Frances Cairncross

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Frances Anne Cairncross CBE (born 30 August 1944, Otley, England) is a British economist, journalist and academic.

She is the daughter of economist Sir Alexander Kirkland Cairncross (Alec Cairncross) and the niece of John Cairncross.

She became Rector of Exeter College, Oxford in October 2004. Previously, she was on the staff of The Economist for 20 years, most recently as management editor. She was on the staff of The Guardian from 1973 to 1984, and before that spent periods on the financial staff of The Times, The Banker and The Observer. She chairs the Economic and Social Research Council and was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (2005–06). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Senior Fellow at the School of Public Policy, UCLA.

Cairncross read Modern History at St Anne's College, Oxford, graduating in 1965, and holds an MA in Economics from Brown University, Rhode Island. She holds honorary degrees from Trinity College Dublin, City University, and the Universities of Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Loughborough and Kingston.

Her latest book, The Company of the Future, was published in 2002 by Harvard Business School Press. In March 2003 she won the Institute of Internal Auditors' annual award for business and management journalism. She is also the author of The Death of Distance, a study of the economic and social effects of the global communications revolution, first published in 1997 and re-published in a completely new edition in 2001.

She is a non-executive director of Stramongate Ltd, and a regular presenter of BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme. In 2004-05, she held the honorary post of High Sheriff of Greater London.