Geoffrey Owen was born in 1934 and educated at Rugby and Balliol college, Oxford. He joined the Financial Times immediately after his national service, initially as a feature writer, then as US correspondent and Industry Editor. He joined the government's Industrial Organization Corporation as an executive and spent three years at British Leyland before returning to the FT as Deputy Editor in 1974, becoming Editor in 1981. Having been knighted in 1988, he left the FT in 1990 and is currently Director of Business Policy at the London School of Economics.