Mary Ann Sieghart Keynote Speaker

Mary Ann Sieghart is a highly regarded current affairs commentator, presenter and speaker. Her ground-breaking book ‘The Authority Gap’ looks at how we still don’t take women as seriously as men, and what we can do about it. Having examined all the research, she is full of ideas for how organisations can tackle gender bias and help more women reach the top.

Since ‘The Authority Gap’ was published in 2021, it has received widespread praise and won numerous awards.  It was named “best politics book of the year” (The Guardian), “best philosophy and ideas book of the year” (The Times) and “best political book of the year” (Waterstones).

Mary Ann spent 19 years at The Times as Assistant Editor, including as Arts Editor, Chief Political Leader-Writer, Op-Ed Editor and political and social columnist on Op-Eds and in Times2.  Prior to this she worked at the Financial Times as a Eurobond correspondent and Lex Columnist, and at the Today newspaper as the Business Editor.  From 2010 to 2012, she wrote a weekly column for The Independent on politics, economics and social affairs, and in 2008, she co-founded current affairs content aggregation website, The Browser.

From 2008-10, Mary Ann presented Newshour, the BBC World Service’s flagship news and current affairs programme.  She continues to present programmes on BBC Radio 4 including Start the Week, Fallout, Analysis, Profile, One to One, as well as several documentaries, and regularly appears on Question Time, Any Questions, Newsnight, Woman’s Hour, among other current affairs programmes.

She is a Visiting Professor at King’s College London, Non-Executive Director of the Guardian Media Group and Chair of the Investment Committee of The Scott Trust (owner of The Guardian and The Observer).  She is the Senior Independent Director of Pantheon International, a Non-Executive Director of The Merchants Trust and Senior Independent Trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust.

Mary Ann was Chair of the Judges for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022, and chaired the Social Market Foundation think tank for ten years.  She has held several board member and advisory roles for organisations including the Ofcom Content Board, Henderson Smaller Companies Investment Trust, DLN Digital, and the Council of Tate Modern.