Gerard Lyons

Early life

Lyons was born and was raised in Kilburn, London. His father, Francis, was a mechanical engineer before working for London Transport at Baker Street station; his mother Anne was a house wife. He attended St Mary's primary school in Kilburn and Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Holland Park, London. He went on to study Maths and Economics at the University of Liverpool followed by a Masters in Economics at the University of Warwick.

Then, in 1983–85 he completed his PhD on Testing Efficiency of Financial Futures Markets at Queen Mary, University of London, supervised by Professor David Currie, of QMUL, and Professor Paul Ormerod of the Henley Centre for Forecasting, and Professor Lord Maurice Peston. Lyons wrote working papers for both QMUL and for the Henley Centre and also, during this time, had two papers accepted for international conferences.

Banking career

Lyons started his banking career in 1985 as an economist at Chase Manhattan Bank. He went on to be Chief UK economist at Savory Milln, Chief UK economist at Swiss Bank Corporation and then Chief Economist at DKB, where he earned a reputation for accurately reading the Japanese economy and as a result was given a regular column in the Nikkei. In 1999 he joined Standard Chartered Bank and went on to become Chief Economist, Group Head of Global Research and Economic Advisor to the Board. He was also a member of senior committees at the Bank, including Global Markets Committee and Risk Management Committee. In November 2012 Lyons announced he was stepping down from his position at the Standard Chartered. On 11 December 2012 the Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced that Lyons was to join his team as his chief Economic Adviser.

City Hall Role

Lyons was the Chief Economic Advisor to Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, a role announced in December 2012 and that he took up in January 2013. He advised The Mayor on economic and financial issues facing London and in this role he championed the London Living Wage, co-chaired with Deputy Mayor Munira Miza the London Strategic Migration Partnership Panel, was a member of the GLA’s Investment Performance Board, was a Board member of CityUK and was a member of the London Stansted Cambridge Commission.

Frequently asked to represent the Mayor; examples include meeting with and speaking after the Republican Presidential hopeful Governor Wilson of Wisconsin on his UK visit in 2014, co-opening the year of UK-Mexico in January 2015 at City Hall alongside a Minister from Mexico and The Mexican Ambassador, or meeting high level investors and visitors to London.

He authored The Europe Report: A Win-Win Situation that was released in August 2014. This 108 page report, plus 130 page appendices, looked at the pros and cons for London of the U.K. remaining in, or leaving, the EU. A new report, London: the UK's Powerhouse, is to be released in March 2016, and looks at the global standing of the London economy.

In addition to being the chief economic advisor to the Mayor his other current pro-bono roles include:

Advisory Board of the pro-reform think tank Open Europe;

Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum;

Committee Member of The Hong Kong Association;

Vice-Chair of the 48 Group that focuses on boosting China-UK business ties;

Council member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs;

Elected by ballot to the Council of The Royal Economic Society;

Fellow of the Society of Business Economists;

Advisory Board, Grantham Institute on Climate Change at London School of Economics & Imperial College;

Advisory Board of Warwick University Business School;

He is also a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts;

Is listed in Who's Who and Debretts and has been listed by The Evening Standard as an Influential Londoner.

Writings, media and testimonies

His first book, The Consolations of Economics, was released by Faber & Faber in June 2014 and was serialised in the Daily Telegraph and was a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. It was released as a paperback in June 2015. The book was translated into Korean, Portuguese, German, Chinese. The following provided recommendations that appeared on the cover of the book: Bill Rhodes, Tim Adams, Lord Adair Turner, Dr Jim O'Neill, Lord Nick Stern, Sir Howard Davies, Sir Richard Lambert and Lord Maurice Peston.

Lyons has published widely on economic, financial and policy issues. Examples of his reports include: Banking the Unbanked, written for The Commonwealth Finance Ministers Conference; in 2005 author of the Qatar 2020 Report on a future vision for Qatar, written for and presented to HRH The Emir, on how to position his economy. In 1999 co-author with economist Ruth Lea of Commission of the £ Sterling, an independent report commissioned by the Leader of the Opposition. It argued against joining the euro.

In 1986, at the age of 25, he was invited to join the small group of leading City economists who took it in turns to write a weekly UK economy column for The Times. During that time his Times articles correctly forecast the Lawson Boom and Bust. He has written articles and columns for papers across the globe ever since.

Lyons has testified to the US Senate & Congress, to Parliamentary Committees in both Houses of the UK Parliament. Has spoken at the EU-China Summit in Beijing, and at many other events across the globe, including at Davos, the IIF and IMF and regularly in London. Has been interviewed frequently on TV channels across the globe, including many high-profile programmes such as the BBC's Hard Talk, being on the panel at the flagship annual BBC Davos Debate, China's CCTV, India's NDTV, CNBC's Squawk Box, or Al Jazeera, as well as Bloomberg, Sky and a host of other TV & Radio programmes such as Radio 4's Today Programme.

Lyons has been a regular contributor to various think tanks across London, including Policy Exchange, Centre for Policy Studies and Politeia, for whom he regularly contributes economic blogs.

While working in The City he twice chaired conferences at Buckingham Palace, on UK – Vietnam business prospects, and at St James's Palace, on UK – Kuwait business prospects.

His eBook, 'The UK Referendum: An Easy Guide to Leaving the EU' was published by Amazon Books in March 2016. It was one of a number of contributions he made to the referendum campaign.

Economic forecasting

Lyons is a widely cited economic forecaster. In the late 1980s his articles in The Times argued that the Lawson Boom would end in a Bust. He correctly predicted sterling's ERM exit and after Black Wednesday he wrote a column in The Evening Standard that interest rates would fall sharply and the economy would grow strongly, which it did, and which was contrary to the general consensus. In 1999, he opposed the UK adopting the euro, predicting that the combined currency would run into trouble, as occurred in the 2010 European sovereign-debt crisis. During his time at DKB in the 1990s he became known as an accurate forecaster of the Japanese economy, and at Standard Chartered was viewed as one of the global experts on emerging economies. He has repeatedly been awarded "top forecaster" by the Sunday Times.. In January 2016 Lyons wrote that Brexit would depress the economy in the short-term , the report went on to highlight that Brexit also posed a risk to lon-term growth. Once again Lyons seems to have been correct regarding the negative impact of Brexit in the short-term. The outlook for the long-term coincides with similar forecasts by the International Monetary Fund

Lyons regularly topped forecasting polls when in The City. The month before the financial crisis he was one of only two UK forecasters then predicting an imminent deep recession. He and his team at Standard Chartered was awarded top global forecaster by Bloomberg (out of over 360) in 2010/11.

Roles and awards

Government roles

In 2000 he was the co-author, with Ruth Lea, of The Commission on the Pound Sterling commissioned by the then Leader of the Opposition, William Hague. In February 2006 he was the author of 'The Qatar 2020 Report', requested by and presented to the Emir of Qatar. He gave testimony on the topic of sovereign wealth funds before the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in November 2007 and again to the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs in May 2008.

Personal life

Lyons is married to Annette, an artist, and they have three children. He is the father of stand-up comedian Elf Lyons and is also a supporter of Fulham F.C.