South.
- Harold Wincott, Senior Financial Journalist of the Year; Economics Commentator of the Year (2013); Business Journalist of the Year, London Press Awards (2014); Property Columnist of the Year.
- Highly Commended Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards (2008).
Biography
UK economic policy has been rewritten at least three times in a generation: the monetarist experiment, the response to the 2008 crash, and the post-pandemic reset of inflation, rates and public spending. Reading each of those shifts as they happened, in the same national newspaper column, is a rare position. That is the seat David Smith has held since 1989.
As Economics Editor of The Sunday Times, chief leader-writer and assistant editor, Smith writes the paper’s weekly economics column and contributes a separate weekly column to The Times. The work is grounded in continuous contact with Treasury officials, Bank of England watchers and City economists, which is why corporate audiences treat his Budget and Spending Review briefings as a baseline read rather than a comment piece.
His books extend that frame backwards and outwards. The Rise and Fall of Monetarism, From Boom to Bust and North and South, track the structural arguments inside the UK economy. The Dragon and the Elephant set out the China and India growth story before it was a consensus board topic. The Age of Instability and Something Will Turn Up read the 2008 crisis and its long tail. The catalogue gives him a historical baseline that most current commentators do not have.
Academic affiliations sit alongside the journalism rather than replacing it. Smith is Honorary Professor in Nottingham’s Faculty of Social Sciences and a Visiting Professor at Cardiff University, and has lectured at Nottingham’s Malaysia and Ningbo campuses. His awards record, including the Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year, the 2013 Economics Commentator of the Year and the 2014 Business Journalist of the Year at the London Press Awards, marks him as the commentator other commentators read.
Key speaking topics
- UK economic policy and the Budget
- Bank of England and interest rate outlook
- Global markets and the US Federal Reserve
- UK and Europe after Brexit
- UK housing and property markets
- China, India and the shifting global economic order
- Long-run outlook for the UK economy
Ideal for
- Boards and executive teams making capital allocation, hiring or pricing decisions against a moving macro picture
- CFOs, treasurers and heads of strategy are briefing leadership on the UK and global economic outlook
- Property, housing and real-estate leadership audiences planning against rate and policy cycles
- Annual conferences, partner meetings and client events are looking for a senior, non-partisan read of the UK economy
Audience outcomes
- A clear, current read of where UK growth, inflation and interest rates are heading and what is driving each
- A view on the next Budget or fiscal event and how it changes the operating environment
- A grounded sense of how UK conditions sit against US, European and Asian economic shifts
- Confidence in distinguishing genuine structural change from short-term political and market noise
- Specific reference points from three decades of UK economic cycles that audiences can use in their own planning conversations