Oliver Kamm
Boards are being asked to make capital, hiring and supply decisions on the basis of macro-economic and geopolitical signals their executive teams are not trained to read. Most internal economics commentary either oversimplifies or hides behind jargon. What leaders need is a translator who can sit between the data, the politics and the room.
Oliver Kamm is a Times leader writer and former City strategist who explains the global economy and international politics in language a board can act on.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Oliver Kamm
- He has lived on both sides of the analyst’s desk. Twenty years at the Bank of England, HSBC Securities and Commerzbank Securities, then sixteen years and counting writing The Times leaders on economics and foreign affairs. He reads the data the way a strategist does and frames it the way an editor does.
- His weekly Times economics column is a primary reference point for British policy debate, which means audiences are hearing the same analysis Westminster, the City and Whitehall are reading the next morning.
- Authored Accidence Will Happen, endorsed by Steven Pinker as “a unique and indispensable guide to usage”, a credential that signals the rigour he brings to argument and language as well as numbers.
- He moves cleanly between keynote, panel moderation and after-dinner formats, which lets a single booking cover macro briefing, on-stage interrogation of a CEO and a sharper closing address.
Biography highlights
- Leader writer and columnist at The Times since 2008, covering economics and international affairs.
- Twenty-year City career: Bank of England, HSBC Securities (European Equity Strategist), Commerzbank Securities (Head of Strategic Research) and founder of WMG Advisors LLP.
- Author of Anti-Totalitarianism (Social Affairs Unit, 2005), Accidence Will Happen (W&N, 2015) and Mending the Mind (2021).
- Regular contributor on Newsnight, The Today Programme, Channel 4 News, The Daily Politics, Radio 5 Live and Sky News.
- Bylines in The Guardian, Prospect, The New York Times and The Jewish Chronicle.
- Educated at New College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, University of London.
Biography
The case for booking a serious economics voice for a senior audience usually comes down to translation. Boards are not short of data. They are short of a credible reader of the data who can take a position without flinching, and explain it in language a non-economist will repeat in a meeting the next day.
That is the role Kamm has occupied at The Times since 2008. He writes a twice-weekly economics column and is the paper’s principal leader writer on economics and international affairs, which means his analysis sits inside the daily editorial line of one of the few British newspapers still read across Westminster, the City and Whitehall.
Before journalism he spent two decades inside the markets he now writes about. Bank of England, HSBC Securities as European Equity Strategist, Commerzbank Securities as Head of Strategic Research, then WMG Advisors LLP, which he founded in 2004. The City background shapes how he reads policy. Capital flows, currency exposure and the actual mechanics of investment decisions are not abstractions when he speaks about them.
He is also a working author outside economics. Accidence Will Happen, his 2015 guide to English usage drawn from his Times “Pedant” column, was praised by Steven Pinker for relying on “scholarship rather than dogma”. Mending the Mind followed in 2021. The range matters: it is the reason he holds a room as moderator or after-dinner speaker as confidently as he does in a macro keynote.
Key speaking topics
- Global economy and macro outlook
- International politics and policy
- The British economy and public policy
- Markets, capital flows and the City
- Media, journalism and editorial judgement
- Language, communication and clear writing
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees taking capital allocation or geographic-exposure decisions under macro and geopolitical uncertainty
- CFOs, treasurers and risk leads briefing internal audiences on the British and global outlook
- Conference programme owners needing one person to keynote, moderate the CEO panel and close the dinner
Audience outcomes
- A clear, defensible read of the current macro and geopolitical picture, framed for non-economists
- A working sense of which signals in financial markets and policy actually matter for the year ahead
- Sharper questions to ask of internal economics and strategy briefings
- Confidence in the editorial framing of the company’s own external communication on economics and policy