OLIVIER HOLMEY
I am a French-British freelance journalist and a frequent contributor to The Times, Private Eye, Jeune Afrique and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. My work has also appeared in Al Jazeera, The Independent, Semafor, the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, NiemanLab, The Africa Report, the Financial Times Group newsletter 'Sustainable Views' and elsewhere.
Formerly chief correspondent, Middle East and Africa, at the monthly financial magazine Euromoney, I now work as an investigative reporter, obituarist, translator, and editor.
My subjects have included financial fraud in Europe's oil sector, political corruption in West Africa, opaque business practices in the Persian Gulf, the boxer Roger Mayweather, the inventor Trevor Baylis and the spy Jeannie Rousseau. I have reported on the ground in a dozen countries, among which Iran, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and Tanzania.
As part of a team of 17, I co-authored the Reporter's Guide to Investigating War Crimes, a 300-page ebook published by GIJN in 2024. That same year, I took part in 'Swazi Secrets', a cross-border investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) into a leak of some 900,000 official documents from Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy.
I've appeared on Times Radio, TV5 Monde, Newzroom Afrika, and South Africa's public broadcaster Channel Africa to discuss my work.
I have native fluency in French and English, as well as a decent grasp of German. Before journalism, I studied ancient history and archaeology at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Formerly chief correspondent, Middle East and Africa, at the monthly financial magazine Euromoney, I now work as an investigative reporter, obituarist, translator, and editor.
My subjects have included financial fraud in Europe's oil sector, political corruption in West Africa, opaque business practices in the Persian Gulf, the boxer Roger Mayweather, the inventor Trevor Baylis and the spy Jeannie Rousseau. I have reported on the ground in a dozen countries, among which Iran, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and Tanzania.
As part of a team of 17, I co-authored the Reporter's Guide to Investigating War Crimes, a 300-page ebook published by GIJN in 2024. That same year, I took part in 'Swazi Secrets', a cross-border investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) into a leak of some 900,000 official documents from Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy.
I've appeared on Times Radio, TV5 Monde, Newzroom Afrika, and South Africa's public broadcaster Channel Africa to discuss my work.
I have native fluency in French and English, as well as a decent grasp of German. Before journalism, I studied ancient history and archaeology at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
MAIN OUTLETS
The TimesI have written obituaries for The Times since late 2019. My first was of Lucette Destouches, the widow of the controversial French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Since then I have chronicled the lives of the lawyer Gisèle Halimi, the fashion designer Frances Stein, the billionaire Olivier Dassault, the comedian Norm Macdonald and many more. I have appeared on ‘Life and Times’, Times Radio’s daily obituary programme presented by Mariella Frostrup, to discuss several of these articles. I previously wrote obituaries for The Independent. |
Private EyeBritain’s best-selling news and current affairs magazine has been one of the main outlets for my freelance journalism. I have written for Private Eye on politics, the judiciary, business, finance, foreign affairs, the royal family, the arts, higher education, and the media. My contributions have included exclusive reports that a former Chancellor of the Exchequer charges £5,000/hour for one-on-one investment advice, that a member of the House of Commons is suspected of conflicts of interest in his dealings with Iraqi Kurdistan, and that drastic budget cuts have left the Victoria & Albert Museum without essential curatorial and conservation staff. |
Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungI was awarded a George Weidenfeld bursary to spend the last two months of 2021 as guest reporter on the financial news desk of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. During my time in Frankfurt, I produced a series of features and breaking news stories about activist short sellers, with the aim of giving the German public a better understanding of that type of investor, which had drawn fierce controversy during the Wirecard fraud scandal. I have since continued to write for the German broadsheet, as City correspondent, covering all manner of financial news. |
Jeune AfriqueThe leading pan-African news and current affairs magazine has published my work since early 2019. I have contributed pieces on business, finance, law, politics and public health, covering, inter alia, court cases brought by the Nigerian and Mozambican states, the Airbus and Glencore corruption scandals, and the African Union’s response to the outbreak of Covid-19. I have written cover stories for Jeune Afrique’s annual business and finance supplements, and edited one such supplement. I also spearheaded Jeune Afrique's first project with the ICIJ. I have appeared on TV5 Monde's Africa news programme to discuss my reporting for the magazine. |
FEATURED STORIES