Hamish McRae

Hamish Malcolm Donald McRae was born on October 20, 1943, in Devon, England. He pursued his education at Fettes College in Edinburgh and later at Trinity College Dublin, where he earned a BA in Economics and Political Science in 1966. McRae began his career in journalism at the Liverpool Post in 1966. He subsequently held positions at The Banker and Euromoney before becoming the financial editor of The Guardian, a role he maintained from 1975 to 1989. In 1989, he transitioned to The Independent, serving as a columnist until 2018 and as an associate editor from 1991 to 2018.

Throughout his career, Hamish McRae has established himself as one of Europe’s foremost speakers on global future trends in economics, technology, business, and society. He is the principal economic commentator for the i newspaper, writing a weekly ‘Armchair Economics’ column, and also contributes as a columnist for The Mail on Sunday with his ‘City Comment’ column. His written work includes several books, such as “The World in 2020: Power, Culture and Prosperity,” published in 1995, and its follow-up, “The World in 2050: How to Think About the Future,” released in 2022. “The World in 2020” became a bestseller and cemented his reputation as an authority on future trends. Another notable work, “What Works: Success in Stressful Times” (2010), was longlisted for the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award.

McRae has held various academic appointments, serving as a Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) from 1999 to 2004, and at Lancaster University from 2005 to 2010. He also held an Adjunct Professor position at Trinity College Dublin from 2012 to 2015 and again from 2019 to 2024. His contributions to financial journalism have been widely recognized, earning him prestigious awards including the Wincott Foundation Financial Journalist of the Year in 1979, the David Watt Prize for Political Journalism in 2005, and the Business and Finance Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2006. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2016 and an Orwell Fellow in 2010.