Mary Ann Sieghart | |
---|---|
Born | Hammersmith, London, England | 6 August 1961
Occupation(s) | Journalist, broadcaster |
Notable credit(s) | The Times Newshour The Independent |
Spouse | David Prichard |
Children | 2 |
Relatives | William Sieghart (brother) |
Mary Ann Corinna Howard Sieghart (born 6 August 1961) [1] is an English author, journalist, radio presenter and former assistant editor of The Times , where she wrote columns about politics, social affairs and life in general. She has also written a weekly political column in The Independent . Her best-selling book, The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It, was published by Transworld/Doubleday in July 2021.
On BBC Radio 4, she has been a presenter of Start the Week and has also presented Fallout, Analysis, Profile, One to One and Beyond Westminster, as well as many one-off documentaries. [2] She is a visiting professor at King's College London and chaired the Social Market Foundation, an independent think tank, from 2010 to 2020. [1] She has been a non-executive director of the Ofcom Content Board, a member of the Tate Modern Council, and is currently a Non-Executive Director of the Guardian Media Group, non-executive director of two large FTSE investment trusts: Pantheon International and The Merchants Trust plc, and a Trustee of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Kennedy Memorial Trust. She was Chair of Judges for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022. In 2018, she was named as one of the Female FTSE 100 Women to Watch. [3]
She was appointed a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, for the academic year 2018–19, where she researched The Authority Gap. She has since been an Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford (2019–20) and a Senior Academic Visitor at Oriel College, Oxford (2020-21). She is now a visiting professor at King's College London.
Sieghart was born in Hammersmith, London in 1961, the daughter of Paul Sieghart, a Vienna-born human rights lawyer, campaigner, broadcaster and author, and Felicity Ann Olga Howard Sieghart (née Baer), [4] chairman of the National Association for Gifted Children, magistrate and later managing director of the Aldeburgh Cinema. Her father, whose parents divorced when he was two, was raised Catholic as his maternal grandfather Rudolf Sieghart (né Singer) had converted from Judaism. This did not prevent them from being persecuted by the Nazis, thus he and his mother fled to Switzerland and then England. [5]
Her older brother is William Sieghart. Sieghart was privately educated at both Cobham Hall School and Bedales School. [1] She won a scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford, when she was 16, and graduated with a first-class degree in Philosophy, politics and economics in 1982. [6] [7]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(August 2024) |
Sieghart's abilities were admired by Bill Deedes. Deedes hired her to work at The Daily Telegraph during the 1980 university summer vacation, where she spent time sub-editing, working on the "Peterborough" column and on features. She returned for subsequent vacations and again took on various roles, including writing some leaders. Deedes notes that "Let loose on the leader page, Mary Ann wove a sometimes startling liberal thread through the Daily Telegraph's blue tapestry." He offered her a job on graduation but simultaneously advised her to apply elsewhere because the Daily Telegraph was in financial trouble. [8]
After Oxford, Sieghart joined the Financial Times , where she became Eurobond Correspondent and then a Lex columnist. She spent a summer in 1984 working for The Washington Post , as the Laurence Stern Fellow. From the FT, she was recruited to be City Editor of Today newspaper at its launch in 1986. When it was taken over by Tiny Rowland, she moved to The Economist to be Political Correspondent. She also presented The World This Week on Channel 4.
In 1988, she joined The Times , as editor of the comment pages. During her time there, she was also Arts Editor, Chief Political leader-writer and acting editor of the paper on Mondays. In 1995, she chaired the revival of The Brains Trust on BBC2.
In 2003, Bill Hagerty, editor of the British Journalism Review , described Sieghart as "very talented" but criticised her assumption that broadsheet journalism in newspapers such as The Times was intrinsically better or more effective than tabloid journalism. [9] In 2007, she left The Times to pursue a portfolio career.[ citation needed ] From 2010 to 2012, she wrote the main opinion column in The Independent on Mondays.
Sieghart is a regular broadcaster. She was an occasional presenter of Start the Week on Radio 4 and presented Newshour on the BBC World Service from 2008 to 2010: she has also presented Analysis, Fallout, Profile, One to One and Beyond Westminster on Radio 4. She has often appeared on programmes such as Question Time , Any Questions , Newsnight , Today , The World Tonight and Woman's Hour . She was a regular co-presenter of Start the Week during the time Melvyn Bragg was the programme's main presenter and has been a guest presenter of The Week in Westminster and Dispatch Box.
