Nikhil Kumar Keynote Speaker

Executive Editor, TIME (2025 – present)
Emmy-nominated reporting on Sri Lanka attacks (2019)
Founding team member, Grid news analysis startup (2021 – 2023)

Nikhil Kumar's Biography

Nikhil Kumar serves as Executive Editor at TIME, named to the role in January 2025, and directs the magazine’s AI, climate, health and ideas coverage while steering its overall editorial strategy. During an eight-year spell away from TIME, he reports across Asia for CNN and helps launch the Washington-based news analysis platform Grid, broadening his vantage on global storytelling and digital innovation.

His two-decade career spans print, broadcast and digital platforms. At TIME he acts as Deputy International Editor in New York (2011-2013) and leads the South Asia bureau (2014-2016) before heading CNN’s New Delhi bureau (2017-2021). From 2021 to 2023 he builds Grid’s explanatory newsroom and later guides international desks at The Messenger, giving him a rare perspective on how legacy titles and start-ups thrive in the digital era.

On the ground, he covers the Eurozone sovereign-debt crisis, the Rohingya refugee exodus, the war in Afghanistan and the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks in Sri Lanka—coverage that earns his team an Emmy nomination. He begins his career reporting finance and economics for The Independent and The Evening Standard, grounding his storytelling in data-driven insight.

On stage, Nikhil equips audiences to decode fast-moving global trends, offering clear frameworks for ethical tech adoption, climate resilience and newsroom transformation.

International/world affairs:

Wide knowledge of and experience covering international geopolitics, particularly U.S. foreign policy, and trends and developments in South Asia, where he’s interviewed several key leaders—from India’s Narendra Modi to Afghanistan’s last U.S. backed President Ashraf Ghani.

Artificial intelligence and what it could mean for society at large:

How will it reshape the labour market? And what could it mean for global politics, as the U.S. and China race to achieve artificial super intelligence?

The Indian economy, and society at large:

Where is it going, and what could it mean for the global politics and business?

Trends in global politics:

Are we on the cusp of another international populist wave, and what’s the future for the centre ground in global politics? Wide experience with these topics, both as a reporter and as an editor who has overseen a series of major stories, including several TIME cover stories, on populism and related topics from Europe, Asia and beyond.