Lucy Kellaway | |
|---|---|
 Kellaway in 2016 | |
| Born | (1959-06-26)26 June 1959 (age 66) London, England |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist teacher |
| Known for | Management columnist at theFinancial Times |
| Spouse | David Goodhart (separated) |
| Children | 4 |
Lucy KellawayOBE (born 26 June 1959) is a Britishjournalist turned teacher. She remains listed as a managementcolumnist at theFinancial Times (FT),[1] and became a trainee teacher in a secondary school in 2017.
She is a co-founder of the educational charity Now Teach.[2] During her career in journalism, she has worked as energy correspondent, Brussels correspondent, aLex writer, and interviewer of business people and celebrities, all with theFT. She is best known for her satirical commentaries on the limitations of moderncorporate culture. She was a regular commentator on theBBC World Service daily business programmeBusiness Daily.
Kellaway was born in London, a daughter of Australians Bill and Deborah Kellaway. Deborah was a writer on gardening.[3] Her sister is the critic andThe Observer writerKate Kellaway.[3] Kellaway attendedCamden School for Girls, where her mother taught English, and thenLady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she readPhilosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).[4]
After initially working at theforeign exchange dealing room ofMorgan Guaranty[5] and at theInvestors Chronicle,[6] Kellaway won the Wincott Young Financial Journalist Award in 1984.[7][8][9]
From 1985, she worked for theFT, where she wrote the Monday column "Lucy Kellaway on Management". Some years later, a satirical column purporting to be the emails ofMartin Lukes, a senior manager in a company called A&B (later expensively re-branded to a-b glöbâl) would appear on Thursdays.[6] It was revealed in 2005 that these were written by Kellaway (see below). At theBritish Press Awards 2006, Kellaway was named Columnist of the Year.[7][9]
She wrote the "Dear Lucy" column,[10] in which she adopts the point of view of a businessagony aunt in response to letters sent by readers.
Kellaway has won the Work Foundation's Workworld Media Award twice.[7][11]
Kellaway wrote the management bookSense and Nonsense in the Office which was published in 1999.
Her second book was a satirical novel in emails:Martin Lukes: Who Moved MyBlackBerry? (July 2005).
Martin Lukes stands for every male manager trying to scramble to the top of the greasy pole. He is driven by ambition. He has little self-doubt—and even less self-knowledge. He thinks of himself as highly emotionally intelligent but has no idea how he is coming across. He is hungry for money, but more hungry for recognition. He wants people to love him and to be dazzled by his ability to "think outside the square," yet the ideas he comes up with are phony and pedestrian. He is a shameless player of the political game who manages by being a world-class brownnoser to disguise the fact that his native abilities are not quite as world-class as he would like.[12]
On the launch of a redesignedFT in April 2007, the editor listed Kellaway (and Lukes) as the second of five key items of unique content as reasons for reading theFT.[13]The Answers: All the office questions you never dared to ask was published in paperback in late 2007.
In 2010, Kellaway published the novelIn Office Hours. The book described the ill-advised love affairs of two women working for a large oil company. Like much of Kellaway's work, it dealt with office mores, but also displayed an emotional range that surprised some readers who were more used to the pure parody of Martin Lukes.In Office Hours was serialised onBBC Radio 4'sBook at Bedtime and described as "funny, truthful and cracking satire" byThe Sunday Times. It was favourably reviewed inThe Observer.[14]
In November 2016, it became known that Kellaway was leaving theFinancial Times. From summer 2017 she worked as a maths teacher in a "challenging" London secondary school. She will still write 12 articles a year for her old paper.[15] "I'm not remotely repentant about what I've done", Kellaway wrote inThe Times in November 2017. "Since September 1, I have not been bored for one second. I am so interested in what I am doing that I have become a bore to my old friends".[2] In 2018 Kellaway announced that she was turning her back on maths to teach children business studies instead, a decision she has written about in the Financial Times.[16]
Whilst training to teach in 2017, Kellaway co-founded the charity Now Teach with social entrepreneur Katie Waldegrave.[17]
After her first year, Kellaway transitioned from teaching maths to teaching business studies and economics part-time. She said that "maths wasn’t right for me, it was too long ago since I’d done it" and that her move to working part time was due to working full time being "unendurably hard work".[18] As of 2024 she teaches atNewcastle Sixth Form College.[19]
In 2006 she was appointed a non-executive director of the insurance companyAdmiral Group.[20] On 20 July 2012, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex.[21]
Kellaway was a regular contributor to theBBC World Service programmeBusiness Daily.[22] ForBBC Radio 4, she wrote and presented a series of ten daily 15-minute programmes on theHistory of Office Life in 2013, and the seriesThe Joy of 9 to 5 in 2015. She has podcasted her FT columns since 2007.[23]
Kellaway was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the2021 Birthday Honours for services to education.[24]
Kellaway was married toDavid Goodhart, the former editor ofProspect; the couple separated in 2015.[25] She has four children.
