Bill Emmott

During Bill Emmott’s his time as editor the publication’s weekly circulation more than doubled from 500,000 to over 1 million, enjoying worldwide growth to become the leading current affairs and business magazine worldwide.

Since stepping down at the age of 49, Bill has combined deep research into political and economic trends in Europe, Asia and at a global level for his series of well received books with bespoke consulting and advisory work for major firms and institutions. He has served as an adviser to Swiss Re since 2006 and also currently assists a London-based hedge fund with its thinking on Italy and the wider euro area. A member of Tokyo University’s Global Advisory Board he is also on the Senior Advisory Panel for Critical Resource, a consultancy.

In 2017-18 he was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and is an honorary fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is now chairman of the board of Trinity College’s Long Room Hub for Arts & Humanities, chairman of the Japan Society of the UK, and chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He is a regular contributor to La Stampa, Nikkei Business, Mainichi Shimbun and Project Syndicate, as well as an occasional writer of op-eds for the Financial Times. In 2016 the Japanese government awarded him the “Order of the Rising Sun: Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon” for services to UK-Japan relations.

Bill is the author of 13 books variously on Japan, Asia, the 20^thcentury and Italy, the latest of which, “The Fate of the West – the battle to save the world’s most successful political idea”, was published in 2017. He was presenter and co-author of a documentary about Italy, “Girlfriend in a Coma” (2013) and executive producer of “The Great European Disaster Movie” (2015), both shown on the BBC. With the director of those films, Annalisa Piras, he co-founded an educational charity, The Wake Up Foundation, which uses film, art and journalism to foster a better understanding of the challenges facing western societies. In May 2019, the foundation will hold a “Wake Up Europe Festival” for social impact documentary films in Turin, Italy.