Marjorie Scardino is chief executive of Pearson, the international education and media business made up of Pearson Education, Penguin and the Financial Times Group.

Until January 1997, she was chief executive of The Economist Group (of which Pearson owns 50%), and, prior to 1985, she was a partner in a Savannah, Georgia law firm. With her husband, Albert Scardino, Marjorie founded and published the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Georgia Gazette. They have three children.

Marjorie is a non-executive director of Nokia Corporation and a member of a number of charitable and advisory boards including The MacArthur Foundation, The Carter Center, Oxfam and The Victoria & Albert Museum. In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II named Marjorie a Dame of the British Empire, and in 2010 she was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.