HERE’s a story: I was once summoned for a job interview at The Economist
magazine. “We need a specialist,” said the rather professorial section
editor, “and we think you might be the man. It’s to write about this thing
we can’t quite get our heads round. It’s called marketing . . .”
Two decades later — they never gave me the job — and a few floors higher up in The
Economist’s concrete block in London’s St James, Helen Alexander finishes my
sentence with a smile.
“. . . Meanwhile, downstairs, there was a whole department devoted to it,” she
laughs.
Alexander, chief executive of The Economist group, is used to the
eccentricities of her editorial team. Under her leadership, the magazine and
its offshoots — the Economist Intelligence Unit and a clutch of specialist
publications — have been one of print media’s real successes in recent
times. And better at marketing than anyone ever envisaged.
Selling 1.3m copies, including 1.1m overseas, The Economist is now a news
weekly unlike any other: learned, buffish, analysis-driven and leaping in
circulation year after year while other publications see sales dribbling
away. It defies market logic, and makes the elegant Alexander, aged 51, with
11 years at the top and 23 in the company, one of the most respected media
bosses around.
So imagine the surprise this month when she suddenly announced she was
leaving, without a job to go to. Was she pushed?
Did she jump? Or was she fed up waiting for the top job at Pearson to become
free? Its Financial Times newspaper owns 50% of The Economist, and her
predecessor at The Economist, Marjorie Scardino, is the current boss of
Pearson and won’t budge.
“You’ve missed asking me if there’s some great drama in my private life,” says
Alexander, teasing. “And no, there isn’t. It’s none of those. I just want to
go when people think it’s sad that I’m going, and it’s a good time for my
successor to take up the baton. People say it’s unusual but it feels
absolutely right.”
Alexander talks slowly, crisply, with the received pronunciation of a BBC
newscaster. She was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School and Oxford — pretty
much standard for Economist staff. She is known as a patient plotter, and
has built the group’s business quietly, eschewing a high profile.
That reflects her style. Slim, angular and invariably trouser-suited, she
wears a helmet of blown-back blonde hair, with eyebrows plucked to
non-existence and a spattering of discreet gold jewellery.
Despite a background in sales, she can seem, on first meeting, rather wary.
Colleagues say she is much warmer beneath.
Alexander just smiles when I put it to her. “I guess I am not a
hail-fellow-let’s-do-it-in-the-bar type,” she says. “But I am tenacious.”
It has made her a popular boss inside The Economist group, which likes its
no-star culture, hence the lack of bylines in its main title. Protected from
outside pressure by its ownership structure — 50% FT and 50% held by private
individuals, with a trust preserving independence — the group has always set
a singular path for the magazine, targeting high-end readers.
It has even worked with the same advertising agency, AMV BBDO, for over 20
years. AMV’s chairman, Cilla Snowball, describes Alexander and the magazine
as a perfect match. “She’s thoughtful and classy. She is The Economist.”
It is certainly a marriage that has worked. Alexander has doubled circulation
since 1997, and accelerated the internationalisation begun by Scardino. The
magazine now has bureaus across America and Asia, and the group has more
employees outside Britain than in — 700 from a total of 1,200.
Globalisation and increased use of English in business have sent more readers
the magazine’s way. But credit the team, says Alexander. “There’s been
intelligent investment in the brand, not trying to get a result in one year
but positioning it and moving it forward over time. Now, we have fantastic
opportunities in America and India too.”
She doesn’t, however, approve of the P-word in describing her group’s share
structure. “Protection is not a word we like at The Economist,” she says
firmly. The relationship with Pearson is more benign. “It’s very arm’s
length . . . their encouragement has always been to invest, because it’s
been a long-term, successful business.”
Well, maybe. Other media owners, though, might have pushed for more synergies
— the FT and The Economist share travel arrangements, and that’s it.
Likewise, others might have demanded wider expansion. The group also publishes
CFO magazine — aimed at finance directors — in different territories and the
lobby sheets Roll Call in Washington, and European Voice in Brussels. But
not a lot more.
That’s because, says Alexander, it’s careful about how it builds on The
Economist brand family, which provides about three-quarters of the group’s
£250m revenues. “What we are always looking for are things that bolt on to
what we do.” Otherwise, she implies, the risk isn’t worth taking.
As for forging closer links to Pearson and the FT, you meddle at your peril.
“What’s always been here is a sense of independence, commercial and
editorial, and that’s a crucial part of the DNA. It’s a very special
company. It’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed.”
It is different. Newspapers and magazines struggle to present features
effectively on the internet. The Economist is all features, yet seems to
cope well online and offline.
Both sides of its operation are growing, and that brings its own problems. “A
lot of people are seeing print revenues going down and online revenues going
up, and they base investment on that,” says Alexander, “but we have got both
going up, so it’s a more subtle and complex equation.”
