Gerard Lyons

Gerard Lyons has been described by The Times as ‘one of the most influential analysts of the global economy.’ He has over thirty years of experience in senior roles in the City and public policy and in 2019 was a candidate for Governor of the Bank of England.

From 2012-16 he was Chief Economic Advisor to Boris Johnson, when he was Mayor of London. Previously he was also the Lead Advisor to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s 2008 Business Council, an inaugural member of the EU Commission’s Network of China Experts and sat on several Councils of the World Economic Forum.

From 1999-2012 he was Head of Global Research and Chief Economist at Standard Chartered Bank, where he was credited as one of the few economists to predict the 2008 global financial crisis. In 2010 & 2011, Bloomberg ranked his team as the most accurate forecasters globally.

Gerard’s analysis of the global economy – particularly emerging economies across Asia, Africa and the Gulf and Middle East – has regularly been sought by policymakers, including politicians and central bankers around the world. He has spoken in 82 countries, testified to committees of the US Congress and Senate, and to committees in both the UK’s House of Commons and Lords. His paper ‘Banking the Unbanked’ was presented at the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Conference in 2005; his report ‘Qatar 2020’ was commissioned by and presented to the Emir; and at Davos in 2010 he was asked to represent the financial sector in the BBC’s annual globalised world debate.

In 2014, Gerard’s first book, The Consolations of Economics: How we will all benefit from the New World Order, was published by Faber & Faber. In it, Gerard explained the global economic outlook based on four global trends: demographics and the environment; hard power; soft power; and institutional power. It was serialised in both The Times and The Sunday Telegraph and translated into Korean, Portuguese, German, and Chinese. It was also one of The Telegraph’s books of the year.

Gerard has a portfolio of roles. He sits on the Board of Bank of China (UK) and on the board of BGC Partners, the global brokerage firm, where he is Chair of the Risk Committee, and he is Chief Economic Strategist at Netwealth Investments, the discretionary wealth manager he helped establish in 2016. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, a fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a senior fellow of the Policy Exchange think tank.

In 2022, Gerard launched the Elfonomics podcast with his daughter, the comedian Elf Lyons, in which the pair take a light-hearted but insightful look at the economics of everyday topics.

Gerard has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment since its inception in 2008 and since 2022 has been a member of The Bretton Woods Committee Climate and Energy Transition Finance (CEFT) project team. Gerard is an excellent speaker and an active contributor to the economic policy debate.