Lyons was an economist at Chase Manhattan Bank in the Europe Area Office from 1985 to 1986. From 1986 to 1989 he was the Chief UK Economist at Swiss Bank Corporation. From 1989 to 1999 he was Chief Economist and Executive Director at Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank. From 1999–2012, Lyons was the Chief Economist and Group Head of Global Research at Standard Chartered Bank. Currently Lyons holds a portfolio of roles, including Chief Economic Strategist at Netwealth and independent non-executive director at the Bank of China. Additionally, Lyons sits, since 2008, on the Advisory Board of The Grantham Institute of Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Imperial College; and has been a member of the Advisory Board of Warwick Business School since 2014. Since 2014, he has been an economic advisor to Parker Fitzgerald, a financial consultant specializing in regulatory issues.
In 1999, Lyons was a member of the 'Commission on the £ Sterling', established by the Leader of the OppositionWilliam Hague. He and Ruth Lea wrote up the Commission's findings. He provided economic input to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's first Business Council for Britain, 2007–08. On 11 December 2012, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced that Lyons was to join his team as his Chief Economic Adviser. During his first term, Lyons had been a member of Johnson's informal panel of economic and business advisers, speaking at a number of events at City Hall on London's global position during the term of the previous Mayor, Ken Livingstone. He began the role a month later in January 2013 and left in April 2016, at the conclusion of the Mayor's term. While at City Hall Lyons championed the London living wage, co-chaired, with Munira Mirza, the London Strategic Migration Partnership Panel, represented the Mayor on the Board of CityUK and sat as a member of the GLA's Investment Performance Board and gave testimony to the Commission's second report, in 2016. In 2010 and 2011, Lyons' team at Standard Chartered was ranked as the top forecasting team globally by Bloomberg. Prior to this Lyons reinforced his own reputation as an accurate forecaster with being one of two British economists predicting in August 2008, a month before Lehman Brothers collapsed, a deep imminent recession. He anticipated a GDP fall of 1.6% for the third quarter of 2008 when the consensus predicted a rise of 0.9%. Because of his connection with Johnson and knowledge of emerging economies, he was considered for the 2019 appointment of Governor of the Bank of England.
Clean Brexit: How to Make a Success of Leaving the European Union.
EU Referendum
Previously a vocal opponent of the UK joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism and Euro currency, Lyons is an advocate of "Clean Brexit", and co-founded Economists for Brexit to provide the economic case for leaving. He publicly criticised the use of the £350 million figure on the side of the Vote Leave bus, and suggested that a net figure of £163 million a week should have been used.
