The Daily Mail called Andrew “The titan of broadcasting, famed for his interrogation of the powerful, and The Times said: “The ultimate test for assessing whether a party leader was fit to be Prime Minister is to put them in front of Andrew Neil for forty minutes, the most forensic interviewer in broadcasting.” With wry humour added to genuine insight and an enviable network of business, economic and political connections, the publisher, businessman and broadcaster considers the plots, policies and personalities making the news.
View / Submit“A lively and thoughtful presentation – an excellent closing session for the conference.”
AIRMIC
Andrew Neil is a publisher, broadcaster, speaker, and company chairman. He was named UK Journalist of the Year by the Political Studies Association, and one of the five hundred most influential people in the UK by Debrett’s. He is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Press Holdings Media Group, publishers of The Spectator.
During his twenty-five years with the BBC Andrew presented a variety of live political shows from The Andrew Neil Show, to Politics Live. For sixteen years, he presented the award-winning This Week. He also presented three editions of the Daily Politics every week, and the Sunday Politics.
Andrew has presented live prime time specials on the BBC on major political events, such as Brexit and the Labour and Conservative leadership races. During general elections he conducted the main interviews with the party leaders, bar Boris Johnson who famously refused to be interviewed by him, as did Liz Truss.
Andrew has been chairman of ITP, the biggest magazine publisher in the Gulf, based in Dubai, and still acts as senior consultant, and hosts their prestigious events.
He has covered US politics and business extensively since the 1970s, from making a sixty-minute documentary on the Tea Party, which was distributed worldwide, to anchoring the BBC’s global results coverage of the 2016 presidential election live from Times Square. His final major broadcast for the BBC was to anchor the ten hour global coverage of the US election results.
After leaving the BBC Andrew launched the political programme, The Andrew Neil Show, for Channel 4. In the aftermath of the Queen’s death, he hosted a ninety-minute special prime time discussion programme on the channel.
During his career, Andrew has been a House of Commons political correspondent in London, White House correspondent in Washington DC, and Wall Street correspondent in New York all at The Economist, and was made British Editor. He was Editor of The Sunday Times, and over eleven years turned it into the multi-section market leader, renowned for its investigative journalism and scoops. While still editing The Sunday Times he served as Executive Chairman of Sky Television, which he launched as Britain’s first multi-channel satellite TV platform. He created Sky News and brought The Simpsons to British screens. He has been a member of the International Advisory Board of Al Jazeera, and Publisher of The Scotsman Group of newspapers in Edinburgh.
Andrew's knowledge of business and politics is encyclopaedic. He not only ‘gets’ speaking briefs, he’s also extremely useful to have onside. And he runs a very tight ship as a moderator, lightening the mood whenever he finds the opportunity. The result is that Andrew’s sessions become the creative spaces they’re meant to be – a million miles from Death by PowerPoint.
JLA Agent Tom Disley