The love affair between Stephanie Flanders and the BBC really is over. Flanders, who was economics editor of the Beeb, ran away into the arms of investment bank JP Morgan this year. In an article for the new edition of Spear’s magazine she delivers a subtle but clear damnation of her long-term relationship with the BBC.
“Hallelujah,” writes Flanders. “I can already say after two months that this is the most professionally managed institution I have worked for. Then again, it is also the first place I have ever worked that was created with the express purpose of making money.” The BBC was just for love, you see, even though she earned £120,000 a year — she now gets £400,000 at JP Morgan.
Every compliment about JP Morgan Asset Management, where she is chief market strategist for the UK and Europe, speaks volumes about the BBC. She writes that she is astonished that her ID card “worked first time on the electronic gates into the New York office”.
The new job is still high-pressure but “there is one big difference: I can say no. As BBC economics editor you can only say no to the 10 o’clock News if you are giving birth — or having dinner with Mervyn King. Preferably both.”
She goes on: “At the BBC, team-building involved going out to the pub (and later getting a bill from HMRC for ‘£17.20 in taxable fringe benefits’). At JP Morgan it involves three hours of brutally competitive physical exercise under the instruction of US Navy Seals.” At this point The Londoner put aside its dreams of joining JP Morgan, sighed and turned on the Today programme.
