Marjorie M. Scardino is chief executive of Pearson plc, the international media group whose primary business operations include Pearson Education, (incorporating Addison Wesley Longman and Simon & Schuster Education), the Financial Times Group, the Penguin Group and Pearson Television. Pearson also owns a stake in The Economist and the Lazard investment banking houses in London, New York and Paris. Until January 1997, she was chief executive of The Economist Group, which, in addition to The Economist magazine, publishes a range of publications and services including the worldwide publishing and conference businesses of the Economist Intelligence Unit. Prior to 1985, she was managing partner in a Savannah, Georgia law firm and publisher and founder, with her husband, of the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper The Georgia Gazette. Mrs. Scardino is on the Board of Directors of ConAgra, Inc. and WH Smith Group plc, and also a number of charitable and advisory boards. She has been made an Honorary Fellow of the London Business School, as well as being awarded The Maria and Sidney E. Rolfe Award by the Women's Economic Roundtable, and the New York City Partnership's 1997 International Commerce and Leadership Award. In May 1998 she was named Veuve Cliquot Business Woman of the Year. Mrs. Scardino is married to Albert Scardino, a journalist. The Scardinos have three children.