Paul Johnson CBE is best known for bringing clarity to the numbers leaders prefer not to look at.

As Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), he sits at the centre of the UK’s most trusted economic analysis, scrutinising government policy, public spending, taxation, and long-term fiscal sustainability. His work is defined by independence, precision, and an insistence on confronting trade-offs rather than obscuring them with rhetoric.

Paul’s relevance to board-level audiences lies in disciplined realism. He examines how policy choices shape incentives, productivity, inequality, and growth, and why short-term fixes so often undermine long-term outcomes. He is particularly respected for exposing where political promises collide with fiscal reality, and where economic decisions create consequences that unfold slowly but inexorably.

A former Chief Economist at the Department for Education and a trusted adviser across government, Paul brings deep institutional insight into how decisions are actually made and where they quietly fail.