John Kampfner is an award-winning broadcaster, editor, author, cultural start-up entrepreneur.
As a journalist he has reported on some of the world’s most exciting and difficult events – from the fall of the Berlin Wall, collapse of Soviet Communism to the massacres and their aftermath in Rwanda.
John has spoken at digital conferences from Washington DC to Brussels, from Baku to Tunis. He has spoken at or chaired conferences from the Oxford Union, Chatham House, Carnegie Institute and the LSE; has been keynote speaker at Amnesty International’s annual conference. He is chairing a brand new cultural conference for the Frankfurt Book Fair and events for the defence think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
John has covered politics for the Financial Times and then for BBC News. In 2005 John became editor of the New Statesman, overseeing 30-year circulation highs with a range of investigations, interviews and ideas that were praised across the political spectrum and put the magazine back on the map.
In 2008 John was handpicked to establish a brand-new art gallery and regeneration project, the Turner Contemporary in Margate. It became one of the regeneration stories of the era. As a result of the gallery’s success, John was asked by a group of cultural leaders to establish what came to be known as the Creative Industries Federation, the world’s first umbrella organization for the creative and cultural sector. Within a few months the Federation had become the “go to” for multi-nationals to micro-businesses to universities, working closely across Whitehall, Westminster and the nations and regions, and establishing an international reputation and network.
Having put the CIF firmly on the map John is now writing and commentating on the state of the world, Britain and culture. He has a weekly comment slot for The Times and regularly appears on BBC News and Sky News. He is currently writing his sixth book which looks at how how Germany’s political culture has allowed it to deal with reunification and the refugee crisis and he argues that this has been done in a much more mature way than Britain has dealt with Brexit. John’s previous books include ‘Blair’s Wars’ in 2003 which was widely reviewed and acclaimed.
John has been a regular speaker at arts and literary festivals from Hay to Cheltenham, from Vilnius to Guadalajara to Jaipur.
He speaks fluent Russian and German and conversational French and Spanish.
Please see John’s website www.jkampfner.net
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