Joris Luyendijk
Swimming with sharks - Morality in finance
Joris Luyendijk is a Dutch-born London-based writer and journalist. He is a regular contributor on the morality of finance and on Brexit for the Guardian as well as for Dagens Nyheter in Sweden, NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands and Ahora in Spain.
Joris had his breakthrough in Scandinavia in 2016 with his latest book Swimming with Sharks (Sweden: Simma med Hajar, Finland: Rahan Ruhtinaat, Norway: Svømme med Haier). Set in Europe's financial center, the City of London, and based on over 200 interviews with bankers and banking staff working there, the book explains in simple and jargon-free language why even insiders do not believe that their own banks are now safe. The book also asks bankers how they can live with themselves, and who they would be in the animal kingdom.
A European bestseller, Swimming with Sharks is set to appear in 20 countries and has sold over 300 000 copies in the Netherlands alone. Le Monde called it 'excellent' while the Financial Times wrote that it is Joris' "willingness to see the good in his subjects that gives his final conclusion greater force."
Joris has given evidence to Belgian, European and British parliamentary committees about morality in finance. He is also the author of widely acclaimed Hello Everybody!, a memoir of his time as Middle East correspondent that lifts the lid on how foreign journalists actually work - rather than how they pretend to work. The Middle East, and particularly the media representation of it, still has Joris' keen interest and the same is true for Brexit and its implications for the United Kingdom as well as the rest of Europe.
Joris has given many speeches throughout his career including two TEDx talks. He was moderator for TEDx UN in New York in 2015. Joris is a regular feature on BBC. He spoke at the Grid Bonnier Conference 2016 about disruptive innovation in journalism and why we still see so little of it.
An outsider's perspective on the world of finance
Few sectors in society are more important than finance, and few are as badly understood. A complete outsider himself, Joris immersed himself in the world of banking, interviewing over 200 bankers and banking staff in the City of London, Europe's financial center. The good news is that bankers are not evil. But there is also bad news...
Morality in the Corporate World
After the diesel emissions scandal, the Panama Papers and the series of scandals to hit the global financial sector, the issue of ethics has made a long deserved come-back. Joris has interviewed no less than 200 bankers and banking staff on morality in finance: why do some organizations lose their moral compass? Is it enough to obey the rules? Or should one go beyond that and is that even possible in today's corporate environment?
Islam
Having studied Arabic and Islamic studies, Joris lived in the Middle East for six years. Using his own experiences he seeks to answer the question that has been on everyone's mind for the past fifteen years at least: How to avoid prejudices or political correctness when trying to understand the world' fastest growing religion: Islam.
The Media
Can we still trust the news media? Having worked as correspondent in the Middle East for five years, Joris draws on his own lively experiences around dictators, stone throwers, occupiers and terrorists to explain why there is such a gap between reality as you find it on the ground, and the way reality is represented in the mass media.
Innovation in Journalism
For well over a decade now Joris has been at the forefront of innovation in journalism. He is the author of the renowned Guardian Bankingblog where banking insiders conducted a two year long online conversation with other insiders as well as ordinary readers. Joris believes strongly in the power of information and the natural thirst for knowledge among most ordinary people. What Joris does not believe is that classical news media do a good job in meeting that demand for insights that manage to be simple without becoming simplistic.
