Frances Cairncross

Dame Frances Anne Cairncross, (born 30 August 1944 in Otley, England) is a British economist, journalist and academic. She is a senior fellow at the School of Public Policy, UCLA.

She formerly chaired the executive committee of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. From 2004 to 2014, she was the Rector of Exeter College, Oxford. Since 2015, she has been chair of the Court of Heriot-Watt University.

She holds honorary degrees from Trinity College Dublin, City University, and the universities of Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Loughborough and Kingston. She became a Fellow of St Anne's College in 1993. Her brother is the epidemiologist Sandy Cairncross.

Career Cairncross worked at The Times (1967–69), The Banker (1969) and The Observer (1970–73). From 1973 to 1984 she was on the staff of The Guardian newspaper, serving as its economics correspondent from 1973 to 1981 and as women's page editor from 1981 to 1984. She joined the staff of The Economist in 1984 working on coverage of the environment, media and public policy. From 1999 to 2004, Cairncross was management editor.

In March 2003, Cairncross won the Institute of Internal Auditors' annual award for business and management journalism. She authored of The Death of Distance , a study of the economic and social effects of the global communications revolution, first published in 1997 and re-published in a new edition in 2001.

She was Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, from October 2004 to October 2014.

Cairncross was a non-executive director of Stramongate Ltd from 2005 to 2011

From 2015 to 2020, she was chair of the Court of Heriot-Watt University. President's Medal of the British Academy (2018)