Panah Farhadbahman
Panah Farhadbahman is a bilingual storyteller and a cross-functional team builder and leader who cares about people more than everything else. He earned his media leadership experience in different sectors: global corporations, non-profits and start-ups.
Since 2008, he has played key roles in launching two major international news broadcasting networks and led the digitalisation of another channel.
Having a background in print media, he was selected in 2008 by the BBC as a broadcast journalist to be a member of the launch team of BBC Persian Television.
In 2011, Panah was promoted to the position of Senior Broadcast Journalist. During his 10 years at the BBC, although his primary responsibility was in the newsroom, he was always open to new experiences and challenges, from planning and newsgathering to digital and features. He earned the trust of his team as a leader through taking a collaborative approach and demonstrating reliable editorial judgment, which helped him to lead big projects such as modernizing the traditional BBC Persian Radio, which included merging jobs, creating new roles, and training the team.
In 2018, he left the BBC after 10 years to start my Damavand Media Ltd. He has also formed BOOOOOM – a non-profit aiming to utilise modern media to support immigrant communities worldwide.
Panah was born and raised in Iran, where even sustaining a constructive public dialogue was not easy. So, he entered the journalism field as a trainee at the age of 13. Overcoming the barriers people face in accessing information and sharing their stories and views has become his purpose and passion in life.
He has been a continuous learner over the past 26 years and closely observing how media has evolved over these years, keeping himself on track.