Dhruti Shah

Dhruti Shah worked as a long-term writer for the BBC News website, as a social news writer for the Washington DC bureau. She has also worked for the world’s longest running current affairs programme Panorama. Also spending time at the Natural History Unit,  as a digital and social producer and strategist she led World Service projects across multiple languages. It’s her experience working on the social news beat where she has created a reputation for her digital newsgathering skills. This involved not only doing open-source intelligence work but also finding people with amazing stories to tell.

Druti Shah’s features have broken records. They span a whole range of fields, have broken audience records and led to global conversations and people’s lives being changed. She also made audiences and other organisations take note of the BBC News LinkedIn account, growing its followers four-fold while being solely responsible for it.

Furthermore, Dhruti was selected for an Ochberg Fellowship with the Dart Centre for Trauma and Journalism. She also remains an active member of the global network of mental health specialists, journalists, and those concerned about ethics in the field. Also chosen for a Rotary International Peace Fellow she has studied at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.

Dhruti has led speaking engagements, training workshops and has been a keynote at conferences and events around the world engaging with a variety of audiences. She’s spoken to children as young as five at primary schools about financial literacy, storytellers around the world at all levels of experience about tackling the social beat, and not forgetting the highly qualified neuroscientists interested in the world of verification and journalism.

Her award-winning book was created with illustrator Dominic Bailey.  What’s more, it has been lauded by parents, businesspeople, primary schools, universities and environmentalists. It was featured in a number of leading newspapers and magazines. These include Fortune Magazine, Financial World magazine, Daily Mail, NPR Marketplace, BBC World Service, Creative Boom and Save the Student.

In addition, it is on university reading lists globally. It has also been selected by former UK Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen as one of his ‘Books to Make You Think’. And in 2021, it was selected as one of the books of choice to mark South Asian Heritage Month’s spotlight on South Asian writers.

Dhruti’s creative writing has also featured in the Carer’s UK 2018 anthology Keeping Well, Keeping Connected after her short story Homeward Bound was highly commended in the charity’s creative writing competition.

Her words of advice have also featured in the Six Words book series

A member of many networks and organisations, Dhruti is a member of the global Clore Cultural Leaders Network.  In addition her selection as a two-time finalist at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards means she is also a member of the Women of the Future network. She was also shortlisted for three categories at the Digital Women Awards in 2021 –  Role Model, Women for Good and highlighted as one of the 40 Women to Watch.

She is the youngest Trustee on the Board of the John Schofield Trust, a charity which seeks to make newsrooms inclusive.

What’s in a name?  – When Dhruti was almost called a Dorito at work, she was taken aback but it led her on a mission to help others with unusual names take ownership of something that is, quite frankly, rather key to their identity

The art of storytelling – Dhruti wanted to be a journalist since she was eight years old and now several decades later, and in an ever-evolving industry what is it that she’s learnt about what resonates?

‘They told me I’d never make it but I knew I would’ – How do you make your dreams a reality but maintain your authentic self? Especially when you are from an ethnically marginalised group…

Making your idea a successful book
Dhruti had an idea to create a simple book but how did she make it a best-selling, award-winning success without an agent and pure self-belief driving her on?  Dhruti shares the platform with her co-creator Dominic Bailey.

Speaking gigs include:

BBC Academy; Dataminr; Mansfield College (Oxford University): Simply Comms, The Economist, News: Rewired, Rotary Clubs globally, Reveal EU (Greece), Prix Italia (Turin, Italy), Global Education Oregon, John Schofield Trust, Hacks/Hackers LDN, King (the company behind Candy Crush Saga), We Hate Pink, NUJ chapels, BAM Media (Georgetown University, Washington DC), Woman X Impact (Bologna, Italy), Middlesex University, Oxford University Careers Service, University of West London, University of Kent, Northwestern University in Qatar, Hillingdon Library.

Podcast and radio appearances include: BBC Word of Mouth with Michael Rosen, BBC London, BBC World Service Business Daily, NPR Marketplace Morning Report, Media Tribe, Desi Books, Do Not Adjust Your Focus, Need to Read, Us People.

Dhruti has also presented BBC News Facebook Lives to millions of viewers, been the voice of a BBC Africa radio series on Innovators, taken part in numerous live two-ways and was the presenter of a special internal communications project for the BBC focusing on mental health and race.