Pearson media chief to be made a dame

Marjorie Scardino, the US-born chief executive of the multimillion-dollar Pearson media empire, will be made a dame today.

Mrs Scardino, 55, earns more than £1m a year and is credited with turning around the fortunes of the media giant responsible for the Financial Times, The Economist and Penguin Books. One of the most senior businesswomen in Britain, she will be honoured in recognition of her "services to the media".

The award has been kept secret because Mrs Scardino was applying for British citizenship. Without a UK passport, she would only have been eligible for an honorary peerage. Conrad Black, the Canadian-born proprietor and chairman of the Telegraph Group, had to renounce his Canadian citizenship last year before he took up his peerage. Sir A J F O'Reilly, executive chairman of Independent News & Media, owner of The Independent, was given special dispensation from the Irish government to accept his knighthood.

Mrs Scardino, who is the only female chief executive of a FTSE 100 company, has earned herself the nickname Marj-in-charge.