Quick Facts
Biography
Patience Jane Wheatcroft, Baroness Wheatcroft (born 28 September 1951), is a British journalist and Conservative politician, who was editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal Europe. She left this role upon becoming a peer.
She previously served as editor of the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. She resigned from this post in September 2007 after eighteen months in the job and temporarily moved out of journalism.
Career
Wheatcroft was educated at Birmingham University (LLB, Law, 1972). Wheatcroft and her husband, Tony Salter, launched the specialist trade magazine Retail Week in 1988, and Wheatcroft served as its consultant editor until 1992.
Wheatcroft has worked on several national newspapers including The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. After serving as Deputy City Editor of the Mail on Sunday, Wheatcroft was appointed Business & City Editor of The Times in 1997, and then as editor of the Sunday Telegraph in March 2006.
In 2001 she won the Wincott Senior Journalist of the Year Award, and in 2003 was London Press Club Business Journalist of the Year.
On 4 September 2007 she resigned as editor of The Sunday Telegraph being replaced by Ian MacGregor, who until then had been deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph. Reports stated that Wheatcroft was under pressure to integrate the Sunday paper's reporters with the daily newspaper's 24/7 operation.
Appointments
From 1 January 2008 until 2009, Wheatcroft served as a non-executive director of Barclays plc.
From 27 February 2008 until 2009, Wheatcroft served as a non-executive director of Shaftesbury plc, a British property investment company with assets in central London.
On 8 May 2008 she was appointed head of the newly created Forensic Audit Panel by the incoming Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The panel is tasked with monitoring and investigating financial management at the London Development Agency and the Greater London Authority.
On 30 July 2010, The Prime Minister appointed her to the board of the British Museum.
On 22 December 2010 Wheatcroft was created a life peer as Baroness Wheatcroft, of Blackheath in the London Borough of Greenwich. She sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative, having been a lifelong supporter of the party.
In October 2014, Wheatcroft became a non-executive board member of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Private life
Wheatcroft is married with three children. Her publisher husband Tony was a Conservative councillor working in the London boroughs of Woolwich and Lewisham.