Soumaya Keynes

Soumaya Keynes is an Economics Columnist at the Financial Times. Previously she was the Britain Economics Editor for The Economist. Her writing about the British economy has covered everything from Britain's struggles with productivity and growth to the cost-of-living, and the economics of Freeports. Soumaya analyses monetary and fiscal policy with analytical rigour and detail, whilst still being accessible. She was nominated for a Press Gazette award for her writing about Britain's productivity problem.

Whilst at The Economist, Soumaya also co-hosted the Money Talks podcast, which twice won Best Business Podcast at the British Podcast Awards. She also served as The Economist's Europe Economics Editor and the Trade and Globalisation Editor. With Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, she also co-hosted the podcast Trade Talks. Tim Harford named it as one of the best economics podcasts, calling it a “nerdy (but witty) dive into the details of how trade negotiations and agreements work.”

In her work, Soumaya covers all aspects of economics, fiscal policy, macro and microeconomics, central bank decisions, pay inequality, and how trade is being used by nations to achieve political objectives, as well as goals such as sustainability, promoting workers’ rights and national security. She won an Association of Business Journalists' award for comment for her writing on the costs of managed trade.

Previously, Soumaya was a research economist at the Institute for Fiscal studies, where she undertook academic research on the relationship between health and socioeconomic status, public finances and state pension reform. She was also a policy advisor at the Treasury.