Amol Rajan

Biography

Amol Rajan is a presenter, writer and creator, and the host of University Challenge. For five years he was a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme, and was previously 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 twenty-nine. He is now the creative force behind The Amol Rajan Connection, a concept spanning a YouTube channel, live events and members' club.

Born in Calcutta, Amol moved to London when he was three and grew up in South London. He read English at Cambridge, during which time he edited Varsity, the student newspaper. After a gap year at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he broke into the media with a production role 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 title transformed from a printed paper to a digital only product.

Amol joined the BBC as its inaugural Media Editor, leading coverage of all aspects of journalism, media and technology globally. He was also a guest presenter on Radio 2, fronted the Media Show on Radio 4, and was an occasional presenter on The One Show. He's also 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 explored how people from working class backgrounds are challenged 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. In Rethink: How We Can Make a Better World, based on Amol’s BBC series, he considers the radical ideas that could change the world, with contributions from international figures examining how public and private life can be improved.