Jeremy Hillman is communications director at The World Bank. Formerly a journalist with the BBC, he spent a decade with the corporation; first as economics reporter, then New York bureau chief, and finally economics and business editor. He left in 2011 to become director of external communications at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, before taking on his current role in 2014. In this in-depth interview, Jeremy discusses the “white saviour” stereotype and the “incredible optimism” of developing economies, describes the challenges of modern philanthropy in tackling poverty, and argues that economic journalism is crucial to understanding in almost all areas of the media.