Kamal Ahmed Biography
Kamal Ahmed is a British journalist. Currently, he is serving as Editorial Director of BBC News. Until November 2018, he was Economics Editor at the BBC. He was also Business Editor from March 2014, until Simon Jack was appointed as his successor two years later.
Ahmed was formerly the political editor of The Observer , business editor of The Sunday Telegraph and Director of Communications at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Ahmed was educated at Drayton Manor High School, in West London.
Later on, he attended the University of Leeds. From the institution, he graduated in 1990 with a degree in political studies. He then trained in journalism at the City University Department of Journalism. Before Ahmed joined Scotland on Sunday in 1993, he worked on local newspapers in Scotland.
Kamal Ahmed later moved to The Guardian and became executive news editor. Additionally, he was the political editor at The Observer newspaper. Ahmed was later criticized by fellow journalist Nick Davies for maintaining an inappropriately close relationship with Downing Street.
Kamal Ahmed PhotoThis was while serving as political editor. He was also accused for publishing numerous articles that “contained significant falsehood or distortion”. Ahmed described Davies’ claims as untrue and “hearsay”. After leaving the newspaper, he then became group Director of Communications at the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
In 2009, he was appointed business editor for The Sunday Telegraph. Four years later, he became executive business editor, with a role across the Sunday and Daily Telegraph print editions. On 20 December 2013, it was announced that Ahmed would replace Robert Peston as the business editor of BBC News.
He assumed office on 24th March 2014. On 3 December 2015, after Peston’s departure to ITV, it was announced that Ahmed replaced Peston as the BBC economics editor in December 2015. On 30th July 2018, Ahmed was announced as BBC News’ Editorial Director.
Kamal Ahmed Age | How Old Is Kamal Ahmed
Kamal Ahmed was born in Ealing, London, England, united Kingdom. He was born on 15th November 1967. His current age is 51 years old as of 2018.
Kamal Ahmed Elizabeth Day | Kamal Ahmed Wife | Kamal Ahmed Dating
Kamal Ahmed got married to his first wife Elizabeth Day in December 2011. The couple tied the knot after dating for a few years. Elizabeth is an English Journalist, novelist and broadcaster. The wonderful pair was happily married until 2015. They separated in February 2015 and got divorced the same year.
The reason behind their divorce has still not been revealed but sources cite “irreconcilable differences” as the major reason. Following the divorce, Kamal grabbed headlines when he was spotted leaving the BBC newsroom with BBC news reader Sophie Long. The pair reportedly started dating since February 2016.
Sophie was previously married to her first husband, Will Green. The two got married in June 2010 in Cornwall. Kamal later split with his girlfriend Sophie Long. Kamal is not recently dating anyone post split and he seems to be busy focusing on his career as Business Editor of BBC News.
Kamal Ahmed Net Worth | Kamal Ahmed Salary
Kamal Ahmed is a wealthy man. He has accumulated a huge fortune from his acreer as a journalist. He boasts a salary of $190,000 as a BBC News journalist. The Editorial Director of the BBC News, has a net worth of $23 million. Thanks to his handsome pay.
Kamal Ahmed The Life And Times Of A Very British Man | Kamal Ahmed Book Review
“Compelling. Ahmed writes evocatively of his almost cloyingly British upbringing: life in the suburbs: bucket-and-spade hols, cricket and card games with (white) Granddad. And yet, as Ahmed observes, he has always felt a little alien in his homeland. It is clear that Ahmed has done his homework – spoken to an enormous number of people, read endless studies. The book is a valuable addition to a growing body of work on what it means to be mixed race in modern Britain” – Sunday Times
“Ahmed draws on his experiences as a half-English, half-Sudanese child in 70s London for an account of what being British means” – 50 Top Reads for Autumn, i-paper
“Captures a country in transition. Even allowing for the lofty vantage point [Ahmed] looks back from as economics editor of the BBC, his story has a touch of the everyman about it. Ahmed recounts all this with elegance and wry humour. You can’t fail to be moved ” – The Times
“Excellent. Ahmed grew up as a mixed-race kid in west London in the Seventies, and his book charts the progress (sometimes slow and not without a few setbacks along the way) that our country has made on race issues since then. Brilliant” – Rohan Silva, Evening Standard
“[An] intimate memoir … Ahmed uses his parents’ individual and joint personal stories to pan outward into the broader histories of their countries, continents, and the evolution of ideas about race and citizenship … Read[s] like an engaging novel … Although emotionally similar to Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama and stylistically similar to Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, The Life and Times of a Very British Man is deeper in its complexity and broader in scope than those other two titles” – Media Diversified
Kamal Ahmed Linkedin | Kamal Ahmed Facebook
We will update these details soon.
Kamal Ahmed Interview
Q: Your memoir reads as an undertaking to understand prejudice. Why do human beings struggle to accept otherness?
Kamal Ahmed: It is only by accepting we all have prejudices that we can start a conversation. The reason we find it so hard to talk about our prejudices is partly to do with Britishness: we’re bad at talking about emotions, and identity is a very emotional subject.
Q: What are your own prejudices?
