Gillian Romaine Tett (born 10 July 1967) is a British author and journalist who is provost of King's College, Cambridge and a member of the editorial board for the Financial Times. She writes weekly columns, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues. Tett co-founded Moral Money, the paper's sustainability newsletter.
Her work covering the 2008 financial crisis received extensive media attention for its prescient coverage of the financial instruments that led to the 2008 financial crisis.
Tett was born on 10 July 1967 and attended the private North London Collegiate School in the London Borough of Harrow. Aged 17, she worked for a Pakistani nonprofit.
Tett studied at the University of Cambridge at Clare College, graduating in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Archaeology and Anthropology. She was subsequently awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in social anthropology in 1996 for field research in Tajikistan in the former Soviet Union. She expressed frustration with the discipline of academic anthropology which, in accordance with the prevailing postmodernism, had become so self-critical that she felt it was committing "intellectual suicide". Instead, she pursued a career in journalism.
In 1993, Tett joined the Financial Times as a correspondent from the former Soviet Union and Europe. In 1997, she was posted to Tokyo, where she later became bureau chief. In 2003, she became deputy head of the Lex column. Tett was then U.S. managing editor at the FT, before working as an assistant editor and columnist before returning to the U.S. managing editor position.
From 2005 to 2007, Tett conducted ethnographic research on the American banking institution J.P. Morgan and discovered that the insular culture was leading to the creation of financial instruments that had little basis and that could cause severe economic disruption. In a series of articles in the Financial Times between 2006–07, she wrote about the dangers posed by securitization and financial derivatives, and the unreliability of credit rating agencies. Her 2009 book Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe recounts the lead-up to the economic crisis and the eventual collapse. She also played a significant role in the 2010 documentary Inside Job about the 2008 financial crisis. The book won the Spear's Book Award for the financial book of 2009.
Anthro-Vision, a New Way to See in Life and Business, was published in June 2021.
In February 2023, she was appointed Provost of King's College, Cambridge. where she has served since October 2023, succeeding Michael Proctor.
2007, Wincott prize for financial journalism (capital markets coverage)
2008, Business Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards
2009, Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards
2009, Financial Book of the Year (for Fool's Gold)
2011, President's Medal of the British Academy.
2012, Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for best feature article, for Madoff spins his story
2013, Honorary doctorate, Baruch College of the City University of New York
2015, Honorary degree, Lancaster University
2016, Honorary degree, University of Exeter.
2016, Honorary degree, University of Miami