Mary Ann Sieghart

Mary Ann Sieghart is a bestselling author, journalist, and broadcaster who specialises in gender equality and workplace authority. Through her acclaimed book *The Authority Gap* and as Founding Partner of The Authority Gap Consultancy, she translates decades of research into practical strategies that help organisations recognise and eliminate bias. A Visiting Professor at King's College London and Non-Executive Director of the Guardian Media Group, she combines intellectual rigour with real-world leadership experience across media, investment, and cultural institutions. Her speaking engagements equip audiences with evidence-based interventions to close authority gaps, from amplifying women's contributions in meetings to redesigning hiring processes that yield measurable results, enabling organisations to unlock talent, strengthen decision-making, and build cultures where competence, not gender, determines influence.

After 19 years as Assistant Editor of *The Times*, Mary Ann Sieghart published *The Authority Gap*, a book that transformed how organisations understand gender bias at work. The book became a bestseller by combining decades of research with her own observations from the heart of British journalism and broadcasting, demonstrating how women are systematically underestimated whilst men are granted authority by default. Her work has since evolved from diagnosis to solution: she now serves as Founding Partner of The Authority Gap Consultancy, working directly with organisations to close the gaps that undermine talent, distort decision-making, and limit performance. As a Visiting Professor at the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London and a Non-Executive Director of the Guardian Media Group, she combines intellectual rigour with governance experience across media, investment, and philanthropy.

Mary Ann's career has been defined by her ability to translate complex ideas into accessible public discourse. During her two decades at *The Times*, she held roles including Acting Editor of the Monday edition, Op-Ed Editor, Arts Editor, Chief Political Leader Writer, and columnist on politics, economics, and social affairs. Earlier in her career, she was City Editor of *Today* newspaper at its launch in 1986, Political Correspondent at *The Economist*, and a weekly columnist for *The Independent*. As a broadcaster, she has presented programmes such as 'Start the Week', 'Profile', 'Analysis', 'Fallout', and 'One to One' on BBC Radio 4, and appeared regularly on 'Question Time', 'Newsnight', 'Today', and 'The Andrew Marr Show'. She chaired the Social Market Foundation think tank for a decade and served as Chair of Judges for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022. Her current board roles include Senior Independent Director of Pantheon International, Senior Independent Trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, and Trustee of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, reflecting her continued influence across business, culture, and public policy.

Through The Authority Gap Consultancy and her speaking engagements, Mary Ann equips audiences with evidence-based strategies to eliminate bias and unlock talent. Drawing on research showing that 70 per cent of men rate male candidates more highly than equally qualified women, and that adding just one additional woman to a shortlist makes hiring a woman 79 times more likely, she demonstrates how small changes in process yield measurable results. Her work explores practical interventions such as amplifying women's contributions in meetings, addressing bias in performance evaluations, and building sponsorship cultures that enable all talent to thrive. Audiences leave with actionable insights on redesigning systems to create genuinely level playing fields, from hiring processes to leadership development. Her message is clear: closing the authority gap is not only about fairness but about unlocking performance, strengthening decision-making, and building organisations where authority is earned through competence, not assumed through gender.