Stephen Sackur

A renowned journalist and TV presenter/news anchorman, Stephen Sackur currently hosts HARDtalk, a current affairs programme on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. He is also the main Friday presenter of GMT on BBC World News, as well as a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4.

Stephen began working at the BBC as a trainee in 1986, and was subsequently appointed as one of its foreign affairs correspondents, reporting on Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" in 1989 and the reunification of Germany in 1990. During the first Gulf War, he was part of a BBC team covering the conflict, spending eight weeks as an embedded journalist with the British Army.

During the early 1990s, Stephen was based in Cairo as the BBC's Middle East correspondent, later moving to Jerusalem (until 1997), where he covered both the death of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the growth of the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Moving on to become the BBC's Political Correspondent in Washington, Stephen reported the Monica Lewinsky scandal as well as issues of a more conventional political nature! He covered the US Presidential Election in 2000 and interviewed President George W. Bush and other key political figures. After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Stephen returned to Iraq and was the first to report on Iraq's mass graves of victims of the regime.

Stephen was also the moderator of a BBC debate on climate change - broadcast worldwide - with a distinguished panel of five world leaders from South Africa, the Maldives, Sweden, Australia and Mexico.

As the regular host of HARDtalk, Stephen has interviewed prominent international personalities from the world of politics, including President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, President Shimon Peres of Israel, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, US vice-president Al Gore and former US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates. Stephen has also interviewed leading cultural figures, including Gore Vidal, Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky, Anwar Ibrahim, Annie Lennox and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Stephen was named International TV Personality Of The Year by The Association For International Broadcasting (AIB) in November 2010. He was also nominated as Speech Broadcaster Of The Year at the 2013 Sony Radio Awards.

Stephen's book On The Basra Road was published in 1991.

Stephen Sackur has a world of experience in foreign affairs news coverage, and his warm yet no-nonsense style makes him a popular choice as an After-dinner Speaker. To book him for your Event, contact a Prime Performers Booking Agent via the online booking enquiry form or alternatively call us on 020 3500 3331 to discuss your requirements.