Sophie Ibbotson

Sophie Ibbotson is one of the UK’s foremost experts on contemporary Central Asia. She has lived and worked in the region since 2008, consulting for national governments and development banks and travelling across all five Central Asian republics and Afghanistan. Sophie is Chairman of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, the first woman to hold the role since the society was founded in 1901; and is a 2023/24 Visiting Fellow at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Centre.

As an author and journalist, Sophie has written six guidebooks for Bradt Travel Guides, as well as more than 200 articles for outlets including the Financial Times, the Economist, Lonely Planet, and the Telegraph. She combines her consultancy and writing with leading research and trekking expeditions in extreme locations, with a particular interest in the Pamir and Himalayan Mountains and Siberia.