The Chairman

Tim Sebastian is the founder and chairman of the Doha Debates.

He was previously a BBC foreign correspondent, based in Warsaw, Moscow and Washington, and has reported for BBC Television from more than 25 countries over a 30-year period.

He is perhaps best known for being the first host of the BBC’s flagship interview programme Hardtalk – for which he was twice named Interviewer of the Year by the Royal Television Society. Sebastian has also won the Society’s Television Journalist of the Year award, as well as a British Academy award for contributions to factual television.

He holds a BA in modern languages from Oxford University and is the author of eight novels and two non-fiction titles.