World Traders

Edwina started her career in academia, before switching to that ever-admired profession, journalism. She was Diplomatic Editor of The Economist until 2010, having worked at the paper since 1980. During that time, she covered a wide range of foreign-policy and international-security issues.

Edwina is a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of World Traders. She has served on the European Advisory Group of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, been a member of the Ditchley Programme Committee and served on the Councils or Advisory Councils of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life at Christ Church, Oxford, and Wilton Park. She has previously served also as Director, Trustee and Chairman of Trustees of VERTIC, an NGO working in treaty verification. She was a member of the Advisory Group for the then FCO/DfID Know-How Fund for the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

A Mancunian by birth, Edwina has lived in London for more than 40 years, becoming involved in the Livery only after leaving journalism. She was educated at Bradford University (BA, German and Russian), Strathclyde University (MSc, Political Science) and Glasgow University (PhD, Soviet and East European Studies). She was a Harkness Fellow 1976-78, spending two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies (and in the process learning, among other useful things, how to calculate the kill-probability of a missile re-entry vehicle on her ladies’ slide rule). On returning to the UK, she was appointed Lecturer in Soviet Politics and Comparative Communist Government at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, before joining The Economist. In addition to her journalism, she has in the dim and distant past written, edited and co-edited a number of books and other publications.

Edwina was appointed OBE by Queen Elizabeth. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate of the University from the University of Birmingham.