Leslie Wayne is an award-winning former business reporter for The New York Times specializing in financial investigations. In more than two decades at The Times, she produced more than 1,500 bylines and is currently a contributor to The Times. She has written on illicit finance, Wall Street and the economy and was a member of The Times’ campaign finance team in Presidential election from 1996 to 2008.
Wayne worked as a senior writer for The International Consortium of Investigative Reporters in Washington, D.C. in 2013 and 2014 and was the lead reporter on “Lux Leaks,” which exposed Luxembourg’s secret corporate tax breaks. In 2015, Lux Leaks earned a George Polk award, a New York Press Club award and a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award. She was also a senior editor at 100Reporters.org from 2010 to 2012.
She has reported from Times’s bureaus in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London and Paris, and from other global spots for ICIJ. Ms. Wayne has an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia. She got her start in journalism at The University of Michigan, where she was an editor on The Michigan Daily.
Wayne has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS Radio, Bloomberg Television as well as in Times’ podcasts and videos. She also worked at The News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C., and at The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2010, she was named the inaugural Donald W. Reynolds visiting professor in business journalism at Arizona State University and was a visiting professor in the Global Business Journalism program at Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2012. Wayne is a five-time winner of The New York Times “Publisher’s Award,” and winner of the “Best of Bagehot” award honoring the best work from a Bagehot Fellow.