Gretchen L. Wilson is a radio, television and print journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Since 2004, she has reported throughout southern and eastern Africa as a correspondent for Marketplace, a radio program produced by American Public Media. Marketplace is the most popular broadcast program on business and economic issues in the U.S., with a weekly nationwide audience of more than 8 million listeners. Her news reports are also featured on CBC News, France 24, The Daily Beast, The World, Slate, and IRIN News, and she has been a regular news analyst for CNBC Africa.

Gretchen covers globalization and global inequality, and loves telling stories about:

  • economic development, trade, and social entrepreneurship;
  • technology and innovation for development;
  • human rights;
  • human migration;
  • climate change;
  • HIV/AIDS and public health;
  • race and identity.

Gretchen is co-author, with Beulah Thumbadoo, of From Dust to Diamonds: Stories of South African Social Entrepreneurs, a book profiling innovative civil society leaders in South Africa. The book is published by Pan Macmillan.

Prior to relocating to Johannesburg, Gretchen lived in New York and worked as an equities reporter at Dow Jones Newswires. Her stories were routinely reprinted by The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, The Miami Herald, The Los Angeles Times, and Newsday. She also worked as an assistant instructor of foreign news reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Gretchen has a long history of activism for social justice. In 1998 she was a founder of WashTech, the first labor union for “new economy” workers in the United States, which quickly affiliated with the Communications Workers of America. Gretchen worked as an organizer with the union, and joined employees of Microsoft and Amazon.com to build awareness of the importance of workers’ rights in the 21st century.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Multi-Ethnic Studies from Bard College and a Master of Science degree in Journalism from Columbia University.