Khadra Sufi

Why organisations work with Khadra Sufi

• Fifteen-plus years of live television means she handles unscripted moments, technical hiccups, and difficult guests the way a working broadcaster does, not the way an event host learns to.
• Bilingual moderation in German and English at a professional broadcast standard, useful for DAX-listed companies and international brands running mixed-language audiences from a single stage.
• A QVC track record selling on live retail television, which translates directly to product launches, brand reveals, and live commerce formats where pacing and credibility matter more than polish.
• A Spiegel bestselling memoir and a UN Refugee Aid ambassadorship give her a separate, bookable keynote on resilience and reinvention when the brief calls for personal-story content alongside hosting.

Biography highlights

• Author of “Das Madchen, das nicht weinen durfte” (Sudwest Verlag, 2010), a Spiegel bestseller about her family’s flight from Somalia and asylum in Germany.
• UN Refugee Aid (UNO-Fluchtlingshilfe) ambassador since 2012.
• Reporter for Bild in Cologne (2008-2010) and live reporter and author for WDR Lokalzeit Ruhr (2009-2012).
• Brand ambassador and presenter at QVC Dusseldorf, including her own clothing line.
• Guest on national German television including Markus Lanz (ZDF), Hartaberfair (ARD), Menschen bei Maischberger (ARD), Plasberg in Person (WDR), and ZDF Mittagsmagazin.

Biography

A corporate gala, a press conference, and a livestreamed product launch all need the same thing on stage: a host who can read a room, talk to a stranger on camera, and not flinch when the autocue fails. That is broadcast craft, and it is what Khadra Sufi has done professionally for more than fifteen years.

Her route in is unusual. The daughter of a Somali diplomat, she grew up between Yemen, Zambia, Saudi Arabia, and East Berlin before her family fled the Somali civil war in 1990 and arrived in Germany as asylum seekers. She trained as a medical assistant, completed her secondary education in Germany, and moved into journalism via Bild in Cologne and WDR Lokalzeit Ruhr, working as a live reporter and author from 2009 to 2012.

The on-camera work expanded into national appearances on Markus Lanz, Hartaberfair, Menschen bei Maischberger, and Plasberg in Person, and into commercial broadcasting through QVC Dusseldorf, where she is a long-running brand ambassador and runs her own clothing line. She moderates corporate events, panels, and product launches in German and English, and is based in Hamburg.

Her 2010 memoir “Das Madchen, das nicht weinen durfte” became a Spiegel bestseller and reissued through Penguin Random House. Since 2012 she has been an ambassador for UN Refugee Aid (UNO-Fluchtlingshilfe), which is also the foundation for her keynote work on displacement, resilience, and reinvention when an organiser wants more than a host on the bill.

Key speaking topics

• Event hosting and moderation
• Panel facilitation
• Live product launches and brand reveals
• After-dinner and awards hosting
• Resilience and personal reinvention
• Refugee experience and integration

Ideal for

• Corporate communications and brand teams running bilingual German-English galas, conferences, or product launches
• Marketing and retail leaders booking live commerce, brand reveals, or QVC-style on-camera formats
• DEI, CSR, and employee engagement leads commissioning a personal-story keynote on displacement, resilience, and reinvention

Audience outcomes

• An event that holds together across a long-format agenda, with a host who keeps senior guests sharp and the audience present
• A bilingual stage that does not lose energy when switching between German and English speakers
• For keynote bookings: a first-person account of statelessness, asylum, and rebuilding a working life in a new country, told without sentimentality
• A practical reference point for what employee-facing communication on refugee and integration topics can sound like when it is delivered by someone who has lived it