Marjorie Scardino is chief executive of Pearson, the international education and media business made up of Pearson Education, Penguin and the Financial Times Group. Pearson's publishing spans consumer books, textbooks and educational software, newspapers, magazines and online news. Its services include testing, financial data and citizen information services for government.

Until January 1997, she was chief executive of The Economist Group (of which Pearson owns 50%), and, prior to 1985, she was a partner in a Savannah, Georgia law firm. With her husband, Albert Scardino, Marjorie founded and published the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Georgia Gazette. They have three children.

Marjorie is a non-executive director of Nokia Corporation and a member of a number of charitable and advisory boards, including, The MacArthur Foundation, The Carter Center and The Victoria & Albert Museum.