Kamal Ahmed: I’m in a relatively senior role at the BBC. Newsrooms, historically, have been places of machismo, and I’ve learned a macho way of behaving – I’m quite extrovert, I talk about things like “editorial heft”. Is that a good way to behave towards more introverted people, such as some young women coming into the media? Am I showing prejudice by behaving like that? It’s important to challenge oneself, put oneself in the dock.
Q: You write about what it is to be mixed race – loving everything from a “good Victoria sponge” to James Baldwin. How confusing is it to be both?
Kamal Ahmed: It’s illuminating. Dual is good. I’ve a foot in both camps, rather than sitting on the fence. I understand Britishness and being an immigrant – that’s a strength.
Q: Where does your optimism come from?
Kamal Ahmed: My parents both had a very get-on-with-it approach: don’t sit there wondering about the things holding you back and bemoan the world, go and seize it.
Q: You imagine what it was like for your father as the only black man in Torquay. Did he ever talk about it?
Kamal Ahmed: He was not a man to talk about emotions. I’ve learned a huge amount from my mother in writing this book. I’m sad that I never spoke to my father, who has been dead 10 years, about his experiences. It’s only recently I learned my mother was the first white person my father met.
Q: You write these words as if to your father: “I was the son who wanted something from you, but also did not want anything.” What did you want?
Kamal Ahmed: For children whose fathers leave when young, there’s a feeling of rejection, a concern that it is about you – guilt hangs heavy. What I didn’t get was the sense of a father who loved me and put me first. He was the reason for my being different – the last thing you’d want to be as a child. Not only had he left, he was the reason I was this funny colour… two things that felt quite big. But as I came to appreciate the amount he had achieved by coming here [as a research scientist in ophthalmology] that turned into a different type of love. He wanted me to do sciences; I studied politics, which he described as a “hobby”. But he loved me more than I imagined. He had his own way of showing it – a notion of hierarchy and of respect – quite different from a British father.
Q: In what way did visiting Sudan refine your sense of identity?
Kamal Ahmed: It gave me a greater understanding that I was British. It gave me a warmer understanding of why I was different. Meeting my aunties and cousins, I understood why Sudan was important, but it did not make me Sudanese.
Q: You’re also restrained about your parents’ breakup…
Kamal Ahmed: It’s their personal story. They were young – in their 20s in the early 1970s. My father came from a very different background, first-born of a well-to-do Sudanese family; he had different approaches to our notions of politeness. He never had another significant relationship after my mum.
Q: You declare, without explanation, that you have always fallen in love with clever white women. Why?
Kamal Ahmed: It’s just a coincidence… A friend of mine says it is fightback against not being seen as good enough. I don’t agree, although it’s an interesting debating point…
Q: Why did you give Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech so much space?
Kamal Ahmed: I’m 50 this year, and that speech – one of the most significant speeches on the issues of identity and Britain – is 50 years old. It still has resonances. Rereading it, I was shocked. I wanted to make it into a conversation with me – now. I wanted to show that these are not victimless arguments. By picking it apart, I could conclude that Enoch Powell thought Kamal Ahmed should not be allowed to live in Britain. And here I am, a very British man in Britain.
Q: What kind of reader were you as a child?
Kamal Ahmed: Hugely enthusiastic – my mother was a teacher (primary, secondary, then a school inspector). She taught me to read with flash-cards in the bath… I knew when I got it wrong, because her hand would come down and smack the water.
Q: Which books are on your bedside table?
Kamal Ahmed: Afua Hirsch’s Brit(ish), Rachel Cusk’s Outline, Robert Rowland Smith’s Breakfast With Socrates and Charles Moore’s latest Thatcher volume. In this frantic world, a book is like an emulsifier for your brain… it takes you into a different world, allows you to rest.
Q: What is the last great book you read?
Kamal Ahmed: All That Man Is, short stories by David Szalay about the seven ages of man, in relationships. He goes from young, unrequited love, teenage love, to old age and mortality. I possibly identified with them all. I’ve been through young, unrequited love, kids and marriage, and – very sadly – divorce, but I’m not dead… yet.
Q: What do you read for sheer pleasure?
Kamal Ahmed: The Great Gatsby – I’ve about four editions around my flat. My pleasure is to sit down with a nice glass of wine and read it. It’s a battle against what is disheartening, and has a final sentence of hope: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Q: Your book is hopeful, too, that the world will change for the better…
Kamal Ahmed: My big argument is that change is possible. Prejudice will always be with us, but it is how we deal with it – you need understanding inside yourself.
We’re all part of the solution. I did not want to write a book about identity and prejudice that left white people feeling guilty, because that is not constructive. I wanted readers to get to the end and think: Yes.
SOURCE: www.theguardian.com
About InformationCradle Editorial Staff
This Article is produced by InformationCradle Editorial Staff which is a team of expert writers and editors led by Josphat Gachie and trusted by millions of readers worldwide.
We endeavor to keep our content True, Accurate, Correct, Original and Up to Date. For complain, correction or an update, please send us an email to informationcradle@gmail.com. We promise to take corrective measures to the best of our abilities.