Chris Wheal

Chris Wheal is an award-winning freelance journalist. He specialises in running teams of reporters covering financial matters ranging from personal finance to stock markets and cryptocurrencies.

Chris has been variously head of content, managing editor and editor-in-chief running large and small editorial teams. These have included an international 24 hour/5-day a week news, features and video content operation; weekly newsletters and price comparison websites. He has worked for MoneySuperMarket, Uswitch and the Consumers’ Association Which?

Experience

Chris started as a journalist in 1987 on business paper Electronics Weekly, soon being promoted to employment reporter. He then moved to The Engineer where, in addition to labour relations, he covered the chemical industry.

His first taste of financial journalism was covering public sector and government spending at Public Finance magazine, where he was features editor. He has since edited three magazines, including Insurance Times, as well as taking charge of several supplements in the Guardian.

Chris was one of the first journalists to move online and was asked to launch a financial website in the UK for AOL, run entirely by freelances. After several years he was invited to work in AOL's office to merge two sites and launch AOL Money (he did this while also news-editing insurance weekly Post Magazine).

Outside work, Chris was a board member of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC) for more than a decade and chair of trustees for the charity NUJ Extra. In 2023, he was made an honorary life member of the National Union of Journalists for his contributions.

He is a vice-president of Charlton Park RFC and a board member of the West Ham United Supporters' Trust.

Media coverage

Chris has been interviewed on TV and radio, appearing on a diverse range of programmes He has been on the BBC's Breakfast TV and with Donna Air's Toon Army on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast. He has been on Sky and Bloomberg TV as well as regional radio and Radio 4's the Today programme.

Published works

Chris has written for all the UK's broadsheet newspapers and a few tabloids. He has written for business magazines and websites and hosted live webinars.

Chris has also written for consumer titles, such as London's listing magazine Time Out, where he used his financial expertise to probe London Assembly members' expenses claims and to score London Mayor Ken Livingston's record in office. He also writes for West Ham fanzine Blowing Bubbles.

Citations

Chris was the 1999 British Insurance Brokers' Association broadsheet journalist of the year for an article in the Guardian on council insurance.
In July 2003 he was named the BIBA tabloid journalist of the year 2002 for an article in Choice magazine.
In 2007 he was highly commended in the BIBA trade press category for an article in Insurance Times about household insurance.
In 2008 Chris was named BIBA's business journalist of the year for an article in Healthcare Finance about foundation trust insurance.
He has been shortlisted several times, including thought leadership, and was highly commended for the trade press feature award in 2006 and online journalist of the year for 2018.

Degrees and/or titles

Chris has a BA(Hons) in Modern European Studies and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Conference appearances/speaking engagements

Chris has spoken at numerous universities and presented sessions to the annual BJTC partner conferences, where industry and academics discuss modern trends in journalism.

Previous jobs

Chris briefly set and ran a phone app business that helped motorcyclists keep records of their bikes, including insurance, tax, maintenance and fuel. Having launched when less than half the population had a smartphone he blames failure on being ahead of his time.