Everything You Know About the Middle East is Wrong
Award-winning journalist and leading Middle East expert KIM GHATTAS unpacks key misconceptions about the region, leveraging more than twenty years of experience as a reporter and State Department correspondent. Building on her first-hand knowledge of the Arab world, Ghattas provides incisive takeaways for better policy-making and business decisions.
Stuck Together: America and the Middle East
Leading Middle East expert KIM GHATTAS has twenty years of experience covering the Middle East as an esteemed analyst, including serving as a State Department correspondent. Ghattas leverages her unique perspective as an award-winning journalist and sought-after strategic advisor on geopolitics in the region to explore the history, challenges, and opportunities in U.S.-Middle East relations.
Unlocking the Obstacles on the Path to Success
Award-winning journalist and business leader KIM GHATTAS grew up in Lebanon during the civil war. Her experiences inspired her to become a journalist, so she could make sense of the world and explain it to others, and as a child of war she overcame many obstacles on her path to success. In this riveting keynote, Ghattas explores life as a video game, sharing lessons from her life and storied career in this impactful talk for all audiences.
Rethinking Resilience
Growing up in Lebanon during the civil war, award-winning journalist and sought-after geopolitical strategic advisor KIM GHATTAS learned to turn her trauma into drive and rise above adversity. As an insightful and authentic keynote speaker, Ghattas shares her personal experiences as a child of war and how they informed her journey to become a leading Middle East expert in talks that inspire audiences of all kinds.
Author Talk: Black Wave
Based on her highly acclaimed book Black Wave, award-winning journalist and geopolitical strategic advisor KIM GHATTAS shares her expert analysis. Named a New York Times “Top 100 Notable Book” of 2020, Black Wave has become a reference for universities and diplomats on the Saudi-Iran rivalry. In impactful keynotes, Ghattas builds on her first-hand knowledge of the Arab world and access to key decision makers to provide incisive takeaways on international affairs and help audiences connect the dots between global events and their impacts.
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As a contributing editor to the Financial Times, Kim Ghattas’ column covers Middle Eastern geopolitics
KIM GHATTAS is the author of Black Wave, a distinguished fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics, and a Financial Times contributing editor:
Kim Ghattas is an analyst, advisor and author with more than 20 years of experience covering the Middle East, international affairs and US foreign policy. She builds on her first-hand knowledge of the Arab world and her continued access to key players and decision makers in the region and in the U.S. to provide incisive take-aways on international affairs and help others connect the dots between global events. A leading voice on Middle Eastern affairs, her expertise on risk and opportunities in regional and geopolitical trends is sought after by of policy makers and institutions in the region and in the U.S.
Growing up in Lebanon during the civil war, dodging bullets and mortar shells on the way to school, she decided to become a journalist at the age of 13 to make sense of the world and explain it to others.
She is contributing writer at The Atlantic, a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a regular commentator on CNN, NPR, and other media outlets.
During her time covering the Middle East for the BBC and the Financial Times, she reported extensively on Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan as well her home country of Lebanon. She was part of the Emmy award winning BBC team that covered the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Later, as a State Department correspondent based in Washington D.C., she traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the world with U.S. secretaries of state Condoleeza Rice, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, interviewing all of them extensively.
Her work setting up a news bureau in Beirut for the BBC and running news operations, as well as her recent work leading the family business through two years of economic crisis in Lebanon all give her an additional, unique understanding of business operations, crisis, crisis and contingency planning in the Middle East. She is the author of the NYT bestseller, The Secretary, focused on U.S. foreign policy and her travels around the world with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2013). Her second book, Black Wave, on the Saudi-Iran rivalry, was a NYT Top 100 Notable book of 2020 and has become a reference for universities and diplomats. She serves on the board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut and chairs the board of directors of the organization of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ). She was born and raised in Beirut. She speaks Arabic, French and Dutch.
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