And paper, she predicts, will remain important for “serious reading”,
especially at weekends. “People can tell us with incredible accuracy where
and when they read The Economist magazine. They create the time, they remove
the distractions to do that. What we are seeing is two different uses. We’re
not trying to be the same online.”
Colleagues say Alexander’s strength is her incisiveness. “She’s considerate,
she’s cool under pressure and she’s good at thinking strategically,” says
The Economist’s editor, John Micklethwait.
Paul Myners, chairman of Guardian Media Group, and a fellow trustee of the
Tate Gallery, cites her clarity. “She cuts through the noise to the core
issues.”
Myners predicts Alexander will now develop a portfolio career. “It’s
exhausting being a chief executive. After 11 years at the top you just want
to get more control over your diary. She has the natural skills to be a
great chairman.”
Alexander is not afraid to go it alone. Born a late child — 13 years after her
nearest sibling — to a Russian émigrée mother and Anglo-Belgian father, she
read geography at university, but jumped into publishing later, working in
sales for Duckworths and Faber & Faber.
Her parents were key influences — her father worked for the UN High Commission
for Refugees, then at Bowater Paper; her mother as a teacher and translator.
“She always recognised the importance of independence,” says Alexander.
“Being born in Russia before the revolution, you have to stand on your own
two feet.”
Alexander swapped Faber for a place at Insead, the European business school,
at the age of 27. She had already completed a temporary job at the Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU), researching the textiles industry. When she left
Insead, The Economist snapped her up as marketing manager.
She has been there ever since, running international circulation and the EIU
before taking the top slot, and having three children along the way. She is
married to Tim Suter, former deputy head of current affairs at the BBC, now
a consultant for the Ingenious Consulting Network.
Many cite her as an accomplished organiser. Again, she prefers to highlight
the team, though she does point me to a psychometric test she once
completed. “It said I was very low on neurosis. I stay calm. I don’t throw
tantrums. I sleep well.”
Does she want Pearson’s top job? No, she says, and others suggest it unlikely
that Pearson would raid The Economist twice in succession. She has, however,
been targeted by headhunters for years. She turned down an invitation to
interview for the chief executive slot at Guardian Media Group in 2006.
What she wants now, she says, is more freedom. She has taken on an advisory
role at Bain Capital, focusing on European media, and is already a director
at Centrica and Rolls-Royce. She is open to other offers. “Before now people
have approached me about being chairman. It’s a role I can imagine really
well.”
Would she run something again? “Never say never, but the role of steering a
company through its board would be really exciting.”
And did the forecast of stormy weather ahead play a part? Many a top boss must
be thinking: perhaps better now, than later. No, she says. The Economist
will continue to do well — more readers will buy it to explain what is going
on.
More likely, says another, that Alexander has wanted to leave for some time,
but wouldn’t until she felt a replacement was ready. Andrew Rashbass,
managing director since 2005, will take over from her in July.
“Helen likes to do things well, including leaving,” says one colleague. For
that, he adds, she will be missed.
Vital statistics
Born: February 10, 1957
Marital status: married,
with three children
School: St Paul’s, London
Universities: Hertford College, Oxford, and Insead business school
First job: sales rep at Duckworth Publishers
Salary package: £365,000 plus bonus
Homes: Camden in London and Oxfordshire
Car: grey Renault Espace
Favourite book: The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing
Favourite music: La Traviata
Favourite film: Some Like It Hot
Favourite gadget: Gaggia espresso machine
Last holiday: Les Arcs, France
Helen Alexander's working day
THE ECONOMIST chief executive wakes at her home in north London’s Camden at
7am. “My husband or I take our children to the school bus,” says Helen
Alexander. “Then I drive to the office by 8.30 am.”
After a coffee and e-mails, she goes into meetings. “They can be about plans,
business heads reporting, or talking with The Economist’s editor.”
She lunches guests or staff in The Economist dining rooms and works until
after 6 pm. She will attend business functions two or three times a week.
“Either I or my husband is home by 6.30pm. We take turns cooking, one week
on, one week off. He is a much better cook than me.”
Downtime
HELEN ALEXANDER runs for relaxation. “I run three kilometres four times a week
— not a lot, but it’s regular. It clears my head completely.”
She spends her money on “school fees, skiing holidays and nice tickets to the
theatre, but not anything extravagant”. The Economist boss also keeps a
holiday home near Oxford, in a village where her parents lived.
Alexander buys clothes and jewellery when she travels. “What am I wearing
today? Earrings from Zurich, jacket . . . no idea. I don’t spend a lot
on clothes, but I do like trousers for work.”
She also buys pictures by artists she knows: “But I’m not a collector.”
