Economist Editor in Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes To Deliver 2026 HKS Graduation Address

Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor in chief of The Economist, will deliver the Harvard Kennedy School’s 2026 graduation address on May 27, Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein announced in an email to students, faculty, and staff on Thursday.

“Zanny is superb at making sense of an increasingly complex and rapidly shifting world,” Weinstein wrote. “She is an important and clear-eyed leader in an essential role, and has built a career in service of the public good at the highest levels.”

Minton Beddoes became the first woman to serve as editor in chief of the Economist in 2015. She joined the publication in 1994 as a correspondent covering emerging markets and later served as its economics editor and business affairs editor, overseeing coverage of global economics, business, finance, and science.

Before joining The Economist, Minton Beddoes worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund. She also advised Poland’s finance minister during the country’s transition to a market economy in the early 1990s following the fall of communism.

Over the course of her career, Minton Beddoes has written extensively on international finance, globalization, and economic policy. She has received two Gerald Loeb Awards — among the most prestigious honors in business journalism — and is widely regarded as one of the most influential voices in financial journalism.

Beyond her role at The Economist, Minton Beddoes serves as a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is a member of the Research Advisory Board of the Committee for Economic Development.

Minton Beddoes earned a master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1992.

“Thirty-five years ago, my time at the Kennedy School gave me the skills and perspective to make sense of a world that was being dramatically reshaped,” Minton Beddoes wrote in a press release. “At that point, the drivers of global change were the collapse of communism, the flourishing of nascent democracies and the rise of what later became known as globalization.”

“A generation on,” she added, “the world is being transformed even more rapidly and fundamentally as the geopolitical order is upended, economic orthodoxies are questioned, and artificial intelligence transforms our societies.”

Weinstein also pointed to Minton Beddoes’ experience at the Kennedy School in the announcement.

“As an alumna of this school, she understands firsthand what it means to build a career in service of the public good,” Weinstein wrote.

In previous years, the Kennedy School has hosted speakers including journalist Christiane M.H. Amanpour, who delivered the 2025 commencement address, and Nicholas Burns — then the U.S. ambassador to China and a longtime Kennedy School professor — who spoke to graduates in 2024.

—Staff writer Sophia E. Alcacer can be reached at [email protected] and Signal at sophiaalcacer.88. Follow her on X at @sophiaalcacer.

—Staff writer Jen L. Phan can be reached at [email protected] and Signal at jenphan.74. Follow her on X at @jenllphan.