If you cover Wall Street, should you take Wall Street speaking fees?
Paul Starobin, Columbia Journalism Review
Gillian Tett, the US managing editor of the London-based Financial Times, is “sharp” and “glamorous,” according to a 2010 profile by The Daily Beast. She may even be “the most powerful woman in newspapers,” the Beast said, as the FT “intends to become a status symbol of American business.” Tett is also a star on the Wall Street speaking circuit, a fact not mentioned in that profile. Testimonials from satisfied customers can be found on the website of Leigh Bureau, the speakers’ agency that books many of her talks. “Tett really wowed them, she talked about the present and the future of the markets,” according to an unnamed “federal mortgage company” that hired her. “We were very pleased with the forward-looking focus of Gillian’s topic, as many of the guests who were attending were clients of ours concerned with the next steps for their investments,” according to an “investment and asset management firm.”
Asked about her engagements, Tett told me she receives up to $20,000 a speech. A cut goes to the Leigh Bureau, and travel, lodging, and related expenses are paid by the customer. On occasion, Tett ventures outside the US, as in a speech last year to Unigestion, a Swiss asset manager. As for the money that comes to her from speaking—“well into the six figures,” she calculates-—she says she donates it, “for the most part,” to charity, specifically to a project for disadvantaged youngsters in the British city of Liverpool.
Tett has plenty of company. Many journalists give paid speeches to businesses and business groups. And Wall Street, as it happens, is probably the top source of such engagements. Household names like Bank of America as well as obscure hedge funds, private-equity firms, and others in the financial world frequently hire journalists—including scribes who regularly cover Wall Street—to deliver speeches at events ranging from publicized conferences to small private dinners with select clients. Millions of dollars have flowed to journalists in speaking fees in recent years.
