Mary Childs (journalist)

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Mary Childs
Mary childs 5213071.jpg
Childs at 2022 Gaithersburg Book Festival
Born
Alma mater Washington and Lee University
OccupationsFinancial journalist and author
Notable workThe Bond King (2022)
Spouse
Scott Lane
(m. 2017)
Website marychilds.com

Mary Childs is an American financial journalist and author. She is known for writing The Bond King (2022), a biography of retired investor Bill H. Gross, and is currently co-host for Planet Money .

Contents

Early life

Mary Dryden Childs was raised in Richmond, Virginia. [1] Her father Eugene M. Childs Jr. was a project director at Union Bank & Trust, and Margaret Noftsinger Childs taught at St. Catherine's School, which Mary attended. Childs attended Washington and Lee University, and in 2006 studied at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. She graduated from Washington and Lee with a degree in business journalism in 2008. [2] She wrote her honors thesis on the use of media sting operations in India and the United States. [3]

While at Washington and Lee, she wrote for The Trident student newspaper and was editor-at-large of InGeneral. She was also a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Childs was a Thomas J. Watson Fellow in 20082009, and travelled internationally to complete her "The Eye of the Beholder: The Cartography of Faces" project. [2]

Career

Bloomberg News

In 2009, Childs joined Bloomberg News as a print, television, and radio reporter, [3] where she later befriended fellow financial reporter Matt Levine. [4] While at Bloomberg, Childs became notable as a prominent financial reporter. Together with Stephanie Ruhle and Bradley Keoun, she broke the story of Bruno Iksil, nicknamed "the London Whale", and his involvement in the 2012 JPMorgan Chase trading loss. [5]

She was a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award in 2013. [6] Childs' article "Blackstone Unit Wins in No-Lose Codere Trade" was included in the The New Yorker 's list of "The Best Business Journalism of 2013", and was the subject of an episode of The Daily Show . [7]

In 2014, she received a general excellence award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. [8] She received the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award in 2015. [3]

Financial Times, Barron's, and Planet Money

Childs was the United States financial correspondent for the Financial Times until 2017. [9] She also contributed to publications such as Harper's Magazine , [10] and The New York Times , where she broke the news that Bill H. Gross had reached a settlement in his lawsuit against PIMCO, the company he co-founded. [11] She completed a trip to China and Hong Kong in 2018 as part of the East–West Center's exchange program. [12]

She was a senior reporter for Barron's until 2019, when she became the co-host of NPR 's Planet Money . [13] She also writes the newsletter off the run. [14]

In 2022, she was nominated for the Gerald Loeb Award for her coverage of investment in mobile home parks, [15] and received a Gracie Award for her coverage of the Indian farmers' protest. [16] Childs received the Arthur F. Burns fellowship from the International Center for Journalists in 2023. [17]

The Bond King (2022)

In 2022, she published The Bond King, a biography of Bill H. Gross, through Flatiron Books. The book received positive reviews from critics. James B. Stewart of The New York Times called it "admirably thorough", praising Childs' research and writing. [18] James Grant of The Wall Street Journal praised its entertaining and detailed examination of Gross' life. [19] It was included on several year-end best of lists, including Literary Hub , [20] The New York Times, [21] and Investopedia . [22]

Personal life

In 2017, she married music producer and musician Scott Lane. [1] Childs wore a wedding veil previously worn by her mother and grandmother, as well as a 1962 wedding gown worn by her mother's cousin. [23] They first met in 2001 while attending high school, but did not enter a relationship until 2014. [9] They reside in Virginia with their children. [24]

Books

References

  1. 1 2 "Christopher Scott Lane & Mary Dryden Childs". Richmond Times-Dispatch. February 25, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  2. 1 2 Owsley, Eric (April 1, 2008). "Mary Childs '08 Named 2008-09 Watson Fellow". The Columns. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 "2015 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards To Honor Airbnb, David Lynch & Jason Silva". Tribeca. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  4. "A Columnist Makes Sense of Wall Street Like None Other". October 8, 2020. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  5. Weisenthal, Joe. "STEPHANIE RUHLE: 'How We Caught The London Whale'". Business Insider. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  6. Roush, Chris (May 16, 2013). "Loeb Award finalists announced". Talking Biz News.
  7. "The Best Business Journalism of 2013". The New Yorker. December 19, 2013. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014.
  8. "2014 BIB Winner's list". SABEW. December 10, 2020. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  9. 1 2 "Mary Childs, Scott Lane". New York Times. February 26, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  10. Childs, Mary. "Debt Reckoning: Has the Treasury market started to crack". Harper's Magazine. Vol. August 2025. ISSN   0017-789X . Retrieved December 14, 2025.
  11. Childs, Mary (March 27, 2017). "Bill Gross and Pimco Settle Suit Over His Ouster (Published 2017)". The New York Times. Retrieved December 14, 2025.
  12. "East West Center Alumni News 2019" (PDF). East West Center.
  13. "Mary Childs". NPR . Archived from the original on May 17, 2024. Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  14. "Mary Childs - mary childs". cargocollective.com. Retrieved December 14, 2025.
  15. "2022 Gerald Loeb Award Finalists". UCLA Anderson School of Management. January 27, 2023.
  16. "47th ANNUAL GRACIE AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED". Women in Media Foundation.
  17. "Mary Childs". International Center for Journalists. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  18. "Bill Gross Ruled the Bond World for Years. Then He Was Deposed". March 14, 2022. Archived from the original on March 14, 2022. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  19. Grant, James (March 8, 2022). "'The Bond King' Review: Richly Crowned, Then Deposed". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  20. Temple, Emily (December 8, 2022). "Our 38 Favorite Books of 2022". Literary Hub . Archived from the original on September 7, 2024. Retrieved October 8, 2024.
  21. Sorkin, Andrew Ross; Mattu, Ravi; Warner, Bernhard; Kessler, Sarah; Gandel, Stephen; de la Merced, Michael J.; Hirsch, Lauren; Livni, Ephrat (January 2, 2023). "Turning the Page on 2022". The New York Times . Archived from the original on March 28, 2023. Retrieved October 7, 2024.
  22. Lodge, Michelle (July 15, 2024). "The 7 Best Investing Books". Investopedia . Archived from the original on October 7, 2024. Retrieved October 8, 2024.
  23. "Dresses Our Brides Have Worn". New York Times. April 4, 2017. Retrieved December 14, 2025.
  24. "about". mary childs. Retrieved December 12, 2025.
  25. Hill, Chris (April 14, 2022). "Investing Lessons From Bill Gross, "The Bond King"". The Motley Fool. Archived from the original on May 17, 2024. Retrieved May 3, 2022.