Rachel Johnson - Speaker

Rachel Johnson is a journalist and author with a career spanning over three decades. She began her journey at the Financial Times as the first female graduate trainee at the age of 23. Rachel has hosted her own radio show on LBC, reported for BBC Radio Four, and written columns for various national newspapers. She has published nine books and is notable for being the only former editor of The Lady magazine to have participated in Big Brother.

In 1989, Rachel joined the Financial Times, focusing on economic reporting. She spent a year on secondment with the Foreign Office before moving to the BBC for three years. In 1997, she relocated to Washington DC, where she worked as a columnist and freelancer, contributing to The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Evening Standard, and the Mail on Sunday, among others.

In 2009, Rachel became Editor of The Lady, a role that was documented in Channel 4's The Lady and the Revamp. After leaving in 2012, she produced the BBC Four documentary How to Be a Lady: An Elegant History. She has appeared on various television shows, including Question Time and Have I Got News For You, and has won multiple celebrity quiz show trophies.

In April 2020, Rachel launched her Sunday night show on LBC Radio and started Rachel Johnson’s Difficult Women podcast.

Her books include The Oxford Myth, The Mummy Diaries, and a trilogy featuring journalist Mimi Fleming. She also wrote A Diary of The Lady, detailing her editorial experience, and Winter Games, a story set in 1930s Bavaria and modern London. Her work Rake's Progress: My Political Midlife Crisis recounts her brief candidacy for Change UK in the 2019 European Parliament Elections.