Portfolio highlights
Including front page stories, scoops, magazine covers and most read features and analysis
Foreign news assignment:
I travelled to Sicily to lead the coverage of the death of Autonomy boss Mike Lynch in 2024, one of the biggest corporate stories of the year, enabling the FT to scoop on the offences being investigated as well as the number and identity of the bodies being recovered. I secured the world's first interview with the yacht's manufacturer in a piece widely followed by international news organisations, as well as scoring a punchy interview with the skipper-witness challenging the boat maker's views.
- Front page scoops | Bodies identified and bodies counted
- Front page first | Bayesian maker says crew should have had time to rescue passengers - the world's first interview with maker of the yacht
- Scoop | Italian prosecutors probe 'negligent shipwreck' of Lynch's superyacht - revealed the offences being investigated before they were announced
- Video | I wrote and featured in a social media video explainer which had 443,000 views
Scoops and original reporting:
- Front page global first | Meta takes down Italy's FB group of men sharing intimate photos of their wives online - I put Italy's revenge porn scandal on the global map, turning a regional sex story into tech news that highlighted Meta's shortcomings, leading reporting efforts in collaboration with colleagues in Rome and San Francisco. Our story was widely followed by the BBC, CNN, Guardian and Le Monde among other publications
- Scoop | Drivers demand Uber loosen UK insurance restrictions after price rises - I exposed Uber's anti-competitive insurance system, talking to 20 Uber drivers and independently finding inside sources. Uber updated its policies as a result of this high-impact corporate scoop
- Scoop | AstraZeneca's top China executive detained by authorities - I worked with colleagues in London and China to expose the AstraZeneca executive being investigated for the illegal importation and sale of a cancer drug
- Scoop | Crypto casino Stake takings top $80bn as gamblers bypass blocks - I personally gambled on the unregulated offshore crypto casino Stake from London, via a VPN, in a bid to demonstrate how the site accepts users from jurisdictions where it is not regulated, allowing the proliferation of a billion-pound deregulated sector. This was achieved working closely with the FT lawyer, who confirmed the use of subterfuge was justified by the public interest
- First | Kalshi Prediction market with Trump ties threatens US sports bet sector - I was the first to report comprehensively on Trump-affiliated prediction market Kalshi's regulatory hurdles, working with colleagues in London and Washington to beat Bloomberg and the New York Times
- Gordon Brown first | Rachel Reeves faces calls to increase taxes on £15bn gambling industry - I was the first to link Gordon Brown's push to tax the gambling sector to the SMF think thank and the All Party Parliamentary Group, whose guidance was later adopted by the chancellor in the Autumn Budget
- Front page and splash | London Stock Exchange suffers biggest exodus since financial crisis, I reported this financial story with colleagues on the Markets desk
- Analysis | How James Dyson's farming empire may be hit by £120mn in death duties - I visited the Dyson farm in Lincolnshire to lead this news-led analysis, bringing in four colleagues for a total of five authors across three desks. I later wrote and featured a social video explainer, which attracted 192K views
- Original shoe-leather reporting | UK stores still stock throwaway vapes despite single-use ban - I led another five-author story, which involved visiting 50 tobacco shops and collecting our own data to assess the failure of the UK vape ban
- Exposed executives' lies | Bookmakers 'scaremongering' with complaints about UK gambling tax rises- When gambling bosses warned that higher taxes may push users to the black market this summer, I secured an on-record interview with the founder of Paddy Power who exposed bookmakers' red herring strategies
- Data-led analysis | Is private equity behind the surging cost of veterinary care? - I independently sourced and handled data to write this analysis piece on the impact of private equity rollups on the veterinary sector globally, written in collaboration with a colleague
- Analysis | British tourists ditch European summer breaks to avoid heatwaves and wildfires - this piece on how extreme weather was driving a boom shoulder season for travel was so popular I was asked by the video team to write and record a social video explainer, which had 107K views
Long-form writing:
- Viral FT story becomes the story | Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong - This lead Magazine feature exposing the marketing lies at the core of a multi billion-dollar sector may remain the most read Weekend story since I joined the FT in 2017. After going viral and being translated into multiple languages, the piece became a story in itself when rival media outlets including the BBC, CNN and the Guardian followed the Italian government and trade union's response to our coverage
- Dispatch from a hideout of Russian oligarchs | Half of this Italian beach town is on holiday and half is in exile - this narrative feature (described by Simon Schama as "a perfectly executed documentary short story up there with the best of Giorgio Bassani or Elena Ferrante") made national news in Italy and Eastern Europe and was translated into multiple languages (into Russian, for example, to be sent to Evan Gershkovic during his incarceration)
- Magazine cover published in two languages | Who killed Pier Paolo Pasolini?, a 6,000-word true crime narrative on the unsolved murder of the late director, novelist and intellectual, detailing the work of the lawyer who spend 15 years fighting for justice
- Profile-interview | Meet the psychologist who first identified imposter syndrome, a long-form conversation with retired scholar Pauline Rose Clance, the octogenarian who first theorised imposter syndrome