Saabira Chaudhuri is a London-based business journalist with nearly two decades of experience reporting on how big companies shape the way we live. She spent 12 years at The Wall Street Journal in New York and London, where she reported on global consumer goods giants across industries including alcohol, fast fashion, personal care, tobacco and food and drink, and regularly spoke about her work on radio and the Journal’s podcasts.
Prior to WSJ, which she left in May 2025, Saabira worked on staff for Dow Jones newswires, Forbes and Fast Company in New York, and for the business newspaper, Mint, in New Delhi.
Her book Consumed – How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic was published in May 2025 and is a deeply reported, narrative investigation of disposability that has triggered a wholesale rewiring of the way we live. It investigates why the many solutions these companies have offered have failed to make a dent in our rapidly growing waste, health and climate problem and calls on consumers to help shift the system by holding companies accountable for the choices they make.
It was selected as one of the Best Books of 2025: Environment, Science, and Technology, longlisted for the prestigious FT & Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025 Award, and shortlisted for SABEW’s 2025 Best Business Book Award.
‘Consumed’ was described by Mike Berners-Lee – author of The Climate of Truth – as “eye-popping, engaging and rigorous” and by Chris Van Tulleken – author of Ultra-Processed People – as a book that “will change the way you see the world and could change the world itself.”
Saabira was the winner of the prestigious Wall Street Journal Asia fellowship to New York University where she earned an MA in Business and Economic Reporting. She graduated magna cum laude and phi beta kappa from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in sociology and spent her senior year studying law and sociology at the London School of Economics.
Originally from Bangalore, India, Saabira brings a global perspective to her reporting and speaking, drawing on a deep understanding of both the forces shaping emerging markets and the dynamics driving the West.