Ms Bridget Kendall FBA (Hon)

Bridget Kendall read Modern Languages and Soviet Studies at Oxford and Harvard, before joining the BBC World Service as a trainee in 1983. She became the BBC’s Moscow Correspondent in 1989, covering the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as Boris Yeltsin’s rise to power, before being appointed BBC Washington Correspondent during the Clinton Presidency. From 1998 to 2016 she held the senior role of BBC Diplomatic Correspondent, reporting on major conflicts such as those in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

An authority on Russia and East West relations, Kendall has interviewed numerous global leaders throughout her career including Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin. Her awards include the James Cameron Award for distinguished journalism and an MBE in the 1994 New Year's Honours list. Her book The Cold War; a New Oral History  was published in 2017.

Kendall was appointed the first female Master of Peterhouse, the University of Cambridge’s oldest college, in 2016, serving until 2023. From 2008-2023, she hosted the weekly discussion programme on new ideas and research for the BBC, The Forum.