Will Hutton is currently Principal of Hertford College,Oxford, a post he took on in 2011. Previously to that he was executive vice chair of The Work Foundation, the most influential voice on work, employment and organisation issues in the UK. Regularly called on to advise senior political and business figures and comment in the national and international media, Will is today one of the pre-eminent economics commentators in the country.
He began his career in the city, as a stockbroker and investment analyst before moving to the BBC, where he worked both on radio, as a producer and reporter, and on TV as economics correspondent for Newsnight. Prior to joining The Work Foundation, Will spent four years as editor-in-chief of The Observer, for which he continues to write a weekly column. He also regularly contributes to the Guardian and Financial Times.
Will’s best-known book is probably The State We’re In, which was seen at the time as setting the scene for the Blair revolution. Since then he has published The State to Come, The Stakeholding Society, On The Edge, (with Anthony Giddens) a groundbreaking analysis of globalisation and The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century. Will is currently working on his next book – a timely examination of fairness and due desert – Them and Us.
Outside The Work Foundation, Will is a governor of the London School of Economics, where he is also a visiting professorial fellow at the Centre for Global Governance . He is a member of the Scott Trust, and a fellow of the Sunningdale Institute. In 2004, Will was invited by the European Commission to join a High Level Group on the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy and act as its “rapporteur” for the final report.
Most recently, Will was invited by Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, to join a new advisory panel on New Industry, New Jobs, Universities and Skills, set up to challenge conventional policy thinking in these areas and generate ideas across the Government’s New Industry, New Jobs agenda, linking it with the skills and higher education agenda.
