Stephen Sackur

Stephen Sackur is an award-winning English journalist and keynote speaker, widely recognised as Presenter of HARDtalk on BBC World News and a leading voice in global current affairs. Known for his forensic interview style and calm authority, Stephen has built a reputation for holding the world’s most powerful figures to account. His defining achievement is shaping HARDtalk into one of international broadcasting’s most respected interview programmes, watched by global audiences seeking depth, clarity and honesty. 

Stephen’s career was shaped early by a strong academic foundation and an instinctive curiosity about politics and history. He read history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he developed the analytical rigour that would later define his journalism. He went on to study at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Henry Fellow, gaining first-hand exposure to international policy debates and global leadership thinking. In 1986, Stephen joined the BBC as a trainee journalist, beginning a journey that would take him across continents and into the heart of world events. By 1990, he had been appointed a BBC Foreign Affairs Correspondent, reporting on the Velvet Revolution and the reunification of Germany, experiences that reinforced the value of being present where history unfolds.

Over the next fifteen years, Stephen became one of the BBC’s most trusted international correspondents. As BBC Middle East Correspondent, Washington Correspondent and later Foreign Correspondent, he reported on wars, revolutions and political crises that shaped the modern world. During the Gulf War, he became the first journalist to report the mass killing on the Basra road out of Kuwait, a moment that cemented his reputation for fearless, responsible reporting. He covered the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the rise of the Palestinian Authority, the Clinton Lewinsky scandal and the 2000 US presidential election, interviewing President George W. Bush. In 2005, Stephen was appointed Lead Presenter of HARDtalk, where he conducted in-depth interviews with presidents, dictators, scientists and cultural icons. His work has earned major recognition, including International TV Personality of the Year from the Association for International Broadcasting and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Warwick.

As a keynote speaker, Stephen offers audiences insight drawn from decades at the centre of global affairs. He speaks on geopolitics, leadership under pressure, the media’s role in democracy, and the power of intelligent questioning. Stephen explains how leaders think, why institutions succeed or fail, and how individuals can sharpen judgement in uncertain environments. His talks resonate because they are grounded in lived experience, not theory, and because they remind audiences that in a complex world, curiosity, evidence and courage still matter.