Artistes of the Month

Declan Curry

Declan Curry is the Business Presenter for "Breakfast" on BBC One and BBC News 24.

He reports each morning from the studios of the London Stock Exchange, covering business, the economy, the workplace and personal finance. He interviews chief executives, trade union leaders, stock market watchers and economists, along with individual workers and investors. He also broadcasts his own personalised reports on the stock market and investing.

Declan also appears coast-to-coast across the United States each morning, with a live business and news report for the US network ABC. He has also written a regular diary column for ABC's news website, ABCNews.com

He is a weekly columnist for "Investors Chronicle" magazine and writes regularly for BBC Breakfast's website, and for BBC News Online, the BBC's news website.

He has been a business presenter with BBC News 24 since the channel's launch in 1997. Before that, he presented BBC Radio 5 Live's early morning business programme, "Wake up to Money", and produced and reported for a range of programmes, including Radio 4's "Moneybox", Radio 5 Live's "Financial World Tonight", and "World Business Report" on BBC World Service.

He has also worked for the independent production company Mentorn, on programmes including BBC Two's "Pound for Pound" and Channel 4's "Consequences".

He writes for newspapers and magazines in the UK, Ireland and the United States. He has been published in the "Independent" and "Guardian" newspapers, "Shares" and "Caterer & Hotelkeeper" magazines, "Business & Finance" in Dublin, "The Irish Examiner" in Cork, and "The Ulster Newsletter" in Belfast.

Declan has chaired many national high-profile conferences and awards ceremonies including the National Business Awards conference, the BCSC Annual Conference, the EMAP/AM Dealer conference and the DTI e-commerce awards. He has also presented at the flagship Thomson Exel awards for city analysts.

He occasionally speaks at conferences, industry dinners and charity functions. Recent events include the Alliance for Finance pensions conference and the Engineering Employers Federation "Year in Industry" initiative, along with events for the British Consultants and Construction Bureau, the NI Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the Institute of Bankers in Ireland and Strabane-Lifford Rotary Club.

He has been a judge for the British Insurance Awards, the Proshare Investor Awards and the Princes' Trust Business Awards, among others.

"Thank you so much for recommending Declan he was superb and did a fantastic job ...he was a delight to work with and I would not hesitate in recommending or using him again."
Declan hosted a local business awards ceremony for Trinity Mirror in November 2007

"The client was extremely please with both of them and felt they worked very well together....From our point of view they were both very professional and I felt that they worked very well together."
Praise for Declan Curry and Julia Bradbury who jointly hosted the National Customer Service Awards in September 2006

"Declan was a star. He put the contributors at ease and kept the proceedings flowing…his jovial, yet authoritative style worked well, and he held people to account when necessary…we'll be using him again!"
Declan hosted the ABI Motor Conference in September 2006 and as a result was rebooked for 2007

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Michaela Strachan

Michaela started presenting 21 years ago on the award winning children's Saturday morning programme called 'The Wide Awake Club'. This then launched a very successful career as a children's presenter which continued for 20 years and earned her a BAFTA for 'Best Children's Presenter'. She fronted many children's shows including 'Wacaday' with Timmy Mallett, 'Hey Hey It's Saturday', 'WAC 90', 'WAC Extra' and 'Michaela' all for TVam. She also fronted 'Cool Cube', 'But Can You do It On TV', 'Beetle Drive', 'Electric String Vest', 'Ratkan 2', 'Michaela's Map', 'Summer Crunch', 'Dineytime' and 'Can You Keep A Secret'.

Michaela also branched into music programmes and older viewers will remember her for her four years as 'Her' on the cult late night music programme with Pete Waterman 'The Hitman And Her'. She also released 2 rather averagely successful records in the 80s!!

Since 1990 Michaela has become more familiar to audiences for presenting wildlife programmes. These began as children's programmes, 'OWL TV' for ITV and the award winning 'Really Wild Show' for the BBC which she presented for 15 years. Michaela also fronted many award winning 'Really wild Show' specials including one on the Chinese Bear Bile industry, The state of the South China Sea and Tiger conservation. She also presented her own show for Ch.5 'Michaela's Wild Challenge' which won 2 BAFTAS. Other programmes include 'The Really Wild Guide To Britain' and 'The Fossil Roadshow'.

