| Zain Asher | |
| Birth Name: | Zaina Ejiofor[1] |
| Birth Place: | Balham, London Borough of Wandsworth, England |
| Nationality: | British |
| Occupation: | Anchor, journalist |
| Years Active: | 2006–present |
| Spouse: | Steve Peoples |
| Children: | 2 |
| Relatives: | Chiwetel Ejiofor (brother) |
Zain Ejiofor Asher (Ejiofor,) is a British news anchor at CNN International, based in New York City.[1] She currently co-anchors the network's primetime, global news show One World with Zain and Bianna airing weekdays at 12pm ET with Bianna Golodryga. Her memoir Where The Children Take Us was published by HarperCollins in April 2022.[2]
Asher was born to Nigerian parents in London and grew up in West Norwood, South London. Her mother Obiajulu was a pharmacist working in Brixton, and her father Arinze was a doctor. In 1988, her father was killed in a car accident during a road trip in Nigeria when she was five years old.[3] Her older brother is actor Chiwetel Ejiofor,[4] [5] the lead actor in the critically-acclaimed film 12 Years A Slave.
Asher attended Oxford University and graduated in 2005 with a degree in French and Spanish.[6] The following year, she attended the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, in New York City.[7] In 2021, she was named an honorary fellow of Keble College, Oxford University.[8]
After graduation, Asher initially worked as a receptionist at a production company[9] before becoming a freelance reporter at News 12 Brooklyn where she covered local news.[10] She also worked as a reporter for Money, where she wrote personal finance articles about careers and investing before moving to CNN.
In 2012, Asher met a CNN executive who invited her to the company headquarters in New York for a screen test.[11] She was first hired as a business correspondent before becoming an anchor at CNN International based in Atlanta.In 2014, she reported from Abuja, Nigeria on the hundreds of Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. She has also anchored breaking news coverage during August 2020 explosion in Beirut, the October 2020 End SARS protests in Nigeria, Russia's war in Ukraine, the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the 2023 Israel-Gaza war.[7] Since 2021, she has anchored One World with Zain Asher, airing weekdays on CNNI.
Her memoir Where The Children Take Us was released by HarperCollins on 26 April 2022.[11] The book was inspired by her 2015 Tedx talk "Trust Your Struggle", which has been viewed 2.2 million times on YouTube as of 2022.[9] It tells the story of how her mother, widowed and raising four children, worked to fulfill her and her husband's original dream of moving to England to ensure their children an excellent education and opportunity; the results are visible in the journalist, the actor, the medical doctor and the entrepreneur that Asher and her siblings have become.
Asher resides in Montclair, New Jersey with her Associated Press reporter husband, Steve Peoples, and their two sons.[12] She is of Igbo descent; her family are originally from Enugu State, Nigeria.