Carrie Gracie grew up in northeast Scotland and set up a restaurant before taking a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. She spent a year teaching in two Chinese universities and then built a small film business before joining the BBC in 1987 as a trainee producer. In 2014, she took up a newly created post as BBC China editor and covered all key news stories in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In January 2018, Carrie left her post as BBC China editor in protest at unequal pay, publishing an open letter to BBC audiences and giving evidence at a parliamentary select committee. She returned to BBC HQ as a news presenter and continued to campaign for an equal, fair and transparent pay structure at the national broadcaster. In September 2019 she published her first book Equal: How We Fix the Gender Pay Gap and in 2020 she left the BBC to pursue other projects.