Kamal Ahmed

Meet Kamal Ahmed

In his three decades of journalism Kamal Ahmed has covered economics, business, politics, the media and the royal beat working for four national newspapers and BBC News where he became Editorial Director in 2019.

Kamal is Vice-President of the Society of Editors which campaigns for media freedom and is a trustee of Media Trust which works with the media and creative industries to give marginalised groups and young people a stronger voice.

After leaving the BBC Kamal co-founded and became Editor-in-Chief of The News Movement, a new media business headquartered in London and New York focused on social media channels, new audiences and digital consumption, which is to be trusted and objective.

Career

Kamal began his reporting career working for local newspapers in Scotland and then Scotland on Sunday. In 1994 he moved to The Guardian first as Royal Correspondent and then Media Editor. Switching titles to The Observer as Political Editor, Kamal then became Executive Editor, News leading the team through the relaunch of the newspaper which won Newspaper of the year in 2006.

Briefly leaving journalism in 2007 Kamal was Group Director, Communications for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In 2009 he returned to the press as Business Editor for The Daily Telegraph.

In 2014 Kamal was recruited as Business Editor for BBC News and two years later became Economics Editor before being appointed Editorial Director. Here Kamal worked across news strategy, daily news and planning, commissioning, analysis, visual and audio journalism and new forms of digital content. He was a member of the Newsgroup Board, the Sounds board and the BBC’s Senior Executive Group.

Books

The Life and Times of a very British Man is Kamal’s autobiographical account of growing up as a mixed-race child in the 1970’s.

Awards

In 2013 Kamal was the inaugural winner of the CFA Society’s Ethical and Professional Standards Award.