Martin Steven Lewis CBE (born 9 May 1972) is an English financial journalist and broadcaster. Lewis founded the website MoneySavingExpert.com. He sold the website in 2012 to the Moneysupermarket.com group for up to £87 million. Lewis is currently a presenter for ITV, on the morning shows Good Morning Britain and This Morning since 2007. He also presents The Martin Lewis Money Show.
Early life and education
Lewis was born at Withington Hospital in Manchester in 1972. His family lived in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury. While still a child he moved with his family to the village of Norley, near Delamere Forest in rural Cheshire, where his father was appointed headmaster of Delamere Forest School, a Jewish school for students with special educational needs. His mother Susan Lewis, died following a horse riding accident, involving a collision with a lorry, when he was aged 11. In later life he became a patron of the children's bereavement charity Grief Encounter and an advocate for life insurance.
Lewis attended The King's School, an independent school in Chester. Lewis has stated that he was subjected to anti-Semitism as a school boy in Chester, remarking that as one of only two Jewish boys in his year he was given the nickname "Jew" by other pupils. He went on to read Government and Law at the London School of Economics and in 1997 became a postgraduate student in Broadcast Journalism at Cardiff University's Centre for Journalism Studies. In 2013 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Chester.
Career
Early career
After graduating, Lewis was the general secretary of the LSE Students' Union. He then went to work in the City of London for the Brunswick Group, a financial communications consultancy.
TV and radio
After graduating in journalism at Cardiff University, Lewis became a producer for the BBC Business Unit working on the BBC Radio Five Live business programmes and as an editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme business slot. Lewis then moved to satellite channel Simply Money, fronted by Angela Rippon, where he cultivated his "Money Saving Expert" persona. From the outset, the channel suffered poor viewing figures and its main backer, Invest TV Resources, withdrew their support in March 2001. Almost all of its 51 staff, including Lewis, lost their jobs.
After the collapse of Simply Money, Lewis contributed to a "Deal of the Week" column in the Sunday Express. Lewis also presented "Money Saving Expert" slots on Channel 5's daytime show, Open House with Gloria Hunniford. Lewis returned to the BBC to work as a business and personal finance reporter for the corporation's BBC One Breakfast News. In 2005, Lewis presented a daytime television series on ITV called Make Me Rich and in 2008 a peak time programme on Five called It Pays to Watch!. Lewis has also presented money special editions for ITV's Tonight and has featured as a "Money Saving Expert" on several other magazine programmes including Good Morning Britain and Lorraine.
Lewis currently appears on ITV's This Morning and as an occasional guest on other news and magazine programmes. In 2012, he began co-presenting The Martin Lewis Money Show, initially with Saira Khan, and more recently with Angellica Bell. He also appeared weekly on the Emma Barnett Show on BBC's Radio Five Live. In June 2020 he was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
In December 2022, Martin Lewis appeared with LadBaby on their Christmas charity single, "Food Aid", a spoof of Band Aid's 1984 charity single Do They Know It's Christmas?.
Money Saving Expert
In October 2002 Martin appeared in the Meridian Trust's (now Public Service Broadcasting Trust) live Spotlight Programme "Save yourself a fortune" on ITV Meridian as their Money Saving Expert for the first time. The programme subsequently won the Royal Television Society Educational Award – 2002 Campaigns and Seasons.
Lewis created and runs the website MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE), which was originally designed for a cost of just £100 in February 2003. In September 2012 he sold the website to the Moneysupermarket.com group for up to £87m but remained editor-in-chief. The deal saw Lewis receive £35m cash up front in addition to 22.1m shares in Moneysupermarket.com and £27m in future payments. He simultaneously announced his intention to give £10m to charity, of which £1m would go to Citizens Advice.