Biography
Mary Ann Sieghart leads a portfolio life. She is Founding Partner of The Authority Gap Consultancy, makes programmes for BBC Radio 4 and is a Visiting Professor at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London. She spent 2018-19 as a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she researched her book, The Authority Gap, on why women are taken less seriously than men. She was Chair of the judges for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.
Mary Ann is a Non-Executive Director of the Guardian Media Group, Senior Independent Director of Pantheon International, Senior Independent Trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, and Trustee of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Until recently, she was Chair of the Social Market Foundation, a non-party-political think tank, Non-Executive Director of The Merchants Trust, Senior Independent Director of Henderson Smaller Companies Investment Trust and sat on the Content Board of Ofcom and the Council of Tate Modern.
She spent 19 years as Assistant Editor of The Times, including as Acting Editor of the Monday edition, Op-Ed Editor, Arts Editor, Chief Political Leader-Writer and political and social affairs columnist both on the Op-Ed page and in Times2.
She has also written a weekly column in The Independent about politics, economics and social affairs, and presented Newshour, the BBC World Service’s flagship news and current affairs programme.
Mary Ann has extensive TV and radio experience, including presenting Start the Week, Analysis, Profile, One to One, Fallout, The Inquiry, Beyond Westminster, Newshour, Powerhouse, The Brains Trust, The Week in Westminster, Taking Issue, The Big Picture, No Illusions and The World This Week. She has regularly appeared as a guest on Question Time, Any Questions, Today, Newsnight, The World Tonight, Channel 4 News, PM, The Andrew Marr Show, The World at One, Woman’s Hour and The Daily Politics.
Before joining The Times, Mary Ann was political correspondent of The Economist, City Editor of Today newspaper and a Lex columnist and Eurobond correspondent at the Financial Times.
She has also sat on numerous boards, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the North Fulham New Deal for Communities, New Europe, the No Campaign, the Radcliffe Trust, the Social Studies Faculty of Oxford University, Women in Journalism and the National Council for One-Parent Families.
She won the Laurence Stern Fellowship to work on The Washington Post. She also captained The Times’s University Challenge: The Professionals team, which reached the semi-final.
Media Experience
1986 – now
Presenter on BBC Radio 4, including Start the Week, Fallout, Analysis, Profile, Beyond Westminster and One to One. Also a clutch of one-off documentaries
2010 – 2012
Political columnist, The Independent
2008 – 2010
Presenter of Newshour on the BBC World Service
1988 – 2007
Assistant Editor and political columnist, The Times. Also Acting Editor, Comment Editor, Chief Political Leader Writer and Arts Editor.
Chair, The Brains Trust, BBC2
1986 – 1988
Political and Media Correspondent, The Economist
Presenter of The World This Week, Channel 4
1986
City Editor, Today newspaper
1982 – 1986
Lex columnist and Eurobond Correspondent, Financial Times
1980 – 1982
Leader writer, Daily Telegraph, during university vacations
Board Roles
2021 –
Non-Executive Director of Guardian Media Group
2023 –
Trustee of The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
2020 – 2021
Trustee of The Scott Trust, owner of The Guardian and The Observer, and Chair of its Investment Committee, overseeing the £1.2bn endowment.
2021 – 2022
Chair of the judges for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.
2019 –
Senior Independent Director of Pantheon International, a FTSE 250, £1.5bn private equity investment trust.
2015 –
Senior Independent Trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, responsible for selecting Kennedy scholars to attend Harvard and MIT.
2007 –
Member, Advisory Panel, IntoUniversity, a charity that helps disadvantaged children to aspire to, and attend, university.
2014 – 2024
Non-Executive Director of The Merchants Trust, a 130-year-old, FTSE 250, equity income investment trust.
2010 – 2021
Chair of the Social Market Foundation, a non-partisan think tank.
2011 – 2021
Trustee of the Art and Ideas Trust
2014 – 2017
Non-Executive Director of Ofcom Content Board, regulating all TV and radio in the UK.
2008 – 2018
Non-Executive Director and then Senior Independent Director of Henderson Smaller Companies Investment Trust, a 131-year-old FTSE company with a market cap of over £900m.
2008 – 2017
Member of Council, Tate Modern
2011 – 2017
Non-Executive Director of DLN Digital Ltd
2006 – 2016
Trustee of The Radcliffe Trust
1997 – 2002
Trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and National Heritage Memorial Fund
2000 – 2006
Chair, North Fulham New Deal for Communities
1999 – 2003
Member of Advisory Board, Social Studies Faculty, University of Oxford
1999 – 2004
Member of Steering Committees, No Campaign and New Europe
1996 – 2008
Vice-President, National Association for Gifted Children
1995 – 1998
Founding Committee member, Women in Journalism
1986 – 1989
Treasurer, National Council for One-Parent Families
Academic Posts
2021 –
Visiting Professor, King’s College London
2020 – 2021
Senior Academic Visitor, Oriel College, Oxford
2019 – 2020
Associate Member, Nuffield College, Oxford
2018 – 2019
Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford