Tim Sebastian is the host and chairman of Conflict Zone, Deutsche Welle’s hard-hitting, flagship political talk show.
Prior to this, Tim chaired The New Arab Debates, also broadcast and distributed worldwide on Deutsche Welle TV between 2011 and 2015.
Tim was the first presenter of HARDtalk, BBC World’s daily half-hour interview programme, where he worked for more than seven years.
Tim was the founder and chairman of The Doha Debates which were broadcast across the globe on BBC World News from 2004 until 2012. The programmes, recorded in the Gulf state Qatar, provided a unique, uncensored forum for discussing the most controversial issues in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
In 2012 he presented the Outsider Debates, recorded in India and screened on Bloomberg TV.
in 1982, Tim was the winner of the “Richard Dimbleby Award” at BAFTA and was also named “Television Journalist of the Year” by the Royal Television Society. For two years running, in 2000 and 2001, he received the Royal Television Society’s “Interviewer of the Year” Award.
Her began his career as a foreign correspondent in Warsaw, covering the Solidarity revolution, before becoming the BBC’s Europe Correspondent in 1982 and Moscow Correspondent in 1984.
A year later he was expelled by the Soviet authorities and sent to Washington until 1989.
A best-selling author, he has written eight novels and two non-fiction books.
Tim has written widely for newspapers including the Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Times and the New York Times.
Born in London, Tim speaks Russian and German fluently and also holds a BA Honours degree in modern languages from Oxford University.
In 2015 he was elected a Fellow Commoner at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge to serve during the academic year 2015-16.
He also chairs conferences and seminars. He has a wealth of experience hosting events and award ceremonies, both at home and abroad.
