Sharanjit Leyl

Biography

Sharanjit has interviewed many of the world’s top political and business leaders. keeping audiences engaged and entertained with conversations taking place on stage or online. She‘s moderated discussions at some of the world’s most high profile events at the United Nations, the ADB and other global summits, and also for the corporate world.

Sharanjit is also an experienced filmmaker, producing and presenting documentaries and news programmes that have aired globally on the BBC.

Sharanjit has spent a quarter of a century in broadcasting, including eighteen years with BBC World News, covering business, finance and politics. She anchored and produced Asia Business Report and Newsday from the channel’s Asia bureau and also presented several BBC World News programmes in London, filed reports for radio on the BBC World Service and written for BBC news online.

She’s reported for domestic BBC programmes and regularly anchored live on location on breaking stories in the region such as the Hong Kong protests, the Sri Lankan Easter Sunday bombings, the Christchurch shooting and the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight and many other breaking news deployments.

A Singaporean native, she’s produced and presented BBC documentaries on TV and radio about her city which featured interviews from leaders and pioneers who helped make it one of the 20th century’s success stories.

She’s interviewed the heads of states of Canada, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan to name a few, chief executives and chairpersons from various Fortune 500 companies and the Presidents of the World Bank and IMF.

Sharanjit was highly commended as best presenter at the Asian TV Awards and an episode of Newsday she anchored won Best News Programme in 2017.

She is now such a familiar face for viewers in Asia that she is regularly invited to moderate high level debates for the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, the ADB and other development banks and financial institutions.

Prior to joining the BBC in 2003, Sharanjit was one of the main anchors at Bloomberg TV’s Asia Pacific headquarters in Tokyo presenting “On The Money Asia” and reporting on breaking financial stories as well as major news events such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. She also fronted a weekly lifestyle programme from the heart of Tokyo.