Chrystia Freeland

Chrystia Freeland was born in Peace River, Alberta, in 1968, and attended the United World College of the Adriatic before studying at Harvard University, from which she received a B.A. in History and Literature. She was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to continue her studies at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, where she earned a Master’s degree.

Freeland began her career in journalism as a stringer in the Ukraine writing for the Financial Times, The Washington Post and The Economist. She then worked for the Financial Times in London as its deputy editor, editor of its weekend edition, editor of FT.com, UK news editor, Moscow bureau chief and Eastern Europe correspondent.

From 1999 to 2001, Freeland was deputy editor of The Globe and Mail. More recently, she served as the US managing editor of the Financial Times, whose American edition became the FT’s single largest edition under her direction. She was also responsible for the editorial development of US news on FT.com.

Chrystia Freeland is now global editor-at-large, Reuters. She serves as a key figure on Reuters Insider, and as Reuters principal on-air pundit for other external broadcast partners. Freeland is a senior contributor to Reuters.com and plays a leading role in Reuters Summits and in Thomson Reuters global Newsmaker series. She appears frequently on television and radio news programs in the US and globally.

Freeland is the author of Sale of a Century: the inside story of the second Russian revolution (2000), which details Russia’s journey from communism to capitalism. Her profile of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which appeared in the FT Magazine, won a Business Journalist of the Year Award in 2004. Freeland is currently writing her second book on the global super-elite for Penguin Press.

Freeland sits on the advisory board of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and is a board member of the Women’s Refugee Commission and the Overseas Press Club of America. She has been honoured as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

A Canadian citizen, Freeland currently lives in New York City with her husband and three children.