Mary Childs

Mary Childs (she/her) is a co-host and correspondent for NPR's award-winning "Planet Money" podcast. A well-versed journalist, Childs joined the NPR team in 2019. Before her tenure at NPR, she was a senior reporter at Barron's magazine, where she covered the alternatives industry, the bond market, and capitalism. Prior to Barron's, she served as a correspondent for the Financial Times and contributed extensively to Bloomberg News.

Childs is also an accomplished author, having written "The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All," which garnered attention as one of LitHub’s most anticipated books of the year. Her insightful reporting has been recognized as The New Yorker’s “Best Business Reporting.” Beyond her written work, she has appeared as a commentator on several television networks including Bloomberg TV, Fox Business, Yahoo TV, and Nikkei TV, bringing her expertise in finance and economics to a wider audience.

Mary Childs is a graduate of Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where she earned a degree in business journalism. Her academic work included an honors thesis on the use and significance of media sting operations in the U.S. and India. Additionally, she was a 2015 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Honoree, reflecting her impact and innovation in financial journalism. Before her career in journalism, Childs explored the world as a Watson Fellow, painting portraits and embracing diverse cultures. She currently resides in Virginia with her family.