Hollie McKay

Hollie McKay is an Australian-born foreign policy expert, war crimes investigator, and award-winning journalist whose 14 years as an international affairs correspondent for Fox News Digital put her on the front lines of some of the world’s most dangerous and consequential conflicts. She speaks on geopolitical risk, crisis leadership, communication under pressure, and the extraordinary resilience she has witnessed in war zones from Iraq and Afghanistan to Syria, Ukraine, and Burma. Her book Only Cry for the Living chronicles the human face of the ISIS war with on-the-ground immediacy.

From Pop Tarts to the Taliban
McKay transitioned from Fox News entertainment coverage to international conflict reporting, becoming one of the few Western journalists to remain in Afghanistan after the fall of the U.S.-backed government in 2021, staying for the first four months of Taliban rule as the only American journalist to document the transition. She has conducted exclusive interviews with captured terrorists across multiple factions and spent considerable time embedded with U.S. and foreign troops. She is a 40 Under 40 Honoree with the Middle East Policy Council and a 2022 Media Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Humanitarian & Author
McKay serves as Outreach Director for the Burnt Children Relief Foundation, bringing severely burned Syrian children to the U.S. for life-saving treatment, and received the 2021 EMERGENCY honors award for her humanitarian commitment. She speaks on geopolitical risk, disinformation, communication in crisis, resilience, and the courage of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

Importance of Human Connection

While conflict brings out the worst of humanity, it also brings out the very best. Survivors of such manmade atrocities teach us what it is to be brave, when there is little choice for the ordinary to become extraordinary.  I have often been struck by how ordinary people are forced to become extraordinary at the drop of a hat – or a bomb. I am both perplexed and inspired by the resilience of these people to withstand pain (physical and psychological), to find hope in the bundling of misery, and to push through the darkness. The key? Faith, hope, and the power of love and holding each other up.

The Art of Storytelling in Hostile Environments

Getting to the truth, and shining a light in some of the darkest corners of the globe, is far from a straight-forward task, especially when faced with hostile governments, insurgents and powerful players who will stop at nothing from squashing the truth. But it can and must be done, both now and in the future.

Resolution and the Future of Conflict

With more than sixty million people displaced from their homes and a world in disarray akin to that of World War II times, it is hard not to fling our arms in the air and back away from the world. But isolation is not the only answer, there are solutions and we need to work together with a greater focus on prevention rather than containment, to bring the world’s many wars back to balance.