Matthew John Symonds (born 20 December 1953) is a British journalist and, since 2018, the executive director of the Larry Ellison Foundation. He was a co-founder of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' in 1986. Born in 1953, Symonds is the son of John Beavan,Anne Symonds, Broadcaster
(obituary) in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', 6 March 2017 who at the time was London editor of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', and BBC World Service broadcaster Anne Symonds. He worked for the Mirror group, the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'', and ''

'', which he joined in November 1981 as economics leader writer, before in 1986 becoming a co-founder of ''The Independent'',Isabel Wolff
How We Met
in ''The Independent'' dated with 18 February 1996, accessed 24 June 2019 with Andreas Whittam Smith and Stephen Glover. The three had worked together at ''The Daily Telegraph'' and had all left the newspaper towards the end of Lord Hartwell's ownership of it. After leaving ''The Independent'', Symonds was appointed as strategy director of BBC World Service Television, then from 1996 to 2018 was on the staff of ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

''. While there, he received the Wincott Prize for financial journalism in 1998, and went on to serve as the magazine's political editor and technology editor, before his last job for it, as defence and diplomatic editor. Symonds said of himself in 1996 that he was an economic liberal, believing in the market, but also in individual liberty and freedom. He wrote that "...the only way in which you can find efficient and humane solutions to problems is to give people as much information and as much power over their own lives as possible." Symonds has a wife Alison, with whom he has three children. In 1988, he had another daughter, Carrie Symonds, with Josephine McAfee, a lawyer at ''The Independent''. Their daughter is now married to the former British Prime Minister

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...

Selected publication

*''Softwar: an intimate portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle'' (Simon & Schuster, 2003, )Matthew Symonds
at simonandschuster.com/authors, accessed 24 June 2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Symonds, Matthew 1953 births 20th-century British journalists 21st-century British journalists Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford BBC executives Financial Times people Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Sons of life peers The Daily Telegraph people The Independent founders Charters Symonds family Family of Boris Johnson