Daisy McAndrew

Boards and executive teams now price Westminster decisions into every quarter. Tax changes, regulatory shifts, and political volatility hit P&L before the analyst notes land. What leaders need is not a commentary, but a translator who can read the signal inside the noise and tell them which moves matter for their business.

Daisy McAndrew is a former ITV News Economics Editor and BBC political presenter who hosts conferences, moderates panels, and briefs executive audiences on UK politics, policy and economic risk.

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Why organisations work with Daisy McAndrew

She has chaired panels, awards and leadership forums for clients including Samsung, HPE and ABTA, and returns to the same rooms because she reads a stage the way a lobby journalist reads a division lobby.
Thirty years inside Westminster, first as a Commons researcher and Liberal Democrat press secretary, then as a BBC and ITV News political and economics correspondent, gives her a working map of how UK policy actually gets made.
She can interview a chief executive, a cabinet minister or a customer keynote without a script change, which matters when a board-level event pivots on the day.
She combines a broadcaster’s discipline about time and tone with the subject authority of a former national Economics Editor, so she can run a technical panel on rates, trade or regulation without deferring to the panellists.
NBC News retains her as Royal Commentator, which signals that US networks trust her on camera at short notice under live political conditions.

Biography highlights

Former Chief Political Correspondent, Economics Editor and Special Correspondent, ITV News (2005 to 2012).
Former co-presenter, BBC Daily Politics, alongside Andrew Neil, and presenter of Yesterday in Parliament, BBC Radio 4.
Former Press Secretary to Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy.
Former Editor of The House Magazine, Westminster’s weekly parliamentary publication.
Royal Commentator for NBC News, United States.
Former Vice-Chair, Internews Europe, the international media-development charity.

Biography

Westminster is not a neutral place to report from. Understanding how a tax change, a whip’s decision or a regulatory signal translates into a market move takes years of standing in the same corridors as the people making those calls. That is the ground Daisy McAndrew has covered for three decades.

She began in the House of Commons as an MP’s researcher at nineteen, edited The House Magazine in the mid-1990s, and was Press Secretary to Charles Kennedy when he led the Liberal Democrats. Moving to broadcasting, she co-presented BBC’s Daily Politics with Andrew Neil before ITV News hired her as Chief Political Correspondent in 2005, then promoted her to Economics Editor in 2008. She reported the credit crunch and the subsequent recession from across the UK, and filed extended pieces on the French and German economies. She left ITV as its most senior female reporter.

Her corporate work sits on the same foundation. She chairs conferences, moderates board-level panels, and hosts awards for clients including Samsung, HPE and ABTA, and is rebooked for the reason senior buyers rebook anyone: she runs the room. An executive chair can hand her a late script change, a difficult CEO, or a technical panel on trade or monetary policy and trust the output.

She is NBC News’s Royal Commentator in the United States, was Vice-Chair of the Internews Europe trustee board until June 2023, and edited The Politics Companion for Chrysalis Books.

Key speaking topics

UK politics and government
UK economic policy and the business environment
Political risk for corporate and investor audiences
Media, political communication and the British press
The British Royal Family and soft-power coverage
Conference hosting, panel moderation and awards chairing

Ideal for

Boards, investor conferences and CEO forums wanting a UK political and economic read they can act on
CCOs, heads of public affairs and government relations teams briefing leadership on policy exposure
Industry trade bodies and regulated-sector conferences needing a chair who can handle ministers, executives and journalists on the same stage
Internal leadership summits and awards where the host must carry scripted and unscripted segments with equal authority

Audience outcomes

A clearer read on which Westminster and Whitehall developments actually change commercial conditions, and which do not.
A sharper sense of how political communication works from the inside, from lobby briefings to Downing Street signalling.
On-stage interviews, panels and awards segments that land on time, on message and with the right tension held between speakers.
Context on UK economic policy drawn from first-hand reporting on the credit crunch, recession recovery and successive fiscal cycles.
A senior journalistic presence that steadies a room when the agenda, speaker line-up or news cycle shifts on the day.

Available for

Speaking Themes

Languages

English

Click the button below to check Daisy McAndrew's fees and availability for your event.

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Testimonials

Got to be said that Daisy McAndrew is a fabulous conference host. Warm, discursive, friendly, professional.

Matthew Syed

Keynote speaker

She was fantastic. She stepped in a couple of times when the moderator hesitated; this really helped it not go flat etc. She'd done loads of research as well...

Barclaycard

Daisy supported an event of Samsung's back in the summer of 2013 & absolutely hit the mark in her ability to put an audience at ease, share knowledge, & professionally introduce various speakers. Her wit & charm became the glue that brought all the components of the event together & as a result the response we got from our customers was excellent. We were so impressed with Daisy's performance that we had no hesitation in asking her to support the next iteration of the event the following summer. If you need a trusted & experienced pair of hands that is going to maximise your brand's presence & offering, look no further than Daisy.

Samsung

Daisy has chaired two of our national conferences and has been a superb asset to each event. She is a delight to work with, can think on her feet and has the audience gripped throughout. Her impressive broadcasting background gives her immense political and economic knowledge through which she can add great input to live discussions and Q&A sessions. She is professional, reliable, upbeat and a great asset to any corporate event. 'Daisy was wonderful! Smart, patient, thoughtful and very charismatic.

Hoseasons

Daisy hosted our ThinkFM 2015 Conference and made it an amazing success. The feedback we have received from delegates and partners was positively overwhelming and her support enabled us to create a stimulating and vibrant event... On the day the event hit the top ten on Twitter and started trending in the morning with over 3000 tweets and reaching nearly 850,000. This simply would not have been possible without her support.' - British Institute for Facilities Management'Daisy's performance, professionalism and warm personality ensured that the facilitation played an important and influential part of the whole day. We had great delegate feedback regarding her role and the extent to which she managed to control proceedings. We can't thank her enough, she carried it all off in such style. We wouldn't hesitate to recommend her as a facilitator.

Capita

We have employed (on behalf of clients) Daisy's services as a Conference Moderator on many occasions over the past few years. Her grasp of the issues being discussed and her energy on stage, ensure that the events we organise are informative, engaging and entertaining. As a seasoned journalist, she can interview senior professionals and celebrities with ease and just the right degree of humour, and she is equally at home with a pre-prepared script or in an ad-lib situation. Would we work with her again? Yes, absolutely. She is happy to mingle with delegates socially; she is relaxed and easy to work with; utterly reliable and a consummate professional.

Dellar Davies Events

It's great to work with Daisy as she makes my day so much easier than it would be otherwise! Her grasp of the issues and energy on stage made this year's event informative, engaging and entertaining too.

ABTA