We are thrilled to welcome Lesley Riddoch – award-winning broadcaster, journalist, author, filmmaker, podcaster, cyclist, land reform campaigner & lover of all things Nordic – to present at our Annual CES Conference 2025!
Lesley was born in Wolverhampton to a mother from Wick and a dad from Banffshire, grew up in Belfast, moved to Glasgow at the age of 13, went to Oxford University (where she was the first non-Tory President of the Student’s Union), did a post-graduate journalism course at Cardiff University and completed a PhD at Strathclyde University in 2020. She still gets around.
She is best known for broadcasting with programmes on BBC2, Channel 4, Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland, for which she won two Sony speech broadcaster awards. She was Assistant Editor of the Scotsman, editing the paper when it became the Scotswoman on International Women’s Day 1995, and was part of the start-up team for the Sunday Herald. She’s written weekly columns for the National since its inception in 2014 and used to write for the Herald, Scotsman & Guardian. She now appears regularly on BBC and STV as a political commentator.
Lesley was a member of the trust that helped the people of Eigg buy their own island in 1997 and founded Africawoman, a charity that trained female journalists across the continent in 1999. She is co-founder of Build a Local Scotland, which aims to restore genuine local democracy to Scotland and has supported many community projects over the years. In 2020 Lesley won the Saltire Society Fletcher of Saltoun Award for her contribution to public life.
Lesley has co-presented a weekly Lesley Riddoch Podcast for 18 years – now with Bute-born Fraser Thompson. She has written five books (the latest, Thrive, explores the case for independence) and co-produced/presented six films (the latest about Denmark has 1.7 million views on Youtube, while a totally inadequate grid connection in Applecross was upgraded four days after a short film on the subject was posted online). These and other films about Norway, Faroes, Iceland, Estonia and the Declaration of Arbroath are available online.
Lesley is co-founder and director of the Scottish think tank Nordic Horizons which has brought 70 Nordic specialists over to Scotland to speak in the Scottish Parliament and meet MSPs, civil servants and the Scottish public since 2011.
This year’s conference will be happening at the COSLA Conference Centre in Edinburgh, on Wednesday 24th of September.
If you would like to hear more from Lesley and join an exciting day of inspiring speakers and networking opportunities, get your ticket now here.
And if you are a CES Community Member and haven’t received your Earlybird code or you are looking to get access to our limited bursary, please get in touch at communications@communityenergy.scot!
