News

Ben is an award winning conductor and broadcaster who works with some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras. Performing at iconic venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, The Proms and Glyndebourne, he was the youngest conductor to be appointed by the BBC, becoming the BBC Philharmonic’s Principal Guest Conductor from 2017-2020.

His TV credits include BBC Two’s Holst: The Planets with Professor Brian Cox, Channel 4’s Addicts’ Symphony, Inside Classical for BBC Four, BBC Proms, BBC Young Musician and YolanDa’s Band Jam for CBeebies.

He is co-presenter of the BBC Sounds podcast Monsters of Music with Tom Allen, and has written and presented a wide range of documentaries and features for BBC Radio 3. These include The Silent Musician, a three part series revealing the secrets of conducting and a docudrama starring Alex Jennings, What Walls Hold, which eavesdropped into Tavistock House, the home of Victorian celebrities.

For Radio 4 Ben wrote and presented The Ministry of Fun – an Archive on Four about the cringeworthy relationships between artists and politicians. He’s also a regular guest on Add to Playlist, Front Row and Record Review, and the music expert for the Barbican’s Nothing Concrete Sound Unbound podcast.

Ben’s most recent recording, The Immersive Experience with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Apple Music has had over 100 million streams.

Max has lived in Hong Kong and China for more than 15 years and is fluent in Russian, Polish, Mandarin and French. He has worked in international business for many years as commodity trader, investment banker, and entrepreneur setting us his own company MJ Capital in 2018 specialising cross-border M&A deals in emerging markets.

Max’s spirit of adventure led him to spend two months in China, travelling across the country with his father Stanley Johnson, filming In the Footsteps of Marco Polo – a 4 part documentary series following Marco Polo’s route across China. In the series, for international distribution, Max interviewed contributors, presented pieces to camera (scripted and unscripted) and gained experience of working on a large overseas production.

Max’s first appearance on camera was as a child actor in Julian Fellowes’ BBC production of The Prince and the Pauper and he still has a love of acting.

A keen runner, Max completed the Pyongyang Marathon and also has a black belt in Taekwondo.

Clare McDonnell is an award-winning journalist and Broadcaster who can be heard daily across the UK on the news programme BBC Radio 5Live Drive, she’s also a regular Presenter on BBC Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour, has reported for BBC 1’s The One Show and anchored the BBC’s most listened to news programme around the world “Newsday” on the BBC World Service and its most listened to news podcast “Global News podcast”.

Clare has been at the forefront of many major historic news events, announcing the death of Her Majesty the Queen live on national radio, and then broadcasting from Buckingham Palace in the week leading up to the Monarch’s funeral and on the day itself.
Clare has been the voice that has informed the nation of major political developments too. She anchored a rolling news outside-broadcast from Westminster’s Central Lobby when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was facing a no confidence vote, then presented live from Downing Street when he resigned. She was there too for Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership and her subsequent resignation.

Clare is a sure footed, experienced pair of hands when it comes to handling complex and fast-moving news events but is also noted for her wit and warmth on air. She is passionate about sport and is now a regular voice on the Wimbledon Championships presenting from Centre Court and around the grounds. She also covered the Women’s European Football Championships and was side stage interviewing the Lionesses during their Trafalgar Square victory celebration attended by thousands.

Clare is also an awards host and is regularly asked to chair panel discussions and audience Q and A’s, anything from large events in the Excel Arena in London’s Docklands, to more intimate events with special interest groups and charities.

Clare has a passion for music and the arts too. She was one of the launch Presenters of cutting edge music station BBC 6Music and a reporter on BBC3 TV’s Nightly Entertainment Show “Liquid News” which saw her broadcasting live from, amongst other places, Elvis’s Graceland home and Abbey Road studios in London following George Harrison’s death.

Clare is a broadcaster, event host and panel chair of immense experience who never loses sight of the fact that the most important aspects of her job are holding the powerful to account and allowing those without a voice to be heard.

Errollyn Wallen CBE is a multi award-winning Belize-born British composer. Her prolific output includes over twenty operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, which are performed and broadcast throughout the world. She has composed for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games 2012, for the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, a specially commissioned song for COP 26, 2021, and a re-imagining of Jerusalem for the Last Night of the Proms 2020 and a new work for BBC Proms 2023. BBC Radio 3 featured her music across a whole week in 2022 and 2023 or Composer of the Week, and she has made several radio documentaries including Classical Commonwealth, nominated for the Prix Europa. Errollyn collaborated with artist Sonia Boyce on her installation, Feeling Her Way, for the British Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, which won the Golden Lion prize. Her critically acclaimed opera, Dido’s Ghost, was premiered at the Barbican in 2021 and will received its US première in San Francisco this November.

Recent premieres include Dances for Orchestra for Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Night Thoughts , a song cycle for Dame Sarah Connolly. Her work, The Whole World, for soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and National Youth Orchestra received its premiere at the Proms this year and has received over 2 million views on social media. With Myleene Klass she recently co-presented a three-part television series, Musical Masterpieces, for SkyArts.

