Amol Rajan is a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme, and the host of University Challenge. He previously was the BBC’s first Media Editor
covering the impact of the rapidly changing media landscape on politics, business, and culture. He was the youngest Editor of a broadsheet
newspaper in Britain and the first from an ethnic minority in more than a century when he was appointed by The Independent at the age of twentynine.
Born in Calcutta, India, Amol moved to London when he was three and grew up in South London. He read English at Downing College, University of
Cambridge, during which time he edited Varsity, the student newspaper. At the age of eighteen he spent a gap year in the UK Foreign and
Commonwealth Office.
Amol got his break into television on The Wright Stuff on Channel 5, before joining The Independent and filling a variety of roles as news reporter,
sports correspondent, columnist, and comment editor. He also wrote a column in the Evening Standard and was restaurant critic for The
Independent on Sunday. He was then appointed Editor of The Independent and stayed on as Editor -at-Large as the paper transformed from a
printed paper to a digital only product.
Amol joined the BBC as its first ever Media Editor leading its journalism on media and technology globally. He has also regularly provided holiday
cover for presenters on Radio 2, presented the Media Show on Radio 4, and has been an occasional presenter on The One Show.
Amol has presented The Imperial Inversion of Cricket, Archive on 4: Rivers of Blood, and The Decline of the West, as well as appearing on
Question Time, MasterChef, Great British Menu, Newsnight, The Daily Politics, The Andrew Marr Show, and Celebrity Mastermind where he
finished second with his specialist subject Shane Warne. He also presented a two-part TV documentary, and a ten-part podcast, on Britain's royal
family, as well as the two-part documentary How to Crack the Class Ceiling, which investigated how people from working class background are
often failed when trying to get top jobs.
As part of his show Amol Rajan Interviews, he has spoken to Greta Thunberg, Bill Gates, Nile Rodgers, Ian McKellen, Novak Djokovic, and Billie
Jean King.
In his book Twirlymen: The Unlikely History of Cricket’s Greatest Spin Bowlers, Amol tells the story of the cerebral artists who mystify batsmen to
conjure wickets out of thin air. Rethink: How We Can Make a Better World, is based on Amol’s podcast and has contributions from major
international figures examining how public and private life can be improved post-pandemic
