Hilary Camilla Cavendish, Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (born 20 August 1968) is a British journalist and former Director of Policy for Prime Minister David Cameron. Cavendish became a Conservative Member of the House of Lords in Cameron's resignation honours, but resigned the party Whip in December 2016 to sit as a non-affiliated peer. From 2002 until 2012 she worked at The Times where she was Associate Editor, columnist and in 2010 Chief Leader Writer. She then moved to The Sunday Times from 2012 to May 2015. She has worked as a McKinsey management consultant, an aid worker, and as an aide to the CEO of Pearson plc. She helped to found the lobby group London First, and was the first CEO of the not-for-profit trust South Bank Employers' Group, which masterminded the regeneration of the South Bank of the Thames in the late 1990s. From May 2015 to July 2016, Cavendish was head of the prime minister's policy unit at No10 Downing Street in succession to Jo Johnson. Amongst initiatives, Cavendish is credited with persuading the Prime Minister and his Chancellor about the benefits of a sugar tax; she said that the "link between sugary drinks and obesity are clear and stark". The Soft Drinks Industry Levy came into force in April 2018. Camilla Cavendish is an award-winning writer and broadcaster, and Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School. She writes a weekly oped column on current affairs for the Financial Times and is the author of “Extra Time: Ten Lessons for an Ageing World”, published by Harper Collins in May 2019. She has been Head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit under David Cameron, a Non-Executive Director of the Care Quality Commission, and a McKinsey consultant. She chairs the non-profit Frontline and sits in the House of Lords as an independent peer: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice. HarperCollins published Cavendish's first book Extra Time in May 2019.