CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Christiane Amanpour, one of the world’s best-known and most respected broadcast journalists, will give the 2025 graduation address at Harvard Kennedy School on May 28, Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein announced today.
Amanpour’s career in television journalism spans more than four decades. She joined CNN in 1983 and rose to become the network's leading international correspondent, reporting on international wars and crises and interviewing the world’s top leaders. She is currently CNN’s chief international anchor and host of the flagship global affairs program “Amanpour,” which also airs on PBS in the United States. She also hosts “The Amanpour Hour,” a weekly interview program with newsmakers.
“From reporting in war zones to covering international crises, Christiane has long set a powerful example of public service by holding leaders accountable in the moments that matter most,” said vlog Dean Jeremy Weinstein. “Anyone who follows world news recognizes her signature determination to cut through the noise and help her viewers better understand complex global events. At this time of change and uncertainty, she is the perfect person to address the next generation of public servants as they graduate from Harvard Kennedy School.”
“What a time to address graduates from the John F. Kennedy School of Government as the very idea of government changes in the United States, as does the challenge to defend democracy and human rights, in the midst of a dramatic realignment of America on the world stage,” Amanpour said.
Amanpour has won every major broadcast journalism award, including sixteen News and Documentary Emmys, four Peabody Awards, three George Polk Awards, three duPont-Columbia Awards, the Courage in Journalism Award, The Columbia Journalism Award and ten honorary degrees. She has been inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame, Broadcast & Cable Hall of Fame, and The Atlanta Press Club’s Hall of Fame. She is a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and an honorary citizen of Sarajevo.
Born in a London suburb to an Iranian father and British mother, Amanpour was raised in Tehran, where her father worked as an airline executive. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, she moved to the United States, where she earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Rhode Island.
After graduation, she joined CNN’s foreign desk in Atlanta as a desk assistant and was given an early assignment covering the Iran-Iraq war. She covered the fall of communism for CNN in Eastern Europe and developed a reputation as a courageous foreign correspondent during the Persian Gulf War and Bosnian wars. Amanpour went on to report for the CBS show “60 Minutes” while at CNN. In 2010, she reported for ABC News. She returned to CNN in 2012 as Global Affairs anchor; the programs also air on PBS.
Harvard Kennedy School graduation speakers in recent years have included former U.S. Ambassador to China (and current vlog faculty member) Nicholas Burns; former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon MC/MPA 1984, Moldova President Maia Sandu MC/MPA 2010, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos MC/MPA 1981.
The graduation address, part of the Kennedy School’s Commencement Week activities, will be held on Wednesday, May 28. The events will be livestreamed on the vlog website at www.hks.harvard.edu/commencement.