Richard Donkin is the author of Blood Sweat and Tears, The Evolution of Work and Financial Times columnist on work and careers. Based in Woking in the UK he works as a commentator and writer on management and employment issues. His book, Blood Sweat and Tears, was warmly received and extensively reviewed in the US and UK (Times Literary Supplement, Washington Post, New York Times, Time, The Economist). His FT column has been appearing since 1994.

Richard’s FT career began in late 1987 after he had been named with colleague Tony Watson, Provincial Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards for 1986 in recognition of a six-month undercover investigation that led to an expose of the National Front’s activities in Northern Ireland.

For a number of years he had an investigative brief at the FT, covering stories such as the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) closure, the Polly Peck affair, the fraud at Ferranti and the arms to Iraq affair.

Richard Donkin played a prominent role in the team which secured the Reporter of The Year award in the 1991 British Press Awards for its coverage of the BCCI collapse. Another investigation into Midland Bank was cited by the 'What The Papers Say' judges when they named the FT Newspaper of the Year in 1991. In 1994 he switched to employment and management writing and took over the recruitment column.

During the late 1990s Richard also completed a series of travel writing assignments, including a 6,000-mile voyage around Cape Horn in 1997 BT Global Challenge Round the World yacht race. Then in 1999 he embarked on a year’s leave of absence in order to write his history of work published in the UK and the US in May 2001. He returned to the FT to establish and edit a recruitment website. Richard left the newspaper to pursue a freelance career in 2002 but has continued to maintain a close association. Today he writes a regular fishing column in the Weekend FT.

Today, alongside his writing commitments, that include a monthly column for Human resources Magazine, Richard Donkin also undertakes regular speaking engagements and consultancy work. He is an adviser to the Future Employment Working Group of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

He is an honorary visiting fellow in the faculty of management, Cass Business School, City University, London. He is also a visiting fellow at Henley Management College.

He is a council member of the Royal Society for the Arts in the UK and a trustee of Earthwatch Europe, an international environmental charity. He is also a council member of the Human Resources Society and a founder of the Human Capital Standards Group, an organisation that campaigns for better measurement and reporting of employment in companies.

Richard was born and educated in Yorkshire and now lives in Surrey with his wife, Gillian and three children. He is a keen sailor, walker and fisherman.