Sophie Morgan
Most organisations talk about inclusion in language their disabled employees and customers do not recognise. Policies exist; lived access does not. The gap between what an accessibility statement promises and what a wheelchair user actually encounters at the door, in the meeting room, on the flight, is where reputational risk and human cost both sit.
Sophie Morgan is a broadcaster, author and disability rights campaigner who helps organisations close the gap between inclusion policy and lived accessibility.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Sophie Morgan
- A founder credential rather than a commentator one. Morgan built Rights On Flights into the Assisted Air Travel Act, presented at the House of Commons in September 2023, after airline mishandling destroyed her wheelchair.
- Operator-grade media reach. Nearly a decade as a Channel 4 lead Paralympics presenter, NBC Paralympics host, Loose Women regular, and Conde Nast Traveller columnist gives her the platform to test what inclusion language actually lands.
- A production-company perspective on representation. Through Making Space Media, her first-look deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, she sits inside the commercial machinery of disability storytelling rather than commenting on it.
- A presenter who can host the room, not only speak from a lectern. Awards hosting, panel chairing and on-stage interview work are part of her core offer, useful when the brief is to run an event rather than fill a keynote slot.
Biography highlights
- Lead presenter on Channel 4’s coverage of the Summer Paralympic Games for nearly a decade; presenter on NBC’s US Paralympics coverage.
- Author of Driving Forwards (Sphere/Little, Brown, 2022), a memoir on life after spinal cord injury.
- Founder of the Rights On Flights campaign; the Assisted Air Travel Act was presented at the House of Commons in September 2023.
- Co-founder of Making Space Media with Keely Cat-Wells, with a first-look unscripted deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine.
- Regular panellist on ITV’s Loose Women; presenter of Living Wild, Fight to Fly, and Crufts; contributor to BBC Horizon, The One Show and Channel 4’s No Go Britain.
- Patron of Scope, Back Up and Human Rights Watch; voted into the UK’s Top 10 most influential people with a disability three years running.
Biography
A wheelchair was destroyed on a BA flight from Los Angeles to London in January 2023. The passenger was Sophie Morgan. Within weeks she had turned that single incident into Rights On Flights, the campaign that produced the Assisted Air Travel Act, presented at the House of Commons in September 2023 alongside MPs, airline industry figures and a White House delegation.
That sequence, personal injury to legislative draft, is the pattern of her work. Morgan was paralysed from the chest down in a car crash at eighteen and has spent the years since translating private experience into public infrastructure. She is one of a small number of presenters with a physical disability working at broadcaster scale: lead presenter on Channel 4’s Summer Paralympics coverage for nearly a decade, NBC’s US Paralympics host, regular Loose Women panellist, and front of Channel 4 series including Living Wild and Fight to Fly.
Her 2022 memoir Driving Forwards (Sphere/Little, Brown) sets out the argument that runs through her advocacy: the goal is not to overcome disability but to design environments in which disabled people can live well. The same argument shapes Making Space Media, the disabled-led production company she co-founded with Keely Cat-Wells in 2023, which holds a first-look unscripted deal with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and is building a talent pipeline on both sides of the camera.
For organisations, the value is sharper than awareness. Morgan brings a working knowledge of where inclusion policy fails on contact with a real customer, employee or passenger, and a track record of forcing the response to be specific. She is a patron of Scope, Back Up and Human Rights Watch, and a Conde Nast Traveller columnist on accessible travel.
Key speaking topics
- Disability inclusion and accessibility in the workplace
- Authentic representation of disabled people in media and brand
- Accessible travel and consumer experience
- Resilience after life-changing injury
- Campaigning, advocacy and policy change
- Inclusive event design and audience access
Ideal for
- CHROs and DEI leads designing accessibility into hiring, retention and physical workplace
- CMOs, brand and customer experience leaders responsible for disabled customers and audiences
- Travel, hospitality, aviation and live events businesses with disabled customer touchpoints
- Conference and awards organisers seeking a host with on-screen credibility and inclusion fluency
Audience outcomes
- A sharper sense of where inclusion policy and lived accessibility diverge in their own organisation
- Concrete examples of how disabled customers and employees experience services, drawn from broadcast, travel and consumer brand contexts
- A working understanding of how the Rights On Flights campaign turned a single incident into policy, and what that model implies for corporate accountability
- Renewed confidence to commission, hire and represent disabled talent inside their own commercial pipeline