Christina Lamb Keynote Speaker

She was on Benazir Bhutto’s bus when it was blown up in Karachi; ambushed with British troops by Taliban in Helmand; abducted from a hotel room in Quetta; travelled to the remotest reaches of the Amazon to report on tribes under threat; and been held up at gunpoint in Zimbabwe and the DRC.

Covering conflicts across the globe for the past 38 years, Christina Lamb is recognised as one of the world’s leading foreign correspondents and is Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Times as well as a bestselling author.

An inspirational speaker, who has spoken everywhere from the annual Avon Ladies convention in Las Vegas to NATO summits, Christina’s hair-raising tales will have listeners on the edge of their seats. Her determination to always be there on the ground, deep knowledge of international affairs, and humanity in her reporting will prompt discussion long after.

Her dispatches with the Afghan mujaheddin fighting the Soviet Union saw her named Young Journalist of the Year at the age of 22. She has since reported everywhere from Iran to Ukraine, Syria to Zimbabwe and been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year seven times; Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Editors and Women in Journalism; and the Chesney Gold Medal for promoting the understanding of war.

Christina’s work has earned her international renown not only as a ground-breaking journalist but as a campaigner for women impacted by war – raising the issue of sexual violence in conflict worldwide as well as ‘gender apartheid’ in Afghanistan where girls have been banned from high school and women from working and even speaking out loud in public by the Taliban regime.

Her book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields about sexual violence in conflict was described by Antony Beevor as ‘the most powerful book’ he had ever read and recommended by Queen Camilla. She has written ten books including co-authoring the international bestseller I Am Malala. She is a Global envoy for UN Education Cannot Wait, Honorary Fellow of University College Oxford, on the board of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum, and was awarded an OBE in 2013.