Errollyn gave her debut solo concert at Wigmore Hall in October 2023 and her book, Becoming a Composer has just been published by Faber and Faber. She is currently composing a violin concerto for Philippe Quint which will tour across the United States in 2024.

Errollyn composes in a Scottish lighthouse and her recordings have travelled 7.84 million kilometers in space, completing 186 orbits around the Earth on NASA’s STS-115 mission.

Nottingham-born Jasmine Takhar is the host of BBC Introducing and the Weekend Breakfast show on BBC Asian Network and for music platform ‘Scene Not Heard’.

Jasmine began her radio career at 18 whilst she studied BA (Hons) Media with Creative Industries at Nottingham Trent University. Although this was her first step into the media industry she developed a passion for music long before this. Jasmine grew up listening to various genres of music, collecting Vinyl’s and began playing instruments at the age of 15 as she spent most of her younger years going to festivals and establishing connections at music events.

Growing up with a great knowledge of music helped Jasmine realize her dream of working in radio whilst studying for her degree. During this time, Jasmine began her radio career at Nottingham’s first official Urban station, 97.5 Kemet FM, where she also received a qualification in radio skills and went on to present 5 shows a week (The Afternoon Show 1-4pm).

After graduating, she decided to gain momentum within her radio career by presenting a show on London’s Westside Radio. The station recognised Jasmine’s unique natural talent on the microphone and approached her to present 5 shows a week. At this point, Jasmine was presenting 10 shows a week in 2 different cities, travelling up and down the country in order to try and make her passion into a career.

During her years at Westside, Jasmine pushed her ambition to work within radio a step further by focusing on DJing and working alongside radio personalities in the US, where she had the opportunity to go to 99 Jamz, Miami’s number 1 urban radio station in one of the largest radio markets in the country. As Jasmine’s determination to succeed became more apparent to those around her, she continued to elevate her career by interviewing some of the biggest superstars in the US including Jamie Foxx, Tinashe, Keri Hilson, Bobby Valentino, Joe Torry and UK artists such as Mez, Big Tobz, Moelogo, Shide Boss, Mic Lowry and Lemar.

Shortly after this, Jasmine was approached by the BBC to take on and present a brand new show launching on a national radio station, BBC Asian Network. After successfully presenting ‘The Friday Night Residency’ and covering various other shows across the station in 2017, she was then offered the Weekend Breakfast Show that she is currently presenting. In 2021, Jasmine’s passion for and strong connection to new UK artists was recognised when she was announced as the new host of the ‘BBC Introducing’ show on BBC Asian Network. She received a nomination for radio show of the year for the show from the Music Week Awards 2022.

Jasmine has hosted various events around the country including BBC Introducing at Glastonbury and at R1’s Big Weekend as well as the Nottingham Carnival, Bobby Valentino’s tour, Riverside Festival and Summer Jam, an urban event that took place at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham, which held a capacity of 10,000 people.

In recent years, Jasmine has expanded her portfolio of live presenting work by becoming the official host for Trent Rockets at the inaugural ‘The Hundred’ cricket competition. She also made her debut on BBC One during the tournament.

Jasmine also heads up the project ‘Scene Not Heard’. A platform dedicated to providing a voice for unsigned rap, grime and R&B artists from outside of the capital. Founded, created and run by Jasmine, Scene Not Heard has become a significant industry voice through in-depth interviews, freestyles and ciphers.

Dominic Sandbrook is a historian, broadcaster and columnist.

He is known for his best-selling series of books on life in post-war Britain- Never Had It So Good, White Heat, State of Emergency and Seasons in the Sun, The Great British Dream Factory and Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982– He has also written two books on recent American history, Eugene McCarthy and Mad as Hell and a six book series called Adventures in Time for younger readers.

Dominic has written and presented several series for television including the four-part series The 70s and The 80s with Dominic Sandbrook for BBC Two, Dominic has presented a number of other series including, Tomorrow’s Worlds: The Unearthly History of Science Fiction, a three-part series, Strange Days; Cold War Britain and a four-part series, Let Us Entertain You, in which he explored the extraordinary success of British popular culture over the last century all on BBC Two. He also presented a documentary about the German car industry’s successes, Das Auto: The Germans, Their Cars and Us for the channel.

Dominic co-presents the world’s most popular history podcast, The Rest is History, which has tens of thousands of subscribers and more than 100 million downloads. He has presented live history shows to sell-out audiences in New York, Washington, Dublin, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, as well as venues across Britain, including the West End.

He has been a book critic for the Sunday Times for almost twenty years, and joined The Times as a columnist in 2023. He wrote a column in BBC History for more than a decade and was previously a columnist for the Evening Standard, the New Statesman and the Daily Mail. Marking their 25th anniversary in 2007, Waterstones picked him as one of their 25 Authors for the Future. Dominic was nominated as Critic of the Year in the National Press Awards for 2018, and as Comment Journalist of the Year in the British Journalism Awards for 2021.

Dominic was born in Shropshire and educated at Malvern College before studying at Balliol College, Oxford, the University of St Andrews and Jesus College, Cambridge. He was formerly a history lecturer at Sheffield and senior fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is also a fervent Wolverhampton Wanderers fan.