Michaela then moved into presenting adult wildlife programmes including 'Wildlife Rescue' for Anglia TV, 'Postcards from The Wild', 'Big 5 Little 5' and 'Adopt A Wild Animal' for Animal Planet, 'Animal Zone', 'The Wildscreen Awards', 'Shark Encounters' and the award winning documentary 'Orangutan Rescue' all for the BBC . She has recently filmed 'Orangutan Diaries' and the 2nd series of 'Elephant Diaries', still to be aired, both for the BBC and Animal Planet.

Michaela is also a regular contributor to the long running BBC1 programme about farming and the environment in the UK called 'Countryfile' with John Craven.

Michaela's background was in the theatre and so she regularly goes back to the theatre to play parts such as 'Peter Pan' and has appeared in a couple of Royal Variety Shows.

Michaela has recently been involved in the BBC's fund raising initiative 'Saving Planet Earth' where she fronted the series 'Saving Planet Earth UK' and took part in a charity relay marathon in Lewa in Kenya cheered on by celebrity sponge girl Ruby Wax!!

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Michael Portillo

Michael Portillo was born in North London in 1953. His father, Luis, had come to Britain as a refugee at the end of the Spanish Civil War, and his mother, Cora, was brought up in Fife. She met Luis while she was an undergraduate at Oxford.

Michael attended a grammar school, Harrow County, and went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he gained a first class degree in history.

He left Cambridge in 1975, and for a year worked for a shipping company. He moved to the Conservative Research Department in 1976, where he spent three years. At the General Election in 1979 he was responsible for briefing Margaret Thatcher before her press conferences. For the next two years he was special adviser to the Secretary of State for Energy.

He worked for Kerr McGee Oil (UK) Ltd from 1981 - 1983. He contested the Birmingham Perry Barr seat at the 1983 Election

In 1982 Michael and Carolyn married. They had first met when they were at school. Carolyn had become a chartered accountant and for the last fifteen years has been a 'headhunter' with Spencer Stuart Associates.

Michael returned to politics as a special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Nigel Lawson) and in December 1984 won the by-election in Enfield Southgate, caused by the murder of Sir Anthony Berry MP in the Brighton bombing. Michael represented the seat for thirteen years but was defeated in the 1997 Election.

He joined the Government in 1986, and remained a member until 1997. He was a whip, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Social Security, Minister of State for Transport, Minister of State for Local Government and Inner Cities; and as a Cabinet Minister was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Employment, and Secretary of State for Defence. He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1992.

After his 1997 electoral defeat, Michael returned to Kerr McGee as an adviser. He also turned to journalism. He wrote about walking as a pilgrim on the Santiago Way, and working as a hospital porter. He had a weekly column in The Scotsman.

He had a three part series for Channel 4 about politics Portillo's Progress, and a programme in BBC2's Great Railway Journeys series, which was partly a biography of his late father, and radio programmes on Wagner and on the Spanish Civil War.

Michael was re-elected to Parliament in a by-election in Kensington and Chelsea in November 1999 and was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer February 2000 - September 2001.

Following the Conservatives' election defeat in 2001, Michael contested the leadership of the party. He was unsuccessful, and decided to return to the backbenches.

He has made a number of television programmes including Art that shook the world: Richard Wagner's Ring, Portillo in Euroland and Elizabeth I in the BBC2 series Great Britons.

Michael is a member of the International Commission on Missing Persons in the former Yugoslavia (which organises the identification of massacre victims) under the chairmanship of Jim Kimsey. He is also Chairman of a chamber orchestra, Sinfonia 21, which is involved in pioneering work at the frontiers of music and science.

Michael is a very popular after dinner speaker and/or conference host.

"…very well received and a delight to deal with"
Informa - Michael has hosted a number of awards ceremonies

"…why can't everyone be so accommodating and pleasant!"
RICS - Michael spoke and hosted an awards ceremony in the North East in Spring 2007

Click here for Michael's online video showreel

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Further Information

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