IF you ever need career advice, Mishal Husain might be the right person to ask.
An accomplished journalist and broadcaster, Husain has built up an established and respected career in the BBC across the better part of two decades.
Intent on sharing her experiences, the journalist released her first book called The Skills last year. Described as “the ultimate handbook for women”, it acted as a guide for females on how to achieve their career goals.
“I really wanted to distil the tools of the trade that have worked for me,” she explained of the book. “I’d always been personally interested in the ‘how’ of anyone’s field.”
Looking back at her key achievements, it is clear she has the credentials to publish such a ‘self-help’ guide.
She served as the Washington correspondent in the run-up to the Iraq war, made documentaries on Malala Yousafzai and EU immigration and took a key role on the coverage of the 2012 Olympics Coverage.
In 2013, Husain became the first Muslim presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme – notable for being known as the BBC's flagship morning show.
And, in a move which cemented her role as one of the country’s most hih-profile journalists, the presenter was handpicked by Prince Harry when he and his now-wife Meghan Markle conducted their first joint TV interview following their engagement announcement in 2017.
Even though Husain typically breaks the news, she has not altogether avoided hitting the headlines herself.
In 2017, she caused a stir after shushing then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson live on air, telling him “please stop talking”. And when she challenged Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016 on anti-Islamic attitudes in the country, Suu Kyi was heard muttering: “No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.”
More recently, Husain’s wages hit the papers. In a list released by the BBC, it was revealed that just two of its top 20 highest-paid stars were women. Shockingly, Husain, who ranked at number 47, earned £400,000 less than her Today co-host, John Humphreys.
Not one to shy away from an awkward journo situation, Husain later interviewed BBC boss Lord Tony Hall on the disproportionate gender pay gap.
“Does that mean you’re going to be asking the men to take a pay cut?” she asked an evasive Hall, which sparked a flurry of support for Husain across social media.
Husain was born in Northampton in 1973, to Pakistani-origin parents. She later moved as a child between the Middle East and an English boarding school in Kent.
She had no idea, she once said, that sitting on the kitchen floor being made to read to her mother in Urdu would leave her well placed when the focus of world news shifted east after 9/11.
The 46-year-old studied law at Cambridge University followed by a master’s in international and comparative law at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Her broadcasting career began at Bloomberg Television as a producer.
In 1998, her career at the BBC began when she worked as junior producer in the newsroom and for the News 24 channel.
More than twenty years later, it is hard to imagine the public service broadcaster without her.
Husain currently lives in Camden, North London, with her lawyer husband Meekal Hashmi and their three sons.