Sathnam is an author, broadcaster and journalist.

Sathnam was born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands in 1976. He entered the education system unable to speak English but, after attending Wolverhampton Grammar School, graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge with a first-class degree in English Language and Literature.

He has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards twice, for his memoir The Boy With The Topknot and his novel Marriage Material, the former being adapted by BBC Drama in 2017 and named Mind Book of the Year in 2009. His third book, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Been Shaped Modern Britain became an instant Sunday Times bestseller on release in 2021, was named a Book of the Year at the 2022 British Books Awards, and resulted in Empire State of Mind, the acclaimed two-part documentary for Channel 4 for which he earned a Best Documentary Presenter shortlisting at the 2022 Grierson Awards.

The book also inspired a sequel, Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe, which became an instant Sunday Times bestseller on release in 2024, and Stolen History: The Truth about the British Empire and How it Shaped Us, which went to No 1 on several children’s books charts when it was released in 2023 and was shortlisted for a British Book Award and Children’s Book of the Year by Foyles. His work has been recognised with the awarding of numerous honorary doctorates and journalism prizes, including Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2002, Media Commentator of the year in the 2015 Comment Awards and the Edgar Wallace Trophy for Writing of the Highest Quality at the 2017 London Press Club Awards. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2016, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of his contribution to historical scholarship in 2023.

Before becoming a writer Sanghera (among other things) worked at a burger chain, a hospital laundry, a market research firm, a sewing factory and a literacy project in New York. Between 1998 and 2006 he was at The Financial Times, where he worked (variously) as a news reporter in the UK and the US, specialised in writing about the media industries, worked across the paper as Chief Feature Writer, and wrote an award-winning weekly business column. Sathnam joined The Times as a columnist and feature writer in 2007 and is a regular contributor on national radio and TV, having appeared on programmes including Have I Got News For You and BBC Front Row Late and presented a range of television documentaries, including The Massacre That Shook The Empire on Channel 4, which was shortlisted for best Factual TV show at the 2019 Asian Media Awards, and Empire State of Mind, described by The Daily Telegraph as “necessary”, The Mail on Sunday as “riveting and moving”, and The Sun as “personable, funny, measured and… extremely powerful”.

Sathnam has presented many programmes for BBC Radio 4 including Empire of Tea, Open Book, and Mercury (An Archive on Freddie Mercury).
He was a studio guest for ITV’s coverage of the Coronation of King Charles III. During Covid he presented a film for Channel 4 News about the effect of the virus on diverse communities.

Sathnam’s first book, The Boy With The Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton, was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Biography Award, the 2009 PEN/Ackerley Prize and named 2009 Mind Book of the Year. It was adapted for BBC2 by Kudos/Parti Productions, was BBC TWO’s highest-rated single drama of the year, featured Bafta-nominated and EEACTA-winning performances, won a Mipcom Diversify TV Excellence Award, was named Best TV Programme at the 2018 Asian Media Awards and Best Single Drama at the RTS Midlands Awards, and was described by The Radio Times as a “smash hit”. His novel, Marriage Material, has been shortlisted for a 2014 South Bank Sky Arts Award and a 2013 Costa Book Award, been longlisted for the 2014 Desmond Elliot Prize, picked by The Sunday Times, The Observer and Metro as one of the novels of 2013, and cited as one of the Guardian Readers’ Books of the Year in 2014. It is being adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. Amongst other awards, Empireland was named Non-Fiction Book of the Year in Eastern Eye’s 2022 Arts, Culture and Theatre Awards (ACTAs), longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje and Parliamentary Book Awards. It was also named History Book of the Year by The Independent (“10/10”) and one of the Books of the Year by The Financial Times, The Times, The New Statesman, The Observer, The Daily Express, The Sunday Express and The Week.

Among the other prizes for his journalism, there has been the accolade of Article of the Year in the 2005 Management Today Writing Awards, Newspaper Feature of the Year in the 2005 Workworld Media Awards, and HR Journalist of the Year in the 2006 and 2009 Watson Wyatt Awards for Excellence. He was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters for services to journalism by The University of Wolverhampton in September 2009 and received an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University in 2023 in recognition of his “distinguished contribution to the social sciences” through his “writing on race, identity and shared British history”, and was given a President’s Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2010. He was bestowed with the Pride of Pothohar Award in 2018 for his contribution to the Sikh community, while in 2013 writer Jonathan Coe named him one of “The Men of Next 25 years” in GQ Magazine saying that “whether he’s writing autobiography or fiction, Sathnam is busy carving out his own literary niche – in the multicultural British Midlands – which he explores with incredible grace, generosity and humour”.

The Boy With The Topknot, was originally published by Penguin in hardback as If You Don’t Know Me By Now. In the USA, Marriage Material is published by Europa Editions, Empireland by Pantheon and Empireworld by PublicAffairs. He has been a judge for The Wellcome Book Prize and The Costa Book Awards, was formerly a trustee for mental health charity Rethink and chair of media charity Creative Access, and is a patron for Writing West Midlands. He lives in London.

