John Micklethwait was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He now lives in London.
John Micklethwait was appointed the US Editor of The Economist in December 1999. Before that, he ran the magazine's New York bureau for two years, having edited the Business section of the magazine for the previous four years. His other jobs have included setting up the Economist's office in Los Angeles, where he worked in 1990-1993, and being its media correspondent. He is the author of six Economist surveys — on "Silicon Valley", "Business in Asia", "Argentina", "The Entertainment Industry", "The Advertising Industry" and, most recently, "The United States" (March 11th 2000). He has covered business and politics for the magazine from the United States, Latin America, Continental Europe, Southern Africa and most of Asia. He is the winner of a junior Wincott Award, Britain's leading prize for financial journalism.
John Micklethwait is the co-author with Adrian Wooldridge of three books. The Witch Doctors, a Business Week bestseller, won a 1997 Financial Times/Booz•Allen Global Business Book award and has been translated into at least eight languages. "A Future Perfect: the Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalisation was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber prize — and was named one of the ten best books of 2000 by the Harvard Business Review: it too has been published in a paperback edition, with a new foreword commenting on September 11th, will be published in March 2003 — at the same time as their third book, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, which is appearing as a Modern Library Chronicle. They are now working on a book about American conservatism to be published in America and Britain.John Micklethwait has appeared on television and radio throughout the world, including CNN, ABC News, the BBC, "Charlie Rose", "Start the Week" and NPR. He has written op-ed articles for, amongst others, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Guardian, the Spectator and the New Statesman. John Micklethwait has been a frequent speaker on globalisation, business, the United States and international affairs at conferences around the world. He is also a director of the Policy Exchange, a new British think tank.
The Witch Doctors: What the Management Gurus are Saying, Why It Matters and How to Make Sense of It