Raheela Mahomed
Conferences live or die on the person at the front of the room. A weak host turns a strong agenda into a series of disconnected sessions, lets panels drift, and leaves senior speakers under-pressed on the questions the audience came to hear. The risk grows when the subject is technical, geopolitical, or culturally sensitive, and the chair needs the fluency to interrogate it on stage in real time.
Raheela Mahomed is a broadcast journalist and conference host who keeps high-stakes corporate events sharp on stage, with a working command of digital, sustainability, geopolitics and inclusion drawn from a decade at Al Jazeera, CNN and DW News.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Raheela Mahomed
- A working anchor’s interview discipline applied to corporate panels: senior speakers get pressed cleanly on the questions an audience actually wants answered, without the host losing the room.
- Subject fluency across digital transformation, climate and sustainability, geopolitics and DEI, built from live news coverage rather than a single specialism, useful for agendas that span more than one track.
- International newsroom credibility from Al Jazeera English, CNN International and DW News, including a co-presented Emmy-nominated programme, NewsGrid, that translates immediately for global audiences.
- A studio operator who can hold a live, multi-camera broadcast format on stage, demonstrated on SAP’s Sapphire Now and at the Future of Media Leaders Summit in Doha.
Biography highlights
- News anchor, Deutsche Welle (DW News), Berlin, since 2021; presenter of hourly bulletins and DW News Africa.
- Eight years at Al Jazeera English in Doha, anchoring the flagship Newshour and serving as Indonesia correspondent.
- Co-presenter and producer of NewsGrid, Al Jazeera English’s interactive news programme, International Emmy nominee in News, 2018.
- Earlier roles at CNN International, including contribution to the launch of the CNN Freedom Project on human trafficking.
- Current contributor to BBC World News on Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, and Iran.
- Conference host and moderator for SAP’s Sapphire Now and the Future of Media Leaders Summit, Doha; UN conference speaker at Shoko Festival Hub in Harare.
- BA Journalism, University of Westminster; MA International Public Policy, University College London; BRIT School alumna.
Biography
A live news desk is the closest professional analogue to a complex corporate stage. Both demand fluency across unfamiliar subjects, the ability to ask a sharper question than was scripted, and the composure to keep an audience inside a story that could otherwise unravel. Raheela Mahomed has worked that desk for more than a decade.
Her anchoring career runs through three of the major international broadcasters. At CNN International she covered the 2012 Olympics, the Arab Spring and Egypt’s elections, and contributed to the launch of the CNN Freedom Project on human trafficking. From 2012 to 2020 she was based in Doha for Al Jazeera English, presenting the flagship Newshour, serving as Indonesia correspondent, and co-presenting NewsGrid, an interactive news show nominated for an International Emmy in News in 2018.
Since 2021 she has been a news anchor at Deutsche Welle in Berlin, hosting hourly English-language bulletins and DW News Africa across the pandemic, Sudan, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the war in Ukraine. She also contributes to BBC World News on Israel and Gaza and on Iran. The same instincts carry into corporate work: hosting SAP’s Sapphire Now in 2021, moderating Digital Transformation at the Future of Media Leaders Summit in Doha, and speaking on the future of broadcasting at the UN’s Shoko Festival Hub in Harare.
Her academic grounding is in international public policy, with a master’s from UCL on top of a journalism degree from the University of Westminster and time at the BRIT School. The combination matters at the front of a room: enough policy literacy to chase a serious answer, enough broadcast technique to keep the show moving when a panellist runs long.
Key speaking topics
- Conference hosting and emcee
- Panel moderation
- Digital transformation
- Climate and sustainability
- International affairs and geopolitics
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
- Future of broadcasting and media
Ideal for
- Corporate summits and customer conferences needing a credible main-stage host across a multi-track agenda.
- Communications, marketing and corporate affairs teams running flagship industry events with senior external speakers.
- ESG, sustainability and DEI forums where panel discussion needs to be pressed harder than a friendly chair would.
- Internal leadership town halls and global all-hands where a working broadcast anchor can hold a live format on camera.
Audience outcomes
- A main-stage event that holds shape across keynotes, panels and Q&A, with timing kept and senior speakers asked the questions the audience came for.
- Panel sessions that surface the actual disagreement on stage rather than a round of prepared statements.
- A broadcast-grade hosting register suitable for streamed, hybrid and on-camera formats, not only in-room.
- Coverage of digital, geopolitical and sustainability sessions by a host with the literacy to follow the substance, not only the script.