James is a writer, broadcaster and one of the best-known film experts in the UK. He appears regularly on a number of programmes on television and is BBC Radio 2’s resident movie critic. His series ‘My Soundtrack Stories’ has seen James interview renowned directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan.

James also presented The Official James Bond Podcast: No Time To Die. The seven-part series focused on different aspects of the James Bond universe from characters to location and music to action, including exclusive interviews with Daniel Craig, Rami Malek and Billie Eilish.

Books that James has written include the light-hearted self-help guide Be More Keanu and Fast Times & Excellent Adventures: The Surprising History of the 80s Teen Movie.
He continues to be a go-to interviewee for a number of television documentaries about all aspects of pop culture. Recent corporate work has included partnerships with Vue cinemas, Disney+ and Meerkat Movies.

James is also an active member of BAFTA, having helped to judge their annual EE Rising Star Award and hosting a number of on-stage Q&As with stars such as Nicole Kidman, Steven Spielberg and Lady Gaga.

After completing degrees in Film Studies at both Warwick and Westminster universities, James began his career talking about films for BBC Radio 1 – an award nominated role he held for eleven years. He followed this with three series of ITV2’s weekly film show and was the regular reviewer on ITV1’s London Tonight.

James has a wealth of experience hosting events and award ceremonies, both at home and abroad.

Sir Malcolm MacGregor of MacGregor is the 24th chief of Clan Gregor and Chieftain of the Children of the Mist, which has been called the most romantic title in Scotland.

He was born in 1959 and grew up in UK, Malaysia, Greece and the USA. He joined the Scots Guards after graduating from The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1980. Whilst in the military, he saw service in the Middle East, SE Asia and Europe, interspersed with operations in Northern Ireland. He completed a two year assignment with 6th Gurkha Rifles in Hong Kong and Nepal as the battalion operations officer and in command of a rifle company. His final appointment was chief of staff of 51 Highland Brigade, descendants of the famous 51st Highland Division based in Perth.

On completion of service with the military, he embarked on life as a landscape photographer.

He spent many months in Oman working on his book ‘Wilderness Oman’ a tribute to the light and colour of the Empty Quarter desert, the Hajar Mountains and coastline. He produced a second book called ‘Oman: Eloquence and Eternity’ covering similar themes of wilderness and remote landscapes. Other work has taken him to Iceland, France and the USA. His photography in Scotland has been marked by two books. ‘The Outer Hebrides’ and ‘Mull, Iona and Staffa’.

In 2008 he worked for the HALO Trust, a Scotland based humanitarian mine-clearance charity; photographing their work in countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Somaliland, Cambodia, Georgia and Kosovo. More recently he returned to Helmand province in Afghanistan to photograph the work of the Scots Guards. His most recent book of photographs, published in 2022, is entitled “The Namib Desert”. This book is about a photographic journey from the Kunene River in the north via the Skeleton Coast to the great dunes at Sossussvlei.

He is a fellow of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Photographic Society. As chief of Clan Gregor he travels extensively around the world officiating at Highland Games and International Gatherings. He is married and lives near Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire.

Stewart Purvis is an author, former media executive and broadcaster. He regularly comments on media matters across all broadcasters, both in the UK and the US.

Stewart’s media career which began as a local radio reporter, a regional television presenter and a Sunday tabloid freelance while still at University. He was then chosen as one of the BBC’s first three News Trainees in 1969.

He moved to ITN in 1972 where he went on to win Royal Television Society awards for news and documentaries, two BAFTA awards as Editor of Channel Four News and also collected a TV Times award and even an ‘Office Building of the Year’ award for ITN’s Norman Foster -designed headquarters in Gray’s Inn Road, London.

He became Editor-in-Chief of ITN and Chief Executive, and also President of the international news channel, EuroNews, based in Lyon, France. He helped to launch EuroNews into Russia as the country’s first international news channel in Russian on terrestrial television.

After Stewart retired from ITN in 2003 he became a Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at Oxford University and the first Professor of Television Journalism at City University London. He was on the panel set up by the BBC Governors to report on the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Stewart was also a columnist for the Financial Times and the London Evening Standard.

From 2007 to 2010 he was Ofcom’s Partner for Content and Standards, effectively the regulator of UK broadcast content, responsible for the implementation of the Ofcom Broadcast Code and other broadcasting regulation. He also chaired the UK Government’s Media Literacy Working Group and was one of the founders of the online academic resource Newsfilm Online.

Among the honours and awards he has received, in 2000 he was made a CBE for services to broadcast journalism, in 2005 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Law by Exeter University and in 2009 he received the Royal Television Society’s Gold Medal for an outstanding contribution to television. He has also been a Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications. He was also a non-executive director of Channel 4 and Chairman of the Royal Television Society’s TV Journalism Awards.

His first book, co-written with Jeff Hulbert, When Reporters Cross the Line was based on a BBC radio programme of the same name. The pair then co-wrote Guy Burgess: The Spy Who Knew Everyone, a biography of the Cambridge spy, published in Autumn 2015.

