Kofi Smiles
Most corporate events lose the room in the first ten minutes. A panel runs long, a presenter reads from a script, the audience disengages. Bringing a broadcast journalist into the chair changes the rhythm of the day and gives the agenda someone whose job is reading a room in real time.
Kofi Smiles is an award-winning BBC journalist who hosts, moderates and chairs corporate events with the pace and warmth of live broadcast.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Kofi Smiles
- Brings the on-air discipline of a daily BBC Breakfast Show host to corporate stages: live timing, interview craft, and recovery when an agenda slips
- Steers difficult panels with humour, including conversations on inclusion, youth voice and culture, without lowering the tone
- Carries credibility with younger and culturally diverse audiences through his BBC No Filter work and youth broadcasting background
- Comfortable across formats: keynote interviewer, awards host, fireside chair, conference moderator, internal town-hall facilitator
Biography highlights
- Host, BBC Radio Humberside Breakfast Show
- Presenter, BBC Radio 4 The Listening Project; has hosted Pick of the Week
- Selected as the BBC’s Face of Hull for UK City of Culture 2017, chosen from more than 200 candidates
- Co-winner, O2 Media Award for Digital Journalism (Hull 2017 coverage)
- Founder of BBC No Filter, a platform amplifying young voices
- Co-founder of CTK Media, producing political satire and pop culture content; University of Northumbria graduate
Biography
A live BBC Breakfast Show is unforgiving. The clock does not slip, the guests do not always show, and the host has to keep the listener with them through every link. Kofi Smiles has run that format every morning at BBC Radio Humberside, and the discipline travels into the rooms he chairs for corporate clients.
He came to national attention as the BBC’s Face of Hull for the UK City of Culture 2017, chosen from more than 200 candidates and appearing across Radio 4, BBC One and the News Channel. The team coverage won an O2 Media Award for Digital Journalism. Since then he has hosted Radio 4’s The Listening Project and Pick of the Week, two formats that depend on getting a stranger to open up on tape.
That interview craft is what he brings to the stage. He chairs panels, moderates leadership conversations, and hosts awards and conferences. He is comfortable with conversations about inclusion, culture and youth voice, having built BBC No Filter to amplify young people on the platform, and he can hold those conversations without flattening them.
The work he does outside the BBC, including political satire and pop culture content through CTK Media, shows up in the room as range. He can switch register from a serious board panel to an evening awards host without dropping the thread.
Key speaking topics
- Event hosting and moderation
- Conference and awards emcee
- Panel chairing on inclusion and youth voice
- Storytelling and broadcast interviewing
- Culture, media and pop culture commentary
- Internal town-hall and leadership Q&A facilitation
Ideal for
- Corporate event organisers needing a credible broadcast host or moderator
- CHRO and DEI leads running internal events on inclusion, culture, or employee voice
- Brand and marketing teams hosting awards nights, customer conferences, or media launches
- Internal communications leads commissioning all-hands or leadership Q&A formats
Audience outcomes
- A tighter, better-paced event with clean transitions between sessions
- Panels that surface a substantive point from each speaker, not just airtime
- Difficult topics handled with warmth, so the room stays with the conversation
- A host who lands the close, so the audience leaves on a note the organiser chose