Alastair Leithead
Alastair Malcolm Leithead is an English journalist working as a foreign correspondent for the BBC. Leithead was based in Nairobi from 2015 to 2019. He works across all BBC News outlets.
Early life
Alastair Leithead was born in Amersham to Arthur Leithead, a security manager, and Edna Leithead, a teacher in private education. He was raised in Blaydon-on-Tyne and educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle. He then went to the University of Manchester to study geography.Early career
After graduating from the University, Leithead worked at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle before joining BBC Radio Newcastle. Later he worked as a news producer in London.Foreign reporting
As a foreign correspondent, Leithead has been based in Africa and Asia before moving to Kabul. There he covered the war in Afghanistan. Leithead has reported from a refugee camp in South Sudan.More recently, he has been based in Los Angeles before being re-located to Kenya as the BBC's Africa Correspondent in July 2015.