Sonali Shah’s warmth, charm and versatility has resulted in her being part of the presentation team for a number of the BBC’s marquee events this year – the Cricket World Cup, the Boat Race, the London Marathon, the Epsom Derby, the Royal Wedding & Wimbledon. Sonali is part of the BBC presentation team for the London Olympics and co-presents British Olympic Dreams - a monthly BBC One show following Britain’s finest athletes in their quest to reach London 2012. All this was on top of her day job – the BAFTA award-winning Newsround which she presented for five years.

Aiming for a career in medicine in her teens, Sonali got the presenting bug while volunteering at her local hospital radio station during her A level years. After university, she began her professional broadcasting career in radio, in early 2002, she joined the BBC World Service as a producer, but quickly established herself as a presenter of World Business Report and The World Today. In 2003, Sonali was asked to move to Radio 5 live to help launch Jeff Randall’s Weekend Business, which went on to win a Sony Radio award. As well as reporting for Weekend Business, Sonali became a regular business presenter on the network, fronting Wake Up to Money and 5 live Money on Breakfast, Simon Mayo and Drive.

Sonali’s popularity within CBBC has seen her become a regular guest in the channel’s presentation studio, on the very successful Sam and Mark’s Tmi Friday, and MOTD Kickabout, which she often hosts. She is also a face of Comic Relief, Sport Relief and Children in Need.

In 2008, she spent a month in China, reporting on the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake and presenting Newsround and Sportsround from the Beijing Olympic Games. Sonali credits these Games for sparking her passion for covering big sporting events. Since then, she has had the opportunity to interview some of the biggest names in sport such as Lewis Hamilton, Novak Djokovic, David Beckham and Maria Sharapova. Sonali thrives in the challenge of showing the audience something they’ve never seen before.

In October 2010, she spent a month in Delhi as one of BBC Sport’s presenters at the Commonwealth Games. Adept at explaining a complex subject to a non-specialist audience, in November she went to Afghanistan to film two Newsround Specials, called ‘Growing up in a Warzone’ and ‘The Children of Kabul’. One of these films prompted quite a debate in the media because it included NATO’s leading civilian representative in the Afghan capital telling Sonali ‘children in Kabul are safer than those in London and Glasgow’.