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Michael Skapinker is an assistant editor of the Financial Times, a columnist and the editor of the FT’s special reports. He was born in South Africa in 1955 and was educated at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Cambridge University.
He began his journalistic career in Greece, where he worked as a correspondent for CBS Radio News and Independent Radio News. He joined the FT in London in 1986 and has reported on many industries, including aerospace, electronics and tourism. From 2000 to 2005, he was the FT’s Management Editor. He was the editor of the Weekend FT from 2005 to 2007.
He was a consultant on the BBC series The Secrets of Leadership, which was broadcast in 2003, and has addressed audiences on business topics in the US, Japan and Europe.
In 2003, he received the Work Foundation Members’ Award for his contribution to the understanding of working life. He was named Columnist of the Year in the 2008 WorkWorld Media Awards.
His column, on business and society, appears in the FT on Tuesdays. - -
Muddling through with money and morals
The certainties of the two sides in the debate on morality and free markets are misplaced, writes Michael Skapinker. Regulation provides the middle way
Why chief executives struggle as politicians
The real difference between business and government is that government does not go out of business, writes Michael Skapinker
Unions need to focus on jobs of the future
Young, dynamic and ambitious people are far less likely to be union members than their elders because they are not interested in time-consuming internal committees, writes Michael Skapinker
Brazil is the 21st-century power to watch
For all its problems with crime, the country has outstanding potential, a welcoming and richly diverse people and several world-class companies, writes Michael Skapinker
Leaders’ spouses make the best truth-tellers
Who better to moan to about cabinet colleagues and ungrateful voters – or about the board, shareholders and staff? Who better to advise you to cancel the furious e-mail? Michael Skapinker recommends executives consult their spouses
Real leaders do not swim with the shoal
Why fashions change is sometimes a mystery. At other times it is clearer: a trusted person opts for something different, writes Michael Skapinker
Slipping out for a cigarette has its benefits
The smokers standing outside the door are paragons of non-hierarchical, cross-departmental bonhomie, writes Michael Skapinker
It takes character to call time on a cover-up
A US judge has found that the SEC settlement with Bank of America ‘does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality’, writes Michael Skapinker
Time to turn the page on top pay
Executives may lose millions if the company fails, but their pay-offs and pensions mean they never need work again, writes Michael Skapinker
What is ‘socially useful’ is subject to fashion
Debate about what work is good or bad never goes away. It takes different forms, depending on the anxieties of the time, writes Michael Skapinker
