Jonathan Hawkins is Vice President of Communications for CNN, leading the team responsible for communications around CNN’s international editorial output across TV and digital - including CNN Arabic - as well as all communications for CNN en Español. He is a member of the CNN International executive team, a founding executive sponsor of CNN’s International Diversity Council, and a regular editorial contributor across TV and digital.

Hawkins joined CNN in 2011 and spent five years based at CNN’s EMEA hub in London, before moving to CNN International’s headquarters in Atlanta in 2016. In his time at CNN he has worked across all the international network’s major shows, including Amanpour, Connect the World with Becky Anderson, Quest Means Business, and First Move with Julia Chatterley. He has also led many high-profile communications projects, supporting editorial initiatives on the ground in Kenya, Nigeria, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, Singapore, the UAE, Switzerland, and Georgia, as well as in the US and UK.

He led communications around CNN’s international coverage of the 2012 U.S. election, traveling across the United States by Amtrak train as part of the American Quest show team, and international communications around CNN’s coverage of the 2016 and 2020 US Elections, as well as numerous UK elections and the 2016 EU Referendum.

Away from the ballot box, Hawkins has coordinated support for CNN’s coverage of the World Economic Forum at Davos since 2013, as well as major events such as the 2018 Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un Summit in Singapore, and the World Government Summit in Dubai.

He has conceived and led multiple partnerships with the Imperial War Museum in the UK, including a permanent exhibition showcasing CNN’s coverage of the Balkan conflict, and a multi-media partnership for the museum’s 2020 Refugees season, including a pioneering, critically acclaimed installation using 360-degree video to vividly portray life for refugees at a camp in Lesbos, Greece. Hawkins has also led communications support for the CNN Freedom Project and helped devise and execute CNN’s Zero Plastic Lunch campaign around World Oceans Day.

Throughout his time at CNN, Hawkins has worked as an editorial contributor, particularly with CNN Sport, CNN Travel and CNN Business. In more than a decade covering the sport of MotoGP he has interviewed stars including world champions Marc Marquez, Jorge Lorenzo, Fabio Quartararo, and Pecco Bagnaia, appearing multiple times on TV as an analyst for CNN World Sport. He covered the infamous and grueling Baja 1000 off-road race in Mexico, producing TV and digital content while embedded with a race team, and flown and sky-dived with the Red Bull stunt team while covering its daring Plane Swap stunt in 2022.

Elsewhere, he has also shot and produced both TV and digital content at Davos, filed several stories from Italy for CNN Travel, and worked as a photojournalist on a TV report at the Azra refugee camp in Jordan during the Syrian civil war. He has interviewed Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali, and legendary musician Jean-Michel Jarre, covered an Ashes cricket series, England’s historic international soccer match with France following the 2015 Paris Attacks, the NFL’s London series, including interviewing Darrelle Revis and Nick Mangold of the New York Jets, and Nottingham Forest’s victory in the 2022 Championship Playoff Final.

Hawkins joined CNN from the BBC, where he worked in its Global News division, including as acting head of international communications, across BBC World News, bbc.com, and all 27 BBC World Service language services. While there he managed international comms on the ground for major projects including the 2009 India Election, and the launch of the Africa Business Report show in Nigeria, and helped relaunch BBC World News’ program lineup.

Prior to joining the BBC, Hawkins worked in several roles across the public relations, advertising and marketing sectors in the UK and Australia. He is a graduate in Politics & International Relations from the University of Reading in England and holds a post-graduate diploma in Public Relations from the University of Stirling in Scotland.