[4][5] He is the son of Sir John Rennie, former 'C' (i.e., Director) of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

[4] He then went to work for The Daily Telegraph in London, before joining their foreign staff, being posted to Sydney (1998), Beijing (1998–2002), Washington, D.C. (2002–2005), and Brussels (2005–2007).

[9][3] Following the death of Peter David in 2012 he moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as the magazine's Lexington columnist from 2012 to 2017.

Since late 2022, he has been the co-presenter (along with Alice Su) of The Economist podcast "Drum Tower",[12] a weekly review of Chinese politics, culture, history and society.

[13][14] The prize was shared with colleague Sue-Lin Wong of The Economist for her portrait of Xi Jinping in the podcast "The Prince".