Soumaya Keynes

Soumaya Keynes is the economist columnist at the Financial Times. Previously, she served as the British economics editor for The Economist, where she wrote extensively about the British economy, including issues like growth struggles, the cost-of-living crisis, and the economics of Freeports. Soumaya's analysis of monetary and fiscal policy is detailed yet accessible. Her work on Britain's productivity problem earned her a nomination for a Press Gazette award.

Soumaya hosts The Economics Show podcast for the Financial Times; each week, she digs deep into the hottest topics in economics along with a cast of FT colleagues and special guests. Previously, she co-hosted The Economist's Money Talks podcast, which won Best Business Podcast at the British Podcast Awards twice. The podcast featured in-depth reporting on pay transparency, Europe’s energy crisis, and supply chain issues. She also co-hosted the Trade Talks podcast with Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Tim Harford praised it as one of the best economics podcasts, describing it as a “nerdy (but witty) dive into the details of how trade negotiations and agreements work.”

In her career, Soumaya has extensively covered trade and globalisation. She authored a special report on how trade policy achieves objectives like environmental protection, workers’ rights, and national security. Her writing on the costs of managed trade won her an award from the Association of Business Journalists.

Before her journalism career, Soumaya was a research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, where she conducted academic research on the relationship between health and socioeconomic status, public finances, and state pension reform. She also worked as a policy advisor at the Treasury.