Zain Asher

Name	Zain Asher
Image
Caption	Asher with her memoir at the 2022 Texas Book Festival.
Birth Name	Zaina Ejiofor
Birth Place	Balham, London Borough of Wandsworth, England
Occupation	Anchor, journalist
Years Active	2006–present
Spouse	Steve Peoples
Children	2
Relatives	Chiwetel Ejiofor (brother)

Early life and education

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. Her older brother is actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, the lead actor in the critically-acclaimed film 12 Years A Slave. She is also the elder sister to Kandi Ejiofor, a medical doctor in England.

Asher attended Oxford University and graduated in 2005 with a degree in French and Spanish. The following year, she attended the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, in New York City. In 2021, she was named an honorary fellow of Keble College, Oxford University.

Early career

After graduation, Asher initially worked as a receptionist at a production company before becoming a freelance reporter at News 12 Brooklyn where she covered local news. She also worked as a reporter for Money, where she wrote personal finance articles about careers and investing before moving to CNN.

CNN

In 2012, Asher met a CNN executive who invited her to the company headquarters in New York for a screen test. 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 Gaza war.

Since 2021, she has anchored One World with Zain Asher, airing weekdays on CNNI.

Book

Her memoir Where The Children Take Us was released by HarperCollins on 26 April 2022.

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. 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.

Personal life

Asher resides in Montclair, New Jersey with her Associated Press reporter husband, Steve Peoples, and their two sons. She is of Igbo descent; her family is originally from Enugu State, Nigeria.

See also

• List of Igbo people
• New Yorkers in journalism

References

• The Guardian Nigeria, 'It's time to change global narrative on Africa', 29 March 2022
• Where the Children Take Us, HarperCollins Publishers
• Chiwetel Ejiofor revisits Nigerian bloodshed of his youth, Garry, Maddox, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 March 2014
• Mesure, Susie, Chiwetel Ejiofor: 'I find racial concepts fascinating', 7 May 2022, subscription, live, The Independent, 5 November 2013, London, 27 January 2013
• CNN.com, Quick Links
• 35 Years of Keble Women, keble.ox.ac.uk, Keble College, Oxford University, 19 March 2015, 2 March 2019, dead
• CNN Profiles - Zain Asher - Anchor, CNN
• Five New Honorary Fellows Elected, Keble College, 3 November 2021, 7 May 2022
• Trust your struggle | Zain Asher | TEDxEuston, YouTube, 12 January 2015
• About Zain Ejiofor Asher, Zain E. Asher
• Where the Children Take Us: How One Family Achieved the Unimaginable, Asher, Zain E., 2022, HarperCollins
• CNN International anchor Zain Asher says relentless hard work led her to success, Julia, Martin, 2022-10-28, North Jersey Media Group, 2022-12-14