Rory Cellan-Jones
Rory Cellan-Jones was a reporter for the BBC for thirty years, covering business and technology stories for much of that time. He joined the BBC as a researcher on Look North in 1981, moving to London to work as a producer in the TV Newsroom and on Newsnight. His on-screen career began as reporter for Wales Today in Cardiff, from where he moved to London as a reporter on Breakfast Time. He quickly transferred to business coverage, working across the BBC’s output from the Money Programme to Newsnight, from the Today programme to the 10 O’Clock News. The stories he has covered range from Black Wednesday and the Maxwell trial to the dot com bubble and the rise of Google.
At the beginning of 2007 he was appointed Technology Correspondent with a brief to expand the BBC’s coverage of the impact of the internet on business and society. In 2014, he began presenting a new weekly programme Tech Tent on the BBC World Service. He retired from the BBC in 2021.
Rory is now an independent technology consultant, writer and broadcaster, with a substack newsletter about health and technology. He is one of the presenters of the popular award-winning Movers & Shakers podcast series about life with Parkinson’s, blogs regularly and is a prolific tweeter.
Rory’s first book DOT BOMB, a critically acclaimed account of Britain’s dot com bubble, was published by Aurum in 2001. In 2021, ALWAYS ON: HOPE AND FEAR IN THE SOCIAL SMARTPHONE ERA described by Stephen Fry as ‘delightfully insightful and intensely readable’ was published by Bloomsbury.
Rory’s memoir of his parents’ relationship and his unique childhood RUSKIN PARK: SYLVIA, ME AND THE BBC was launched by September Publishing in Autumn 2023 to broad critical acclaim. It was chosen as The Daily Mail’s ‘Book of the Week’, The Sunday Times said it is ‘so much more than a memoir. It is a tribute to an individual woman and a whole generation and class’ while the Observer called it ‘a captivating family detective story - and a poignant social history of Britain.’
In Autumn 2024, Square Peg will publish Rory’s memoir SOPHIE FROM ROMANIA: A Year of Love and Hope with a Rescue Dog.
Rory studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Jesus College, Cambridge, and worked in Paris and Berlin before entering journalism. He is married with two sons, and lives in Ealing in West London with his wife, Dame Diane Coyle, and their famous Romanian rescue dog, Sophie.
Twitter: @ruskin177
Instagram: @rorycellan