Kamal Ahmed (born 15 November 1967) is a British journalist who formerly served as the editorial director of BBC News. He was the BBC's Economics Editor until November 2018, and Business Editor from March 2014 until Simon Jack took over as his replacement in February 2016. Before this, he worked for five years as the BBC's Asia Editor. Ahmed began his career at the BBC working on local radio stations across the UK. After two years he moved to London to work as an economics reporter on Radio 4's Today programme and later The World This Weekend. In 2001 he became the BBC's Beijing Correspondent and in 2003 he returned to London to take up the role of Europe Editor. In May 2006 it was announced that Ahmed would be leaving the BBC to become Foreign Editor of the Financial Times, but he stayed only three months before moving back to the BBC as Global Economy Editor. During his time at the BBC, Ahmed has covered major international events including the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the 2013 American and Syrian bombardments of Syria's chemical weapons facilities, and the recent protests in Hong Kong. He has been criticized for his coverage of these events. In April 2009, the BBC was forced to apologize for an error made by Ahmed during a live interview on Today when he said that Iraq had "no oil wealth" when in fact it does have significant reserves.