John Simpson Keynote Speaker

John Simpson CBE, the BBC’s long-standing World Affairs Editor, is a household name and the most distinguished foreign correspondent of our age.

Recognised as the “David Attenborough” of news, John is a multi-award winning, veteran news broadcaster (and accomplished author) who has covered almost every major event of the world from the 1960s to the present day. His seminal reports on the Big moments of recent history make up an illustrious list to include the Iranian Revolution, the First and Second Gulf Wars, the Fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the Genocide in Rwanda, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.

John’s stories of war and revolution are many and varied. An eye-witness of the many wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the Irish troubles and the South African and Rhodesian struggles, as well as in the former East Block of Europe and Latin America, it is safe to assume that ‘whatever the Headline of the Daily news might be, John will be there.’ John has reported from 140 countries and interviewed 200 world leaders and dictators ranging from Michael Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela, British Prime Ministers and U.S. Presidents to Fidel Castro, Colonel Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe and Saddam Hussein. He met successive heads of the IRA, Hezbollah, Hamas, Taliban and of the Medellin and the Cali Drug Cartels at the height of their power.

In 2022, John’s latest current affairs programme ‘Unspun World with John Simpson’ started airing weekly on BBC2 and is ongoing.