American Business Group Milan

Speaker for May 2017 Lunch

John Hooper

Journalist John Hooper is Italy correspondent of The Economist and contributor to The Wall Street Journal.

John Hooper was educated at St Benedict's School in London and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In his first year at university, he travelled to the breakaway state of Biafra to help make a television documentary on the Nigerian Civil war.

After graduating, Hooper worked for the BBC as a current affairs reporter. In 1973, he became Diplomatic Correspondent of the then newly established Independent Radio News. The following year he went to Cyprus following the Turkish invasion of the island as a freelance correspondent for a number of news organisations including the BBC, the Guardian and The Economist .

John Hooper In 1976, after the death of Spain's dictator, Francisco Franco, Hooper was asked by the Guardian to become its correspondent in Madrid. Over the next three years, he covered the country's transition from dictatorship to democracy. He returned to Madrid as correspondent for The Observer, Guardian and Economist in 1988, remaining until 1994.

In 1994, Hooper was posted to Rome as Southern Europe Correspondent for the Guardian and subsequently The Observer. Three years later, he brought to light the so-called 'Ship of Death' migrant trafficking disaster and was a member of the award-winning Observer team that investigated its aftermath. In 1998, he was the last reporter to interview Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish guerrilla leader, before Ocalan was seized by Turkish special forces in Kenya. The following year, he covered the Kosovo conflict, reporting from Macedonia, the front line in northern Albania and chaotic post-war Kosovo.

From 1999 to 2003, Hooper was the Guardian and Observer's Central Europe Correspondent based in Berlin. He investigated the plotting of the 9/11 attacks by Mohammed Atta and his Hamburg cell and reported from Afghanistan later in 2001 on the end of the battle of Tora Bora and the defeat of al-Qaida.

Two years later, Hooper returned to Rome as Italy correspondent for The Economist and the Guardian, and in 2012 he was appointed Southern Europe editor of the latter, serving for 3 years.

John lives with his wife, an ex-Sunday and Daily Telegraph journalist, Lucinda Evans.