Christiane Amanpour

Controversial and outspoken, CNN's very visible international correspondent Christiane Amanpour paved the way for women around the world to be seen as serious reporters of world events. Along the way she won numerous Emmy Awards, as well as a Peabody Award and other distinguished citations. Whether broadcasting from the midst of war-torn Bosnia or interviewing Yassar Arafat during the siege of his compound, she always found a way to be in the thick of it. Amanpour's many years as a globetrotting commentator on the state of the world earned her both a reputation for asking the tough questions and for speaking out on uncomfortable truths. Born in London, England, her family soon returned to her father's native Tehran. Her early school years were spent in Iran, where she soon became fluent in Farsi as well as English. Her family's close ties to England led to her education in English boarding schools. When her family fled Iran at the time of the Islamic Revolution she continued her English education, completing her schooling in the U.S. at the University of Rhode Island. Here she first struck up a friendship with John F. Kennedy Jr., one of many she was to have with political and influential public figures in the years to come. Amanpour began her long career with CNN in 1983 when she was hired as an entry-level assistant for the network's international assignment desk in Atlanta. By 1990 she had worked her way up to correspondent in their New York Bureau, where she became the bureau's international correspondent. Her initial assignment, reporting from the Gulf War, was a good indication that this was one woman who would not shirk from reporting in the midst of the most perilous situations. Speaking from just about every hot spot in world news, Amanpour reported in a variety of locations from Afghanistan and Iran to North Korea and Rwanda. In 2010 she briefly left CNN to anchor the prestigious news desk for ABC News's ″This Week″(ABC 2003-). She returned to CNN a year later but maintained her relationship with ABC as the global affairs anchor for ABC News. In 2012 Amanpour began to host her own nightly foreign affairs television show for CNN, ″Amanpour″ (CNN 2012-). She was also involved in several television documentaries including ″Iconclasts″ (2005), ″The Journalist and the Jihadi: The Murder of Daniel Pearl″ (2006), ″Iran and the West″ (2009) and ″State of Control″ (2014). In 2015, Amanpour was given the TV Personality of the Year award by the Assocation for International Journalism.