As The Economist’s New York-based business affairs editor, Patrick Foulis deciphers boardroom decisions for a global audience. His beat spans three core areas:
Patrick Foulis’s trajectory through the world of business journalism reads like a masterclass in financial storytelling. Beginning his career as a sell-side analyst at UBS Warburg in London, Foulis honed his analytical rigor covering European telecoms during the dot-com boom. This foundation in market mechanics would later inform his distinctive approach to business commentary – one that blends numerical precision with narrative flair.
"The shale industry's crisis isn't just about oil prices – it's a referendum on America's energy independence." [1]
Since joining The Economist in 2008, Foulis has shaped the publication’s business coverage through multiple leadership roles:
Foulis’s Schumpeter column dissects corporate strategies with surgical precision. His 2016 examination of Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ aggressive acquisition strategy presaged the opioid crisis reckoning, asking: "When does financial engineering cross into corporate malpractice?" [1]
This November 2018 deep dive into FAANG stock volatility combined earnings analysis with regulatory foresight. Foulis tracked how antitrust murmurs in Brussels and Washington created a $800 billion market value swing, interviewing SEC officials and Silicon Valley CFOs. His conclusion that "tech’s golden age of unchecked growth is ending" predicted the sector’s regulatory reckoning by three years [1].
Analyzing 50 CEO gaffes from 2010-2018, Foulis developed a taxonomy of leadership failures in the social media age. The piece introduced his "Three Axioms of Executive Communication" framework, later adopted by crisis management firms. Case studies included United Airlines’ passenger removal scandal and Tesla’s "funding secured" tweet drama [1].
This prescient 2017 guide analyzed 300 multinationals’ contingency plans for trade wars. Foulis identified four resilience factors – supply chain redundancy, political neutrality protocols, crisis simulation budgets, and regulatory diversification – that separated winners from losers in the Trump era. The piece remains required reading in global risk management courses [5].
Foulis prioritizes stories revealing structural shifts in global capitalism. A successful 2020 pitch on semiconductor shortages traced the crisis from Taiwanese foundries to Detroit assembly lines, exemplifying his interest in interconnected systems [1].
His groundbreaking analysis of corporate "reputation debt" assigned dollar values to brand risk – approach pitches with metrics that make abstract concepts tangible [1].
A 2019 piece on German Mittelstand firms transformed provincial business models into a blueprint for SME globalization. Successful pitches frame regional developments as test cases for universal principles [1].
Foulis’s COVID-era coverage focused less on lockdowns than on their impact on commercial real estate valuations and M&A timelines. Bring forward indirect consequences of major events [5].
His contrarian analysis of ESG investing ("When Virtue Signalling Meets Balance Sheets") upended simplistic narratives about sustainable finance. Pitch ideas that complicate popular narratives [1].
The 2012 honor recognized Foulis’s team for explaining complex sovereign debt mechanics to general audiences. His "Debt Dominoes" series visualized financial contagion risks through manufacturing supply chain analogs [1].
This 2016 appointment acknowledged Foulis’s ability to bridge academic economics and boardroom decision-making. His fellowship research on automation’s capital allocation impacts informed multiple central bank policies [3].
Foulis’s investigative series on offshore energy financing made him the first business journalist shortlisted for this foreign policy honor, underscoring his geopolitical acuity [1].
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Business, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
