Biography
Former British Vogue features director and Financial Times Fashion Editor Jo Ellison first joined the FT in 2014, where she now helms the luxury lifestyle supplement How to Spend It.
“I am delighted to be taking the reins at one of the most esteemed and influential publications in the industry, and one of the few magazines with a truly global reach.” she said in a statement about her role at the Financial Times. “I hope to draw on its incredible legacy and authority, and look forward to steering it into an exciting future.”
Born in Cambridge and raised between London and Dubai, Ellison studied history at The University of Edinburgh, where she met her husband, playwright Enda Walsh. They moved to Cork, Ireland where she joined The Irish Examiner as a sub-editor, quickly progressing to the features desk. Ellison then moved to London, where she became features editor at The Independent, writing arts reviews and shaping articles by then-fashion editor Susannah Frankel.
In 2008 she pursued an opportunity at British Vogue, where she became features editor, and then features director, before taking over as fashion editor at the Financial Times from Vanessa Friedman who moved to The New York Times in 2014. She is the second-ever person to inhabit the role after the newspaper decided to invest in regular fashion coverage in 2002. Her opinionated columns and intelligent articles have earned her a large audience of industry decision-makers. In 2019 the British newspaper announced Ellison will succeed longtime How to Spend It editor Gillian de Bono.
Ellison is also the author of “Vogue: The Gown,” a collection of images from Vogue’s photography archive.