Robert Hardman – Keynote Speaker

Robert Hardman is a renowned writer and broadcaster, specializing in royalty, history and soft power in modern times. He has been a member of the BBC commentary team at all the major state occasions of recent times, including the Coronation of Charles III, the funerals of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip and the weddings of Prince William and Catherine Middleton and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

He is the author of several acclaimed international bestsellers. His latest, Charles III – New King. New Court. The Inside Story, went straight in at Number One in the Sunday Times 2024 UK charts and remained there for weeks thanks to its astonishing levels of detail and access. In the words of Professor Simon Heffer in the Dail Telegraph: ‘As a situation report on the monarchy today, this book will attain the status of a historical document.’

Robert Hardman’s previous book, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II, was also an international bestseller and was the 2022 Sunday Times Biography of the Year. It was presented by (then) Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the same year.

Over thirty years as a national newspaper journalist, he has covered numerous historic events, from elections (UK and global) to Olympiads and World Cups to major triumphs and disasters. He was on the last trans-Atlantic flight of Concorde and was the first (and only) journalist inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame while it was burning. On the royal front, he was there at all the key moments, from Elizabeth II’s first state visits to Russia, Ireland and post-apartheid South Africa to the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother.

Hardman has also written and produced several hit documentaries which have enjoyed primetime viewing around the world. The most recent, Charles III: The Coronation Year (BBC One), was the most-watched programme on UK television on Boxing Day 2023. Other major broadcasting landmarks include Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work, Our Queen, George III – The Genius of The Mad King, Queen of the World, Charles at 60, The Duke: In His Own Words, Anne: The Princess Royal at 70 and Prince Philip: The Royal Family Remembers (for which he interviewed a dozen members of the Royal Family).

Robert Hardman has interviewed many world leaders, including Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Emperor Akihito, Queen Margrethe of Denmark, King Harald of Norway, John Howard, Julia Gillard and Justin Trudeau. The list spans all the major figures in recent British public life, from Sir John Major, Tony Blair, David Cameron and Theresa May to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dame Ellen Macarthur and John Hemingway, the last of ‘The Few’ who fought in the Battle of Britain. A Cambridge classics graduate, he lives in London.