How Did I Get Here?

Christiane Amanpour

Chief international correspondent and anchor of CNN’s Amanpour
from
  • Education
  • New Hall School, Boreham, England, class of 1977
  • University of Rhode Island, Kingston, class of 1983
  • Work Experience
  • 1983–90
    Foreign-desk assistant, writer, producer, New York bureau correspondent, CNN
  • 1990–93
    Foreign correspondent for Eastern European and Persian Gulf conflicts, CNN
  • 1994–2010
    Chief international correspondent, CNN
  • 1996–2005
    Special contributor for 60 Minutes, CBS
  • 2010–12
    Chief global affairs correspondent and anchor of This Week, ABC News
  • 2009–10, 2012–Present
    Chief international correspondent and anchor of CNN’s Amanpour
  • Life Lessons
  • “Teachers matter. Who teaches young people really determines how well they do.”
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  • “There isn’t any overnight success that is lasting and meaningful.”
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  • “You have to be truthful, and that is not always neutral.”
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  • With her mother, Patricia, 1958
    “My upbringing in Tehran was magical—very free. There was never any question that anything was off-limits for my life.”
  • “John F. Kennedy Jr. was at Brown and wanted to live off campus. He was one of my roommates. It was fantastic.”
  • Covering the aftermath of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in Sri Lanka, 2004
  • “It didn’t work out. I was hired by one [network] president, and the person who took over just didn’t buy the concept. I don’t regret it.”
  • Conducting the final interview with former Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi, 2010
  • “I was a good student, but I was also quite rebellious, so I was constantly getting into trouble. The punishment was cleaning, so I’m a lifelong skilled cleaner.”
  • “The first Gulf War was my big break. It was also CNN’s breakout on the international stage, so that was transformative.”
  • In Kazakhstan for the fall of the Soviet Union, 1991
  • “I’ve had quite a few people hang up on me. Yasser Arafat shouted at me. President Clinton yelled at me across an international press conference satellite bridge.”
  • Amanpour received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) from Queen Elizabeth II in 2007.
  • “In Sarajevo you could not be neutral, so I told the truth, which was that one side was the aggressor and one side was the victim. And in the end, the world entered and stopped the war. I feel deeply, deeply troubled that’s not happening in Syria. Even when not using chemical weapons, [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad is responsible for the brutal deaths of a hundred thousand civilians. It’s the disgrace of our time.”