BBC Radio 4 Money Box presenter and ex-Money Mail columnist Louise Botting dies aged 87 as daughter and Sky News host Anna pays tribute to ‘super smart trailblazer’

Louise Botting, a pioneering financial journalist and businesswoman, has died aged 87 following a short illness in September. She helped transform how financial news and household spending were explained to ordinary Britons, breaking significant barriers for women in both journalism and the male-dominated world of finance. Her daughter, Sky News broadcaster Anna Botting, paid tribute to her as a "super-smart trailblazer" in her career.

Botting began her career as a banker at Kleinwort Benson in the 1960s, when female financiers were exceptionally rare; her firm had to build her a women's toilet. She made her name writing for the Daily Mail's Money Mail from 1972 to 1976, before being chosen to present BBC Radio 4's Money Box from its launch in 1977, where she remained for 15 years. She was awarded a CBE in 1993 for services to journalism and served on the boards of major British companies, founding her own wealth management consultancy.