International Investment is delighted to announce that Martin Sixsmith is the keynote speaker at our flagship II Connect event to be held at central London's Cavendish Conference Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, W1G 9DT on 25 May.

Sixsmith worked for the BBC from 1980 as the Corporation's foreign correspondent in Moscow, Washington, Brussels and Warsaw. 

From 1997 to 2002 he worked for the newly-elected Tony Blair Labour government as director of communications and press secretary first to Harriet Harman, then to Alistair Darling and finally to Stephen Byers. 

He is now a writer, presenter and journalist. 

The author of two novels, Spin and I Heard Lenin Laugh, Sixsmith also wrote several works of non-fiction books, including Philomena, first published in 2009 as The Lost Child of Philomena Lee and is the basis for Stephen Frears' acclaimed film, Philomena, starring Steve Coogan (playing the author) and Judi Dench. 

His latest work, An Unquiet Heart, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2019. 

He has also worked as an adviser to the BBC television comedy series The Thick of It. 

Sixsmith was educated at Manchester Grammar School, then at New College, Oxford University, UK, Harvard University in the US, the Sorbonne University in Paris, and in Saint Petersburg in Russia. He studied Russian and French. He was a Slavics Tutor at Harvard University and wrote his postgraduate thesis about Russian poetry. 

To find out more about the II Connect event, click here 

To register for II Connect, click here.