One of Stewart’s specialisms is the British Royal Family. In 1981 he produced the ITN elements of ITV’s coverage of the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales using pioneering digital effects. When the Prince and Princess took Prince William on their first overseas tour to Australia and New Zealand he travelled with a mobile documentary team sending back six weekly half hour programmes for transmission on Sunday afternoons on ITV. The programmes later won an award from TV Times.

In 1985 the royal couple subsequently granted ITN exclusive access which enabled him to produce ’The Prince and Princess of Wales Talking Personally’ on ITV which was one of the top ten most-watched programmes of 1985 and the two-part documentary ‘In Private, In Public’ which was watched by 18.45 million, putting it into the top five programmes of 1986. In December 1992 he broke the story of the separation of the Prince and Princess on the ITV Lunchtime News, before the announcement later that day by Prime Minister John Major.

In 1997 he was the Executive Producer of the first Queen’s Christmas Broadcast made by ITN looking back on the year Princess Diana died.

During his career he has worked in more than 25 countries and has appeared as an expert witness before every media-related committee in the parliaments of the UK, France and the European Parliament.

Onscreen, Stewart has participated in several documentaries on a variety of topics including the royal family and the miners strike and the Falklands War. He regularly appears as an expert on news programmes such as Radio 4’s Today programme, Sky News and Channel 4 News, discussing major media stories.

Stewart conducts a regular London Walk, The Hampstead Spies – the KGB in NW3 based on his extensive research of the area’s connections with espionage.

John Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College London. He is the author of the best-sellers Cosa Nostra. A History of the Sicilian Mafia (+/- a million copies sold, translated into 21 languages) and Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and their Food (translated into 10 languages, winner of several prizes), as well as many other books and articles on diverse aspects of Italian history, including natural disasters, national identity, the Catholic church, and bandits. He has a high public profile in Italy, particularly as an expert on organized crime and Italian food.

John’s most recent book is the widely reviewed and acclaimed The Craft: How the Freemasons made the Modern World, which hit the best-seller lists in several countries and has been translated into 10 languages. A new, updated edition of Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and their Food, complete with an ecstatic endorsement by Stanley Tucci, is due in the bookshops for Christmas 2023.

John presented The Mafia’s Secret Bunkers (BBC2, 2013). Since then, he has presented and co-written a trilogy of documentaries on the problems of the Catholic church: Holy Money (2014); The Cross and the Gun (2015); and Behind the Altar (2017). In 2016 his book Delizia! was turned into a 6-part series (Eating History: Italy—or De gustibus in Italy), presented and co-written by John. The series aired right round the world, apart from the UK. In Italy, it was History Channel Italia’s second most popular programme of the year.

For several years John hosted the Barilla Pasta World Championships, held over three days in Milan and Parma. In 2010 he was a judge in the Pesto World Championships in Genoa. In 2021, he hosted the San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy in Milan. He appears regularly on TV, radio and other media across the world to comment on his areas of expertise.

In 2005, the President of the Italian Republic appointed John a Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Commander of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity), a senior civil honour.

John presents and writes both in English and Italian.

Tom Dyckhoff is a historian, teacher, writer and broadcaster about cities, architecture, geographies and visual culture.

Tom presented the major BBC2 series, The Great Interior Design Challenge for four series, and is currently design judge on the Channel 4 series Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker, now on its third season.

He teaches the history and theory of cities and architecture at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London and Central St Martins, University of the Arts, London.

Tom also presented the BBC Radio 4 series, The Design Dimension which looked at the world we inhabit through the lens of design. He was previously architecture and design critic for BBC television’s arts programme, The Culture Show, for which he interviewed architects from Oscar Niemeyer to Frank Gehry, and fronted special episodes on subjects including the Stirling Prize for architecture, Chinese culture, Lego, the new Birmingham library, and British architecture during the recession.

Tom has written and presented many series and documentaries on British television and radio, including Channel 4’s series The Secret Life of Buildings, which he looked at the effects of architecture and spaces on our brains and bodies; for BBC2’s series Saving Britain’s Past, Tom examined the country’s obsession with heritage; in I Love Carbuncles, for Channel 4, he revealed his passion for concrete Brutalism.

For radio, Tom has presented many BBC Radio 4 documentaries, too, such as ‘Anti-Architect: Cedric Price’, ‘Room With a View’ on the history of windows, ‘Animal Architecture’ on the architecture of zoos and a one-off special on polymath Buckminster Fuller.

He is the author of The Age of Spectacle: the rise and fall of iconic architecture (Windmill Books, 2017), and the official guide to the architecture of 2012’s Olympic Games, The Architecture of London 2012: Vision, Design, Legacy (John Wiley & Sons, 2012).

For a decade in the 00s, Tom was architecture and design critic for The Times newspaper, London. Tom also wrote a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper’s Weekend magazine for 20 years; and he writes and has long written for a wide range of publications including Esquire, GQ, Wallpaper, New Statesman, Domus, Icon and Blueprint.

