Francine Stock

Francine Stock (born March 14, 1958) is a British radio and TV presenter and novelist, of part-French origin. Born in Devon, and with early years in Edinburgh and Australia, Stock later attended St Catherine's School, Guildford where she was head girl and is a graduate of Jesus College, Oxford, with a degree in Modern Languages (French and Italian). She became the first female Honorary Fellow of Jesus College in 2007.

After working in specialist journalism on the oil industry, she joined the BBC in 1983. At first she reported on financial news and worked as a radio producer, later moving into television as presenter of "Newsnight" and (briefly, after serious illness) on "The Money Programme" on BBC2. She was one of the original presenters of BBC Radio 4's "Front Row" in 1998, later moving to The Film Programme on radio, which she still presents. She is currently presenting Visionaries http://www.visionariesdebate.com> for BBC World News.

Since 2005, she has been chair of the Tate Members Council.

Francine Stock has published two novels: "A Foreign Country" (1999, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel award) and "Man-Made Fibre" (2002). She is married to Robert Lance Hughes and has two daughters, Rebecca and Eleanor.