Kirsty Wark
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One of Britain’s most experienced broadcast journalists
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Has presented the BBC’s flagship current affairs show Newsnight for 25 years
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Former BAFTA Scotland journalist of the year and Best Television Presenter
Kirsty Wark is one of Britain's most highly regarded and versatile presenters, having presented the BBC’s flagship weekly current affairs show Newsnight for 25 years. She has also hosted the groundbreaking Late Show, Election specials and live stadium events.
Kirsty presented The Review Show for over a decade. She has conducted long form interviews with everyone from Margaret Thatcher, Madonna, Harold Pinter to Pete Doherty, Damian Hirst to George Clooney and the likes of Toni Morrison, Donna Tartt and Philip Roth.
She has fronted many documentaries for BBC Television including the critically acclaimed Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes. This year, she fronted The Insider’s Guide To Menopause which aired on BBC Scotland and iPlayer.
Kirsty Wark joined the BBC as a graduate researcher in 1976 for BBC Radio Scotland, going on to become a producer in radio current affairs. Following a spell on Radio 4's The World At One, she moved to television in 1983 - working as a producer on Reporting Scotland and later producing and presenting the current affairs weekly Seven Days. She has interviewed many top politicians - from Tony Blair in January 1996 to Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
Kirsty presented the 1987 General Election in Scotland and the three subsequent elections. She has also presented several major OB's and the openings of the Tate Modern and the Scottish Parliament. From 1990-1993 she presented the Arts programme The Late Show and in 1993 fronted the popular BBC heritage series One Foot In The Past - a role she continued into 2000.
In October 1993 she joined BBC2's Newsnight and, since 2001, also presents Newsnight Review. Kirsty also presents an occasional series of interviews for BBC4 with guests as wide ranging as Toni Morrison, Hannan Ashrawi, Woody Allen & Pete Doherty. She also presents the prestigious Man Booker literary awards for BBC2 and BBC4.
Forming the independent television production company Wark Clements & Co with Alan Clements in 1990, she then presented much of the company's output, including Words With Wark, Restless Nation, Building A Nation, The Kirsty Wark Show, Lives Less Ordinary and Tales from Europe.
Kirsty was named journalist of the year by BAFTA Scotland in 1993 and Best Television Presenter in 1997. In addition, Kirsty was chosen as Scot of the Year 1998 - sponsored by Scotland On Sunday & Glenfiddich – and was awarded the 1999 News and Current Affairs prize by Carlton Women in Film and Television. She was also nominated for the prestigious Richard Dimbleby Award for Best Television Presenter (Factual, Features and News) in the BAFTAS 2000.
Born in Dumfries and educated in Kilmarnock, her debut novel, The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle, was published in 2014. Her second novel, The House by the Loch, was published in 2019.
Kirsty Wark’s extensive corporate portfolio ranges from facilitating conferences, after dinner speaking, and hosting award ceremonies, to presenting in-house videos and voiceovers.
Clients include Proctor & Gamble, The Marketing Society, Investec, Glenfiddich, Lloyds TSB, Statoil, UBM (United Business Media), RSA Arts Council, Deutsche Bank Cambridge MIT-Institute, Pro-manchester, the NHS, The Rolex Mentor and Protégé and Arts Initiative.
Another fabulous performance. Thank you so much for holding it all together yesterday and making all the links between the various participants.
It is the most crucial role of the day and you were brilliant as ever. You make our job so easy and we have really appreciated your interest and involvement in this ongoing project.
Your briefing to the other participants was most helpful and knowing you could step in at any moment, if we needed, gave us so much comfort... Thanks again for another wonderful day.
On behalf of the Guardian, I would like to thank you for your contribution to the Guardian Public Services Awards. Once again, your contribution was professional and enthusiastic with a personal touch. We hope that you will be able to join us at future events.
Kirsty, I just wanted to thank you for the sterling job you did last week. I had hoped that the event would be an inspiring and lively debate on key issues that affect women globally and I'm delighted that it was!
As it was the first event, there were a lot of expectations to meet. I am thrilled at the responses from the delegates who attended and I am really grateful for your support, insight and fascinating observations. ..I am grateful to you for chairing the panels so smoothly and effectively.
Thank you for making the day so successful – we have had tremendous feedback... I hope to work with you again in the future.
Kirsty Wark chaired the event superbly... she was a delight to work with and we'd be thrilled if she would take part in another event for [us] sometime in the future.
Thank you very much for hosting our Property Predictions event today. You were excellent and we’ve had super feedback on you as host and the event itself.
Thank you to Kirsty for giving up her evening to join us in debating the extremely important issue of the gender pensions gap. We got some lively conversation underway and the initial feedback from the event has been fantastic. It was great that Kirsty had such a personal interest in the topic, it made for a really great debate.
Kirsty certainly brought the best out of all the panellists while making sure the event ran as smoothly as possible. I thought her insights and contributions given the ten-year anniversary were particularly apt and I hope she got as much out of it as we did. From speaking to the attendees, we received extremely positive feedback on her attendance.
You played such a key part in the conference, and I'm not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that it would not have been the same without you!
How to book Kirsty Wark for your event
To book Kirsty Wark, please submit an online enquiry to booking.agent@nmp.co.uk or contact one of our booking agents on +44 (0)20 3822 0003.
Award-winning BBC newscaster and television presenter
Broadcaster, former BBC China editor and gender equality campaigner
Presenter of BBC’s Front Row and Newswatch
Television presenter and radio broadcaster
Sony award-winning BBC journalist and broadcaster