Tom was educated at Oxford University and University College London, and began his career at Perspectives on Architecture for the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III; he then became head of exhibitions at the Royal Institute of British Architects gallery, associate editor of Design magazine for the UK Design Council and then deputy editor of Space, The Guardian newspaper’s design and homes section.

Tom is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a trustee of the London Festival of Architecture. He has been a trustee of the Architecture Foundation, and a judge on many design and architecture prizes, including the Stirling Prize (2013). He regularly lectures and hosts or chairs events, including The Stirling Prize in 2009 and 2010.

He lives in London, with his family.

Carolyn Quinn has been a much loved voice on BBC Radio 4 for decades. She started out in broadcasting “as a hobby”, by getting involved with hospital radio at Charing Cross Hospital. It was an unlikely beginning to a journalism career that has stretched over five decades and seen her hosting some of the nation’s best known and important radio shows. After taking a degree in French, Carolyn joined the BBC Local Radio reporters’ scheme. She moved to the BBC’s political and parliamentary team in 1989 and became a Political Correspondent on TV and radio in 1994.

In 2004 Carolyn joined the presenting line-up on Radio 4’s Today programme, staying with Today until 2008. From 2001 she was also a regular presenter of BBC Radio 4’s PM programme while becoming the main presenter of Radio 4’s The Westminster Hour in January 2007, stepping down in March 2023. She has also presented Radio 4’s overnight election programmes covering the referendums as well as general and local elections. All that means she has had a front-row seat for political events, from Blair to Brexit to Covid and beyond but as a live broadcaster she has also covered a wide range of non-political domestic and foreign affairs topics and has fronted documentaries.

Much respected by her peers, Carolyn was the first woman elected Chair of the Westminster Press Gallery in 2011.

Carolyn’s skills at chairing and moderating debates mean she’s in demand as a host for book and product launches, front of audience events, Q&As and audio projects including podcasts and audio books requiring a warm and experienced broadcast voice.

Angela Rippon has been a familiar face and voice in British broadcasting for nearly 60 years. She is an award-winning journalist who has embraced an impressive variety of programmes on both radio and television for both commercial and BBC channels in Britain, America and Australia.

Cathy Newman is the first female main presenter of Channel 4 News. She spent over a decade in Fleet Street, latterly with the Financial Times. Since joining Channel 4 News in 2006 she has broadcast a string of scoops, including allegations of violent abuse against the British barrister John Smyth, sexual harassment allegations against the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Rennard, and an investigation into a British sex offender, Simon Harris, which saw him jailed for 17 years.

She was also the only broadcast journalist to travel with Angelina Jolie and the foreign secretary William Hague to the Congo as part of a campaign against sexual violence.

Cathy’s studio interviews are frequently news-making, and many have gone viral – watched by millions online – including combative encounters with the Canadian academic Jordan Peterson and the former motor-racing tycoon Max Mosley. The latter was nominated for a Royal Television Society Award in 2019, and made the front cover of Private Eye.

Cathy also presents the Friday Drivetime programme on Times Radio.

On television she has presented other Channel 4 programmes including Britain Decides: Everything But Brexit debate in the lead up to the 2019 General Election. She previously co-presented the Alternative Election Night with Jeremy Paxman. She regularly presents Channel 4’s Dispatches programmes – recent programmes include The Prince and the Paedophile, focussing on Prince Andrew’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. She has also appeared several times on Have I Got News For You and Christmas Celebrity Genius.

Her first book – Bloody Brilliant Women: Pioneers, Revolutionaries & Geniuses Your History Teacher Forgot to Mention – about female pioneers in 20th century Britain, was published by HarperCollins in Autumn 2018. Cathy was described by the Observer as a “brilliant writer”. Author Michael Morpurgo said: “This book is so important. No library, no school or university, should be without a copy.” Her follow-up book, It Takes Two, telling the stories of the power of pairings to achieve great things, was published in 2020. The Ladder, based on her Times Radio feature of the same name, shares the wisdom of extraordinary women and was published in early 2024.

Cathy has frequently written about politics for the Daily Telegraph. She was a judge on the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2015 and the Red Magazine Women of the Year Award 2016. She is a patron of Kids, a charity for disabled children, and an ambassador for Young Minds.

Prior to arriving at Channel 4 News, Cathy worked as chief political correspondent for the Financial Times for three years. Before that she covered politics and media for the FT. Cathy joined the FT from the Independent where she was media business correspondent.

In 2000, Cathy won the prestigious Laurence Stern Fellowship, spending four months following in the footsteps of Woodward and Bernstein at the Washington Post.

She is married with two young children.

Nina is the Arts Editor of ITV News. Her role involves specialist arts and media coverage for ITV, including covering the Oscars every year and interviewing the biggest names in film, music and TV. She is also a regular contributor to ITV programmes on entertainment, and popular culture.

She is a member of Bafta and regularly chairs the press launches of new ITV dramas.

Nina regularly reports for ITV’s On Assignment programme, with past documentaries including groundbreaking treatments in San Francisco in the battle against Aids and HIV, the moves to find alternative food sources in the world and Morocco’s booming film industry.

