About Matt Potter

Matt Potter is a British journalist, speaker, creative, media and innovation leader, chief content officer, author, broadcaster, showpony, TV and radio presenter, screenwriter, nerd and fidget-britches.

He devises, writes and/or fronts TV shows for Amazon Prime, Netflix, Channel 4, the BBC and more, writes action movies for Hollywood and indie films that show at Sundance, has reported for BBC Radio from Eastern Europe, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia, co-presented Radio 1’s award-winning global travel shows, and presented docuseries and carried out investigations for the Discovery Channel and Channel 4.

He’s published five books – two for the BBC, Outlaws Inc., now in development as a Hollywood movie, The Last Goodbye, a social history of the resignation published by Constable & Robinson, and his latest, We Are All Targets: How Renegade Hackers Invented Cyber War And Unleashed An Age Of Global Chaos, on Hachette US worldwide, and Silvertail in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Matt also writes TV and movies – Hollywood and indie. He’s written series for Discovery and programmes for the BBC, and co-wrote feature documentary The Notorious Mr Bout, on the life and times of arms smuggler Viktor Bout. The film premiered to acclaim at Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival in January 2014, and led the BBC’s Storyville documentary season. He’s currently working with Thunder Road pictures in Hollywood on the adaptation of Outlaws Inc. for the big screen. 

He is a regular writer for The Washington Post, Time, The Independent and others, and has worked for 25 years for the BBC, Daily Telegraph, The Evening Standard, London Lite, Sabotage Times, Golf Monthly, Esquire, Sunday Telegraph, Jack, Maxim, the Irish Examiner, and been called on for on-air expertise and opinion by the BBC, CNN, ARD and more. His reports on cocaine trafficking in Latin America have been published in Russian, German and English. As a journalist in Belgrade, he broke the story of the NATO ‘spy’ giving away secrets to Serb forces on the web, and was questioned by MI5 as a result. He’s helped stem the tide of weapons from Russia, and got the Merchant of Death locked up. When people ask what storytelling can achieve, that’s always a good answer.

He’s also a creative leader, having worked within WPP, Publicis, Omnicom, and now Dentsu globally. As Chief Content Officer and Global Creative Solutions Lead, specialising in growth hacking, innovation, tech and the. working to help brands access the same powerful storytelling capability that makes him in-demand as a shaper of stories for the public. And more than anything, a showpony and speaker. He podcasts for the Conscious Advertising Network, and mmakes music and art,

He lives in London, wrestles with lots of things – including ADHD, his overcommitment to music, and his responsibilities as the proud but concerned owner of three glorious stick insects, and would love to hear from you.

Portrait: Simon Tang