Alan Smith

Alan Smith is Head of Visual and Data Journalism at the Financial Times. Based in London, he leads the FT's newsroom team of data reporters and visual journalists. A data visualisation specialist, his TEDx talk Why You Should Love Statistics was featured on TED.com in 2017. Alan is the author of How Charts Work, a handbook on designing with data using the FT's principles.Before he joined the FT, Alan was head of digital content at the UK Office for National Statistics. He was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2011 for services to official statistics.