Biography
As Head of Editorial Partnerships & Special Projects at the BBC World Service Group, Emily has set up and directs a number of high profile projects. During the last two years she’s been leading the BBC Crossing Divides season, bringing people together in a fragmented world. Through this work she’s been developing work on Deep Listening, drawing on her experience as an Executive Coach, training with conflict mediators, and drawing on a range of expertise. She has also trained over 200 members of the UK public in this skill at a BBC Crossing Divides Live Festival, and is now a Practitioner in Residence working on Deep Listening at the LSE’s Marshall Institute.
Emily’s Crossing Divides season was born out of the Solutions-Focused Journalism project, kick-starting a culture change across the BBC. To this end she ran the SoICanBreathe season looking at ways to cut air pollution. Emily also directs the BBC World News Komla Dumor Award, finding and supporting top journalism talent in Africa.
Previously she was a Senior Advisor to the Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, creating partnerships to source more diverse Social Entrepreneur awardees and a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School, University of Oxford. She is also on the board of the grant-giving HH Wingate Foundation.
Emily has written for the BBC website, The Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Prospect and the Financial Times, plus hosts panels and events globally.
In her award winning BBC career, Emily previously founded, edited and occasionally presented The Forum, the flagship weekly interdisciplinary radio discussion show after running the Arts and Religion departments of the BBC World Service, and has reported and produced for the BBC across five continents.
Keynote Presentation (2020) | Crossing Divides and Embracing Difference
