A Day In The Life Of… Georgina Quach, Newsletter Editor at the Financial Times

Georgina Quach didn’t plan on specialising in newsletters, but a job opportunity at the Financial Times was too good to resist. Since joining the FT two years ago, she’s launched their weekday newsletter, Inside Politics, and works across many other mail-outs covering everything from finance to fashion.

We talked to Georgina at the Student Publication Association National Conference 2024 about a day in the life of a newsletter editor, why newsletters are such a powerful medium, and her best advice for starting a career in journalism.

How did you become newsletter editor at the Financial Times?

I was hired by the Financial Times back in 2022 to launch a new politics newsletter called Inside Politics. Before, this was just an automated newsletter [so] there was a huge opportunity to provide a new product that would showcase the best of our political analysis, and newsletters are such a big growth area for the FT.

We now have over 40 different newsletters. I moved over from The Guardian, where I was a Scott Trust bursary journalist. [At the FT,] I really immersed myself into a new, digital world with a format I’d never worked with before, but [it] was really eye-opening to experiment with lots of different methods of engagement.

What do you feel makes newsletters so impactful as a medium? 

It’s about creating this bubble where people can interact. Journalism is so difficult now, to grab people’s attention. There’s such a flood of information out there, so newsletters are a way of counteracting that, providing something a little tailored and personalised.

For a legacy publication like the FT, the client and audience base is generally older and I guess it was a huge surprise to me to find out that the FT was investing in something so novel in the journalism industry.

What surprises you most about your job?

The first has definitely been the investment of our readers, and also the FT giving newsletters a big platform. We’ve invested a lot in trying to bring in a new audience. The FT has typically targeted high-earning bankers, investor kind of people, but I think newsletters are a way of opening up the audience, and our aim when we were setting up the newsletter at the beginning was to encourage a younger audience who may not be able to afford a full FT subscription. It’s about democratising the typical high-standard journalism of the FT and bringing that to students and anyone just curious about the world.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I start quite early because I don’t have to start in the office. I listen to the radio, the BBC programmes, and try to get a grasp of the day’s agenda. I read the front pages and then I start work. I pick up the newsletter that has been started the night before and edit it. I add some of my own stories that I think will appeal to our readers and basically optimise the column to work well online. After it’s published we put effort into trying to promote it on social media and listen to any feedback we get.

I don’t just work on that newsletter, so after that’s done I go into the office and work on a suite of other newsletters like fashion, European politics, finance, etc. I do some of my own writing as well, which is a good thing about the FT, is that you can wear a lot of hats. You don’t have to just stick to your day job; you can supplement it with other journalism jobs.

It’s quite a varied day and I don’t usually have set things. I have longer-term and shorter-term projects that I try to fit in day to day.

What would you tell anyone wanting to follow in your footsteps?

I guess the first thing is never limit yourself. Never feel that because you don’t have experience in this area that you won’t be able to succeed. I didn’t come into the FT knowing much about newsletters. I worked on one previously but my sense of what makes a good newsletter for such a massive international audience was severely limited.

But I still felt that the important thing is having ambition and curiosity, to know how to connect with an audience and knowing where that story can really make a difference. If you have an idea, or something that’s been rattling around in your mind, whether that’s culture, film, TV, or politics, I think you can wheel that to your advantage.

I think your personal voice is such a powerful tool to cut through all the noise and the more personal and authentic you can make it [the better]; that can really shine through and I don’t think you need to obsess over trying to be radical or the biggest name. I think you just need faith in yourself and your readership to push your product forward.

How do you unwind after a long day?

I’ve been trying to go swimming recently. I love walking home, as well. I live close enough to the city that I can walk home in less than an hour and I love podcasts too.

I try not to read too much news. Obviously, I need to read the FT newsletters but I think it can be quite taxing to try and keep up with the world news because there is just so much happening. So, I try to tune out in the evenings, watch TV with my boyfriend, and separate home life from work.