Nina started out at the BBC as a trainee, then working on regional and national television and radio, including presenting Asian Perspective for 3 years, a live news and current affairs programme on BBC Radio Five Live. She joined ITV News in 2002 after leaving the BBC.

In 2007 Nina was awarded an Honorary doctorate for Services to the Media.

She is an Ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, and for the British Asian Trust. and is a Governor at the National Centre for Writing and The Young Norfolk Arts Trust.

Nina is also Patron of Akademi, the South Asian Dance Company, the Norwich Film Festival, the domestic abuse charity Leeway, the Autumn Arts Festival and an Ambassador for Kidney Research UK, for whom she recently hosted a fundraising event, alongside former Manchester United footballer Andy Cole.

She is a judge of the Bafta Film and TV Awards, the RTS news awards, and has judged the Grierson Documentary awards.

Nina has also hosted and spoken at numerous events, including Latitude Festival, Women of the World Festival, and RTS awards.

Amongst the non news programmes Nina has appeared on are The Weakest Link, Unforgotten and Pointless.

Lucrezia Millarini is journalist and anchor for ITV News, presenting across all main programmes including ITV Lunchtime News, ITV Evening News and News At Ten.

Lucrezia also presents ITV London’s flagship show and is a regular reporter for ITV’s documentary series On Assignment. With more than 15 years live broadcast experience, Lucrezia has reported on RTS award-winning coverage of the Grenfell Tower Fire, anchored ITV’s breaking news of the Duke of Edinburgh’s death and was part of ITV team covering Harry and Meghan’s Windsor wedding.

Other prime-time credits include co-hosting a Mortgage Crisis Special and Mental Health Special for ITV’s The Martin Lewis Money Show: Live, appearing as a guest commentator on This Morning and fronting a documentary for current affairs programme Tonight: Botched? Inside the Beauty Business.

Not afraid of a challenge, Lucrezia has been a contestant on ITV’s Dancing on Ice, competed in the multi-discipline athletics challenge The Games and C4’s hugely popular Celebrity Hunted for Stand Up To Cancer. She is also a Celebrity Mastermind champion.

As former Entertainment Correspondent for ITV London, Lucrezia is as comfortable on the red carpet as she in the studio. From politicians to National Treasures, she has interviewed everyone from Blondie to Beyonce, Dame Joan Collins to Sr Elton John, Stephen Spielberg to Meryl Streep. She remains one of the few journalists to quiz Tom Cruise about Scientology and even presented Rihanna with her first Oyster card!

Lucrezia studied law at Bristol and trained as a barrister before becoming a journalist.

She was born in London and lives there with her husband and highly demanding dog, Milo.

Aside from the day job, she has chaired conferences, hosted a number of corporate events and award ceremonies, with clients always noting her warmth and natural presence.

A keen supporter of animal rights, Lucrezia is Patron to the charities Dogs on the Street and Support Dogs. She’s also backed campaigns for Alzheimer’s Society.

Louise Minchin is a well-known and respected broadcaster, journalist and TV presenter. She presented the UK’s most watched Breakfast programme BBC Breakfast on BBC One for 20 years. She was chair of the 2023 judging panel for the prestigious literary award, the Women’s Prize for Fiction and is a successful author and podcaster.

Before joining BBC Breakfast, she was one of BBC News 24’s main anchors and was one of BBC Radio 5 Live’s main presenters. She has also guest presented The One Show and presented the BBC One series Real Rescues, Missing Live and Crime and Punishment. Louise starred in ITV’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in Autumn 2021 and also competed in Celebrity MasterChef, coming runner up in the final, and Channel Four’s Time Crashers.

She is the host of the top-rated podcast, Push Your Peak. In this podcast series, Louise interviews first class athletes who have done extraordinary things, to learn what it takes mentally and physically to get to the top of their game.

Louise’s passion is endurance sport. Having given up competitive sport as a teenager, after a BBC Breakfast Christmas cycling challenge she was inspired to attempt her first triathlon in 2013 and went on to qualify for the GB age-group team to race in Chicago in 2015. Since then, she has raced in five World and European Championships and has gone on to compete in extreme triathlons including one of the toughest triathlons in the world, Norseman in 2019.

In February 2020 Louise took part in a 100 mile hike across the Namibian desert for Sport Relief – The Heat is On – raising awareness of mental health.

Louise’s first book, Dare to Tri, was released in 2019 by Bloomsbury and charted her journey from the BBC Breakfast sofa to competing internationally in triathlon.

Her second book Fearless, Adventures with Extraordinary Women, was published in 2023 by Bloomsbury and reflects her passion for celebrating women’s sporting success. In each chapter Louise takes on a difficult challenge with a different courageous woman to tell their incredible stories. As part of it she has swum from Alcatraz, free dived under ice in the dark in Finland, went wild caving, and walked across Dartmoor.

Rosie Millard OBE is Chair of BBC Children in Need, Chair of Firstsite arts centre in Colchester and Deputy Chair of Opera North.

She is a journalist and broadcaster and has been reporting on and writing in the national press on the arts, popular culture, lifestyle and politics for over 30 years.

