She was born in Istanbul in 1969. Guven holds a BA in International Relations from Istanbul University and an MA in International Relations from Bogazici University, Istanbul. She completed a 3-months internship programme at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. After working for the daily Milliyet as a foreign correspondent, Guven started working for NTV in 1997 as a correspondent. She presented news programmes such as ‘Gecen Hafta – Bu Hafta’ and ‘24 Saat’ on NTV. She resigned after working for NTV for 14 years due to disputes over some of the guests in her TV programme, ‘Banu Guven’le Arti’. One of her guests, novelist Vedat Turkali, speaking about the Kurdish issue in Turkey made some direct reference to imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, and a programme with Kurdish parliamentarian Leyla Zana was not allowed to be conducted on NTV. Banu Guven now works as a freelance journalist (www.banuguven.com).