About Micheline Maynard
“If you’ve read or heard anything about the American economy or the automobile industry during the past two decades, it’s likely Micheline Maynard said it” — Professor Charles O’Reilly, Stanford University.
Micheline Maynard is a journalist, author and educator based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The short version
Micheline (pronounced Mish-a-leen) Maynard is a veteran business journalist whose expertise ranges from reinventing the American economy, to the automobile industry to travel and food writing. She’s best known for her work with The New York Times, where she was the award winning Detroit bureau chief and a senior business correspondent. Her book, The End of Detroit, predicted the collapse of the American carmakers well before it happened. These days, her work appears in publications ranging from Forbes to The Atlantic, as well as the Times. She teaches business and journalism students at major universities, and is a frequent guest on NPR, the PBS NewsHour and CNBC.
The Long Version
Micheline Maynard is the former Detroit bureau chief and senior business correspondent for The New York Times. Most recently, she served as the senior editor of Changing Gears, a public media project exploring the reinvention of the industrial Midwest, and she’s since embarked on a series of ventures.
Maynard, who is known as Micki, writes for Forbes Magazine and is author of the Voyages blog at Forbes.com, focusing on transportation and the economy. She is a contributing writer for The Atlantic Monthly’s AtlanticCities.com. She writes Jalopnik.com’s daily column, The Morning Shift, and her work also appears on Gadling.com as well as in the Times.
In 2009, she was named the 11th winner of the annual Nathaniel Nash Award, which honors a Times reporter who excels in business and economics coverage, at home or abroad. Maynard and a team of Times reporters shared two awards from SABEW, a business journalists’ group for their coverage in print and online of the General Motors bankruptcy. The Changing Gears team received a regional Edward R. Murrow Award in 2012, as well as a Headliner Award.
She has written for Fortune Magazine, and she has been a staff writer or bureau chief at news organizations including USA TODAY, Newsday, U.S. News & World Report, and the Reuters News Service. Maynard began her career as a legislative correspondent for United Press International in Lansing, Mich., and served as an intern in the White House Press Office.
Scholar
Beginning in winter, 2013, Maynard will be a Reynolds Visiting Professor of Business Journalism at Central Michigan University. Twice in 2012, she served as a Reynolds Distinguished Visitor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her Reno students produced ReinventingReno.com, a project looking at the gaming city’s future. In fall, 2012, she was a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University.
In 2010, she was a Reynolds Distinguished Visitor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. She was named a media fellow by the Japan Society of New York in 2002, and also was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan in 1999-2000. And in 1989-1990, she was chosen as a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism at Columbia University.
Maynard has been an adjunct faculty member at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan since 2000, and has taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Author
She has written four books, most notably 2003′s acclaimed The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market, which foresaw the collapse of Detroit carmakers. Also published by Random House, it appeared in paperback in 2004. The German newsmagazine Stern dubbed her “the bravest woman in Detroit” for writing The End of Detroit, and her book has been used as a text at a number of universities. It also inspired the name of a rock band.
Her most recent book, The Selling of the American Economy: How Foreign Companies Are Remaking the American Dream, was published in October 2009 by Random House. The book was excerpted in The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, and featured on National Public Radio.
She holds an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and a graduate degree from Columbia.
Appearances
Maynard is a regular guest on national and international television, such as PBS NewsHour, Charlie Rose, CNBC’s Squawk Box, ABC’s 20/20, The Today Show, and BBC World News. She appears frequently on NPR programs including Talk of the Nation, Here and Now, All Things Considered, Morning Edition and on Marketplace.
She is an experienced public speaker, including appearances at Harvard, Dartmouth, Columbia, Michigan, Michigan State, The University of Nevada Reno, Wayne State and Indiana State. She has spoken to the non-profit and corporate groups including the Women In Restructuring Confederation, US-China Chamber of Commerce, Economic Club of Grand Rapids, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and the Ann Arbor City Club, as well as many civic organizations.
Culinary Background
A trained cook and enthusiastic student, she studied with Patricia Wells in Paris and took classes at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa, Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor as well as the Viking Cooking School in Greenwood, Miss. Her food writing appears regularly on Forbes.com, The Atlantic Cities, Journeywoman.com, Gadling.com, JourneyWoman.com and on her blog, CulinaryWoman.com,. She is a trustee of Awesome Food, a member of the Southern Foodways Association, and her work has been nominated for a James Beard Award.