Rosie was BBC Arts Correspondent 1995-2004, Arts Editor, New Statesman 2004-2007, and has also been a theatre critic, columnist, feature writer, travel writer and profile writer, writing for most of the national broadsheets. She is a familiar voice on radio and familiar face on TV with regular appearances on Radio 4, Radio 2, Five Live, Newsnight and Sky News.

She presented Dead Famous, a 3-part podcast series for BBC Radio 4 that analyses the legacies of artists who have gained posthumous recognition and fame.

For four years she led Hull 2017 City of Culture as Chair of the Board. This was a £35 million national event which achieved unprecedented acclaim and international repute for the city of Hull, and for which she was appointed OBE. Rosie is now Chair of the London International Festiva of Theatre (LIFT) and president of the Philip Larkin Society.

She has written four books, one of which, The Tastemakers: British Art Now, is recommended reading for arts students at London University of the Arts.

Rosie is a dedicated marathon runner with eleven marathons under her belt and a PB of 3.48. She is one of only 2000 women in the world to have run all six Marathon Majors. She’s also run the Great Wall of China Marathon.

She studied at Hull University, the London College of Communications and the Courtauld Institute, has four children and lives by a canal in central London with her partner Alex Graham.

Award winning journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed presents the BBC’s flag ship arts show, Front Row on Radio 4, where she regularly interviews leading writers, actors and directors; and scrutinises BBC journalism and editorial decision making on behalf of viewers and listeners, on her Newswatch programme on BBC1.

In 2023, she made headlines around the world for uncovering the earliest complete concert recording of the Beatles performing in the UK, at Stowe School in 1963 and helped secure its acquisition by the British Library for the nation.

She was named British Broadcasting Press Guild audio presenter of the year in 2020, the same year she won a landmark sex discrimination employment tribunal against the BBC for equal pay on Newswatch.

Her acclaimed three-part BBC4 documentary series Art of Persia (2020) was one of the first major Western tv series to be filmed in Iran for 40 years.

She was previously a news anchor and correspondent for Channel 4 News, where she won the Stonewall Broadcast of the Year award for her film about the so-called “corrective” rape of lesbian women in South Africa; and for BBC News, where she covered the OJ Simpson case while LA Correspondent.

Her many documentaries explore the intersection of popular culture, science, politics, and social change. They include I Dressed Ziggy Stardust, Laura Ingalls’ America, John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls, HG Wells and the H Bomb, The Fundamentalist Queen about Elizabeth Cromwell (wife of Oliver Cromwell) and Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse, for which she spent months studying the diaries of the famous morality campaigner.

Samira is a trustee of the Centre for Women’s Justice and on the advisory board of the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford and the editorial review board of Doctor Who magazine. She is an honorary fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford and holds honorary doctorates in law and arts, from UEA University of East Anglia, City – University of London and Kingston University.

Nayha Ahmad is a Radio and TV presenter who currently hosts the Official Asian Chart show on the BBC Asian Network and presents the Sky Arts show ‘Unmuted’ and ‘Desi Beat’ on Colors TV, Sky.

Nayha is an experienced TV presenter, having covered the ITV Gala, National TV Awards, Perfume Awards, Camden’s Music Video Awards, Asian Achievement Awards and the Asian Wedding Show. Nayha has also interviewed a catalogue of high-profile celebrities and artists. Starting out at the digital channel Media Spotlight UK, Nayha has interviewed celebrities such as Sean Paul, Abhishiek Bachan, Shaggy and Christina Milian. In 2017, Nayha joined Whats Up TV (now known as ‘Unmuted’) team as a presenter on the Sky series, where she’s interviewed the likes of Sara Pascoe, Russell Kane, Seal, Rosie Jones and Ella Eyre.

Her first break in radio came at her hometown station Asian Star 101.6FM before progressing to West London’s Westside Radio where she hosted the Westside Chart Show. Other experience included London’s Vibe 107.6FM and commercial radio station Aspen Waite Radio. After featuring regularly on the BBC Asian Network, Nayha was announced as the host of the networks Official Asian Chart show in March 2021.

Alongside her presenting and radio work, Nayha loves talking about dating and is the host of her own podcast, the “Dating Dilemmas Podcast”. The series has been featured on BBC Radio London’s “The Scene” as a top Podcast to listen to.

Beyond broadcasting, Nayha is a massive foodie. She can be seen weekly on TV covering a variety of Desi cooking and food from chefs to Mela’s and festivals on the Sky, Colors TV show ‘Desi Beat’.

Nayha is also a fashion guru who loves vintage shopping and regularly shops in Shoreditch and thrift shops. Using this passion for style, Nayha has done a range of interviews; with stylists on skyline to festival fashion on YouTube. Nayha’s professional modelling and fashion work ranges from Asian wedding fairs to catwalks up and down the country as well as magazines.

As a big supporter of children’s charities, Nayha has supported the NSPCC throughout the years, raising funds in various ways including running a pop-up photo shooting business that donated all its earnings to the NSPCC. Another charity close to Nayha’s heart, who she regularly contributes towards is Edhi International Foundation, who provide care and shelter for young orphans.