Kate Adie

Kate Adie is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster renowned for her exceptional courage and clarity in reporting from the world's most challenging conflict zones. As BBC Chief News Correspondent for fourteen years, she covered pivotal events including the Iranian Embassy siege, Tiananmen Square, the Gulf Wars, and conflicts across the Balkans and Rwanda, earning three RTS Awards, the Richard Dimbleby BAFTA Award, and a BAFTA Fellowship in 2018. Now presenting BBC Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent and recognised with a CBE, Kate equips audiences with powerful insights on resilience, risk, leadership under pressure, and the vital role of truthful communication in times of crisis.

Crouched behind a car door in May 1980, Kate Adie reported live and unscripted as the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy in London, delivering her account to one of the largest news audiences in British broadcasting history. The BBC interrupted coverage of the World Snooker Championships to broadcast her eyewitness reporting, and that afternoon marked a turning point not only for Adie's career but for women in journalism. Until then, war zones and international hotspots had been largely the preserve of male correspondents. As the duty reporter first on the scene, she demonstrated that courage, clarity and professionalism transcend gender, opening doors for generations of female journalists who followed.

Promoted to BBC Chief News Correspondent in 1989, a position she held for fourteen years, Adie reported from the front lines of history's most significant conflicts and crises. Her assignments took her to Tiananmen Square during the brutal suppression of the student uprising, to the Gulf Wars, through four years of conflict in the Balkans and the final NATO intervention in Kosovo, and to Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. She covered the American bombing of Tripoli, the Lockerbie bombing, the British military intervention in Sierra Leone, and reported extensively throughout the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Her work earned her three Royal Television Society Awards, the Richard Dimbleby BAFTA Award in 1990, and the Broadcasting Press Guild's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting. In 2018, she received both a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours and a BAFTA Fellowship, and in 2011 was honoured with the International Women's Media Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, becoming the first recipient from the United Kingdom.

Since stepping back from front-line reporting in 2003, Adie has continued to shape public understanding of global events as presenter of BBC Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent and through her work as an author. Her books, including The Kindness of Strangers, Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War, and Into Risk: Risking Your Life For Work, explore themes of courage, resilience and decision-making under pressure. As Honorary Professor of Journalism at Sunderland University and with honorary degrees from institutions including Newcastle, Bath, Nottingham and St Andrews, she shares decades of experience with emerging journalists. Audiences benefit from her rare combination of first-hand knowledge and reflective insight, gaining practical understanding of leadership in crisis, the importance of truthful communication, and the human capacity for resilience when facing extraordinary circumstances. Her speaking engagements equip organisations and individuals with tools to navigate uncertainty, make critical decisions under pressure, and maintain integrity when the stakes are highest.