Roula Khalaf is a British-Lebanese journalist who is the editor-designate of the Financial Times, having been its assistant editor and foreign editor. In November 2019 it was announced that she would succeed Lionel Barber as editor at the beginning of 2020. Khalaf started her career as a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York, and worked for them for about four years. She has worked for the FT since 1995, first as North Africa correspondent, then Middle East correspondent, Middle East editor and as foreign editor. In 2016, she was promoted to be deputy editor of the Financial Times. In addition to her deputy editor responsibilities, she writes and comments regularly on world affairs, Middle East politics and business.

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​In 2009, Khalaf won The Peace Through Media Award of the International Media Awards "in recognition of her high standards of reporting and the quality of her news analysis". In 2011, she was shortlisted for the Foreign Reporter of the Year category of the Press Awards. In 2012, she was shortlisted for the One World Media Awards for her article, The Muslim Sisterhood. In 2013, she won, with her Financial Times colleagues Abigail Fielding-Smith, Camilla Hall and Simeon Kerr, the Foreign Press Association media award Print and Web Feature Story of the Year for Qatar: From Emirate to Empire