Sieghart is visiting professor at King's College London and Non-Executive Director of the Guardian Media Group, Pantheon International and The Merchants Trust plc. She was Chair of Judges of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022. Until recently, she was chair of the Social Market Foundation, and also sat on the boards of the Henderson Smaller Companies Investment Trust, DLN Digital Ltd, the Council of Tate Modern and the Content Board of Ofcom. [2] She is senior trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, trustee of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and has previously served as a trustee of the Radcliffe Trust, Heritage Lottery Fund, steering committee member of the No Campaign and New Europe, member of the Advisory Board of the Social Studies Faculty at Oxford University and other voluntary posts. [1]
Sieghart, eligible for both Austrian and German citizenship, applied for German in 2018. [5]
Sieghart suffers from prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult to recognize familiar faces. [10] Her mother, husband, and one of her children suffer from the same condition. [11]
Helena Ann Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws,, is a Scottish barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords. She was Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, from 2011 to 2018. A Bencher of Gray's Inn, an Honorary Writer to the Signet and the recipient of 42 Honorary Degrees from many universities including those of Glasgow and Edinburgh in recognition of work on women and the law and on widening participation in higher education. She is President of Justice, the law reform think tank, and is also director of the International Bar Association's Institute of Human Rights.
Sir David Nicholas Cannadine is a British author and historian who specialises in modern history, Britain and the history of business and philanthropy. He is currently the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, a visiting professor of history at Oxford University, and the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He was president of the British Academy between 2017 and 2021, the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. He also serves as the chairman of the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery in London and vice-chair of the editorial board of Past & Present.
Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick, Baroness Hollick OBE is a British businesswoman and consultant with a wide-ranging involvement in broadcasting and the arts. A former investigative journalist, she worked for many years in television, where her roles included producer/director of World in Action for Granada TV and founding commissioning editor of Multicultural Programmes for Channel Four. As a campaigner for human rights, world health, literacy, and the arts, she serves as trustee or patron of a range of charities and foundations. She is founder and co-director of Bringing up Baby Ltd, a childcare company. Other causes and organisations with which she is associated include the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), the Leader's Quest Foundation, Complicité theatre company, Reprieve, the Free Word Centre, the Runnymede Trust and the SI Leeds Literary Prize. Of English and Trinidadian heritage, she is the wife of Clive Hollick, Baron Hollick, with whom she has three daughters.
Lisa Anne Jardine was a British historian of the early modern period.
Elizabeth Mary Purves, is a British radio presenter, journalist and author.
Zeinab Badawi is a Sudanese-British television and radio journalist. She was the first presenter of the ITV Morning News, and co-presented Channel 4 News with Jon Snow from 1989 to 1998 before joining BBC News. Badawi was the presenter of World News Today broadcast on both BBC Four and BBC World News, and Reporters, a weekly showcase of reports from the BBC. In 2021, Badawi was appointed as president of SOAS University of London.
Sarah Elizabeth Mary Hogg, Viscountess Hailsham, Baroness Hogg, is a British economist, journalist, and politician. She was the first woman to chair a FTSE 100 company.
Sara Catherine Nathan is a former British broadcaster who now sits on the boards of a number of public bodies.
The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is a registered charity founded in England in 1961. It is one of the larger independent grant-making foundations based in the UK, funding organisations which aim to improve the quality of life for people and communities in that country.
Dame Patricia Anne Hodgson is a British broadcasting executive, competition regulator, and academic administrator.
Stephen Ian Fairbairn was a British financier and rower who competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics, and later rose to the position of chairman of the M&G fund management company.
Felicity Anne Bryan was a British literary agent, the founder of Felicity Bryan Associates based in Oxford. She co-founded The Washington Post's Laurence Stern Fellowship. It was announced in June 2020 that the Fellowship was being renamed in her honour as the Stern-Bryan Fellowship.
William Matthew Timothy Stephen Sieghart is a British entrepreneur, publisher and philanthropist and the founder of the Forward Prizes for Poetry. He is former chairman of the Somerset House Trust.
Dame Colette Bowe is an English business woman and former civil servant.
Jonathan Glyn Mathias, is a British print and broadcasting journalist of over thirty years' standing. He was a lobby correspondent at Westminster for thirteen years, and is the former Political Editor of Independent Television News (1981–1986) and BBC Wales (1994–1999). He was the Electoral Commission's Commissioner for Wales (2001–2008), and as of 2013 is a member of OFCOM's Content Board and Chair of OFCOM's Advisory Committee for Wales.
Sir Thomas Michael Sydney Hughes-Hallett is a British barrister, investment banker and philanthropy executive. He serves as the Non-Executive Chair of the Marshall Institute at the London School of Economics and the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He promotes philanthropy, and argues for more ethical engagement within the City of London.
Giles Waterfield was a British, McKitterick Prize—winning novelist, art historian and curator.
Dame Sally Mapstone is a British academic who has been Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews since 2016.
Dame Stella Gordon Manzie is a British public servant.
Angela Dean is a British banker and trustee.