Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” and a Washington Post columnist, will deliver the 30th annual Kenner Lecture on Cultural Understanding Tuesday, March 2 at 8 p.m. in Zoellner Arts Center’s Baker Hall. A question-and-answer session with Zakaria will follow. The lecture is free and open to the public, but tickets are required and can be reserved at a future date through Zoellner Arts Center. 

“Fareed Zakaria is one of the most respected and influential voices in journalism today, with a remarkable ability to help audiences understand the forces shaping our increasingly complex and interconnected world,” said Robert Flowers, Herbert J. & Ann L. Siegel dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “His extraordinary record as a journalist, author and global commentator makes him an especially fitting speaker for the 30th Kenner Lecture. We are honored to have someone of his stature for such a milestone year and look forward to the perspective he will bring to this important conversation.”

Zakaria hosts “Fareed Zakaria GPS” for CNN Worldwide. He is a columnist for The Washington Post and a bestselling author. 

“Fareed Zakaria GPS” is a weekly international and domestic affairs program that airs around the world on CNN. Since its debut in 2008, it has featured interviews with Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron, Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Condoleezza Rice, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Greta Thunberg and the Dalai Lama, among others. 

His work has been recognized with three Emmys, and his weekly show has won the prestigious Peabody Award. “Fareed’s Global Briefing,” a daily digital newsletter, is one of the most widely read of CNN’s newsletters around the world. His column for The Washington Post remains one of the longest running for that newspaper.

Zakaria is the author of five highly regarded New York Times bestselling books. His most recent release, “Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 to the Present,” debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times bestseller list and was called “the indispensable book for understanding the world today” by Walter Isaacson. The book offers insight into how societies have historically embraced and resisted change to help readers better comprehend the four major revolutions in economics, technology, identity and geopolitics that are shaping our unstable and polarized world today. 

Previous titles include “Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World,” on how the pandemic reshaped society; “The Post-American World,” a discussion of the rise of non-Western powers; “The Future of Freedom” (2003), a study of “illiberal democracy” in various countries; and “In Defense of a Liberal Education” (2015), a commentary on the importance of a well-rounded education. Three of these were international bestsellers, translated into more than 20 languages. 

Zakaria was named a “Top 10 Global Thinker of the Last 10 Years” by Foreign Policy magazine in 2019, and Esquire called him “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation.” He has received a National Magazine Award, the Arthur Ross Media Award from the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the Deadline Club Award. In 2010, the government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, one of its highest civilian honors, and in 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded him the Order of Merit. 

Before joining CNN, Zakaria was editor of Newsweek International, managing editor of Foreign Affairs, a columnist for Time, an analyst for ABC News and the host of “Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria” on PBS. 

Zakaria earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a doctorate in political science from Harvard University, and he has received numerous honorary degrees. 

Hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences, Jeffrey L. Kenner ’65, ’66 endowed the Kenner Lecture series and established it in 1997. Kenner, who studied industrial engineering and business administration at Lehigh, became involved in private equity and venture capital after a career as a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (then Price Waterhouse & Co.). 

In 1986, Kenner formed his own firm, Kenner & Company Inc. He served as a university trustee from 1995 to 2002 and was an early sponsor of the Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE) Honors Program. Kenner has long been a member of the university’s Asa Packer and Tower Societies and was inducted into Leadership Plaza in October 2000. 

Previous lecture speakers include former United States secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist Thomas Friedman; former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney; Pulitzer Prize-winning author and The Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum; and New York Times columnist, podcast host and author Ezra Klein.