Jeff Randall

Jeff Randall

Areas of Interest

International, Media

Honorary Award

Honorary Doctor of the University, 2001

Biography

Jeff was appointed Editor-At-Large of the Daily Telegraph in November 2005, after nearly five years as the BBC's Business Editor. He writes a twice-weekly column for the newspaper, as well as continuing to present "Weekend Business", a radio show on BBC Five Live. In addition, he hosts 'Jeff Randall Live', a weekly chat show on Sky News, and makes television documentaries for ITV.

Jeff joined the BBC from Sunday Business, which he edited from its launch in February 1998. Under his editorship, Sunday Business won the Sunday Newspaper of the Year Award and the Harold Wincott Award for Financial Journal of the Year. Before launching Sunday Business, Jeff was, over a period of nine years, Assistant Editor, Sports Editor and City & Business Editor on the Sunday Times. He was also a Director of Times Newspapers (1994-95).

His awards for journalism include: Harold Wincott Award for Business Broadcaster, 2004; Communicator of the Year, 2004; Sony Gold Radio Award for Best Sports Broadcast, 2003; Best Business Broadcast Prize at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards, 2003; Decade of Excellence Prize at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards, 2003; London Press Club's Business Journalist of the Year Award, 2000; and Financial Journalist of the Year, 1991.

He was educated at the Royal Liberty Grammar School in Romford, Essex and the University of Nottingham (BA Economics). Jeff's hobbies include golf, horseracing and football. He is married with one daughter. He was born on 3 October 1954 in London.

Jeff Randall was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the University in 2001.



Citation

"The Senate of Anglia Polytechnic University has great pleasure in recommending Jeff Randall for the award of an Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University for his significant natural contributions to the field of business journalism.

One of the principal elements of the mission of Anglia Polytechnic University is the provision of expertise to those organisations whose concern is the development of enterprise and business generation, and it is fitting that by this award, we do honour to one who by his writings and perceptive commentaries on the financial and economic scene has been a source of immensely valuable counsel and understanding to a wide range of readers, viewers and listeners for the past two decades.

Jeff Randall was born in Essex in 1954 and studied at grammar school in Romford, and thereafter at Nottingham University (where he obtained a degree in Economics) and the University of Florida, where he undertook a post-graduate course in Journalism. He confesses to an early ambition to be a journalist, and was advised by his Florida professor that the way forward was to find a distinctive niche specialism. Hawkins publishing provided him with this early niche as an aerospace business correspondent in 1982. The contemporary big stories were those of Laker Airways; British Airways' biggest ever loss, and subsequent privatisation; and the US deregulation of the air industry. In short, the sought after niche proved a winner in establishing the base of his career.

With appearances on BBC's "World in Action" and an increasing volume of freelance writing, a range of appointments with top-ranking publications followed. In 1985-86, as Assistant Editor of Financial Weekly; 1986-88 as City Correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph; and from 1988-95, a succession of roles with the Sunday Times as Deputy City Editor, City and Business Editor, Assistant Editor, Sports Editor and as a Director of Times Newspapers.

He became Founding Editor of Sunday Business in 1997, a position which he describes unequivocally as the most stressful in his life, since it involved a complete start-up operation, defining a niche in an already crowded market by differentiating it from the weekly business supplements, and having complete responsibility for the entire business. It is a tribute to his energy and imagination that it is now firmly established on the business scene.

However, in 2001, he decided to leave his offspring, Sunday Business, and joined the BBC as Business Editor for television, radio and on-line and is currently extremely busy working on the evolving story of the Railtrack debacle. In addition to the above, he has also contributed extensively on finance and sport to a variety of newspapers as a freelance writer.

His stature in his chosen field is universally recognised, as evidenced by his nomination as Financial Journalist of the Year 1991 (FT-Analysis) and Business Journalist of the Year 2000 by the London Press Club.

Insofar as Jeff Randall has had major thematic interests in his evolving career, these may be said to be telling business stories through the personalities involved in them.

For these very significant contributions to business journalism, therefore the University is pleased to confer the Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University to Jeff Randall."