Caroline Michel

Caroline Jayne Michel, Baroness Evans of Temple Guiting, known professionally as Caroline Michel, is a British literary agent who, since 2015, chairs the Hay Festival.

Early life and education

Michel is the daughter of Austro-Hungarian émigré Wolfgang Richard Max Michel and Valerie Gilbert Fooks née Cryer. She attended Oakdene School in Buckinghamshire, before going up to read Sanskrit at the University of Edinburgh, graduating MA.

Career

Having started her career with Chatto & Windus in 1982, Michel was appointed managing director of literary magazine Granta in 1990, before joining publishers Random House in 1992, then HarperPress in 2001. After William Morris Agency poached her in 2005, Michel has served since 2007 as CEO of Peters Fraser & Dunlop.
A committee member of the Booker Prize Foundation, the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award Panel, the Arts and Media Honours Committee and HMG Advisory Panel on Public Library Service in England, she was appointed Chairwoman of the British Film Institute Trust in 2011, as too of the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in 2015. A Trustee of Somerset House and Vice-President of the London Library, Michel has been elected Vice-President of the London Library and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Lady Evans was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2025 New Year Honours for "services to publishing and literature".

Personal life

In 1991, Michel married, as his second wife, Matthew Evans, with whom she had three children. Lord Evans died in 2016.
As of 2025, Lady Evans lives in London.