Charles Fishman is an award-winning investigative and magazine journalist, who has spent the last 20 years trying to get inside, understand and explain important organizations, from NASA to Wal-Mart. Fishman was the first reporter ever permitted inside a Tupperware factory, and he was the first reporter in 30 years allowed inside the nation’s only bomb factory.

Since 1996, Fishman has been a senior writer at Fast Company magazine. In 2005 he won a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business journalism. His original story for Fast Company about Wal-Mart, “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know,” won best business magazine story of 2004 from the New York Press Club. His magazine writing has been included in Best Business Stories of the Year.

Fishman started his career at the Washington Post, where he was assigned full-time to the team investigating the space shuttle Challenger disaster. He was also editor of the Sunday magazine of the Orlando Sentinel, and he was assistant managing editor at the News & Observer, in Raleigh, North Carolina, in charge of features, culture, sports and business coverage.

Fishman grew up and graduated from high school in Miami, Florida and received a BA from Harvard University. He is married to a journalist.

Fishman has visited dozens of Wal-Marts in 25 states, and has spent several months of his life in Bentonville.

“The Wal-Mart Effect,” his first book, made the bestseller lists of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek.