AS A longstanding BBC presenter, Mishal Husain has one of the most iconic jobs in broadcasting. Sharp, well-informed, and combative – her status as a journalistic heavyweight has been well established for years.

Apart from presenting BBC Radio 4’s Today and BBC One’s Sunday evening editions of Weekend News, Husain also occasionally presents on BBC News and BBC World News. She also contributes as a relief presenter of BBC News at Six and BBC News at Ten.

Over the years, Husain has interviewed several high-profile figures, such as Burmese Leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. She is famous for some of the TV recent-history’s iconic live presentations, including one from Pakistan after the death of Osama Bin Laden and while covering the elections in India in 2014.

She has also presented critically-acclaimed BBC documentaries, including Malala- Shot for Going to School, How Faceboon Changed the World and Britain & Europe: The Immigration Question. Her debut book The Skills: From First Job to Top Job – What Every Woman Needs to Know was published in September 2018 by HarperCollins UK. So it is somewhat ironic that it took the BBC gender pay gap scandal of 2017 to truly make her a household name, since social media was in uproar when it was revealed that BBC’s highest-paid male presenters collectively pocketed almost four times the total amount of the top four female presenters.

She received the Broadcaster of the Year Award at the London Press Club Awards in 2015 and the Services to Media award at the British Muslim Awards in 2014.

Husain was born in Northampton to Pakistani parents but brought up from the age of two in the UAE and Saudi Arabia where her father worked as a doctor.

She went on to