Mark S. Lawson

Mark Lawson has been a journalist for nearly 25 years. He has worked in trade publications (IT, travel, hospitality, printing ect), on suburbans in Melbourne and on regional Victorian newspapers. But the bulk of his career has been on The Australian Financial Review as editorial writer for several years, science columnist, Perth bureau chief, companies and business writer. One series of reports he edits is the AFR's Carbon Quarterly. He has freelanced for various other publications over the years, including the defunct Independent Monthly and specialist overseas newsletters in the diverse areas of accounting and biotechnology.

For two years up to mid-2001, before being forcibly repatriated to the AFR, he was editor of a specialised financial magazine CFO. While at CFO he wrote a column called 'Rave' in which he tried to offend as many people as possible. Mark's original training was in science at Melbourne University from which, after reading material on almost every subject except those pertaining to his course, he emerged with a rather sorry BSc in 1977.