Katie Derham
A high-stakes conference, awards night or leadership town hall lives or dies on the person holding the room. Senior audiences notice immediately when a host is reading from cue cards, missing the brief, or unable to interview a CEO with the same fluency they bring to a panel. The risk is not a bad event. The risk is a flat one that the audience forgets by Monday.
Katie Derham is a BBC broadcaster and conference host who runs corporate events, awards ceremonies and on-stage interviews with the composure of a live news studio.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Katie Derham
- Fifteen years anchoring national news at the BBC and ITV News, where she covered general elections, royal weddings and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That live-broadcast discipline is what shows up on stage when a panel goes off script.
- A working economics background. She read Economics at Cambridge and started at BBC Radio 4’s Money Box, which is why finance and business clients book her over generalist presenters.
- A serious arts and culture credential. Face of the BBC Proms on television since 2010 and presenter of Radio 3’s In Tune, with the cultural literacy that comes with both.
- Author of The Classical Music Book for DK’s Big Ideas Simply Explained series, and a 2017 judge on the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The reading and editorial work behind those credits informs the way she prepares and questions.
- A name that travels. Strictly Come Dancing finalist, Classical Brit Awards host, household-recognisable, which matters when the brief is a high-profile awards ceremony or televised gala.
Biography highlights
- Presenter, BBC Proms television coverage on BBC One and BBC Two since 2010.
- Presenter, In Tune on BBC Radio 3.
- Former Media and Arts Editor and lead newscaster, ITV News (1998 onwards), the youngest ITN newsreader since the broadcaster’s launch in 1955.
- Host of the Classical Brit Awards at the Royal Albert Hall.
- Author, The Classical Music Book, DK Big Ideas Simply Explained series (2018).
- 2017 judge, Women’s Prize for Fiction.
- Strictly Come Dancing 2015 finalist (fourth place, partnered with Anton Du Beke).
- Patron of Eastside Educational Trust and ambassador of the Ashdown Forest Foundation.
Biography
The hardest part of any conference is not the keynote. It is the connective tissue: the on-stage interview that has to draw something new out of a CEO, the panel that has to land in 40 minutes, the awards ceremony that has to keep a room of 800 people on side from cocktails to the final trophy. That work belongs to the host.
Katie Derham came to that work through 15 years of national news. She joined ITN in 1998 as Media and Arts Editor for ITV News and, at 27, became the youngest national newscaster the broadcaster had appointed since its founding in 1955. The roster from those years includes general elections, royal weddings, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is the schooling that produces a host who can hold a stage when the autocue fails.
Her second act has been arts broadcasting at scale. She has presented BBC Proms television coverage from the Royal Albert Hall every season since 2010, fronts In Tune on BBC Radio 3, and authored The Classical Music Book in DK’s Big Ideas Simply Explained series. She has hosted the Classical Brit Awards and judged the 2017 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The economics is what differentiates her commercially. She read Economics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and started her career as a BBC Radio 4 Money Box researcher, which is why finance, business and brand clients book her over presenters who have only ever covered culture. That dual fluency, business credibility and arts authority, is the reason serious organisations put her in front of their leadership team.
Key speaking topics
- Conference and event hosting
- On-stage CEO and leadership interviews
- Awards ceremony presenting
- Panel moderation
- Classical music and the arts
- Broadcast journalism and live media
- Women in broadcasting and media careers
Ideal for
- CEOs and chairs who want their on-stage interviewer to do the briefing properly and ask the next question.
- Comms and brand teams running flagship customer events, awards ceremonies, or televised galas.
- Investor days, AGMs and finance sector conferences that need an economically literate host, not a generalist presenter.
- Cultural institutions, philanthropic galas and arts boards programming high-profile public events.
Audience outcomes
- A room that stays with the agenda from the opening session through the closing remarks.
- Sharper, more candid contributions from senior interviewees, because the questions land.
- Smooth transitions across a complex run-of-show, with live recovery when timings slip.
- A stage presence the audience remembers and associates with the brand hosting the event.