Samantha Renke

Samantha Renke is an award-wining actor, broadcaster, speaker, author, journalist and disability rights campaigner who was named as third on The Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 List of 2020; a list of the UK's most influential disabled people. She was also named in The Shaw Trust’s Disability Power 100 Lists of 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 as well as being nominated as Campaigner Of The Year at the 2019 European Diversity Awards and Celebrity Of The Year at the 2020 National Diversity Awards.

Samantha's TV and radio credits include Morning Live (BBC One), Sunday Morning Live (BBC One), Rip Off Britain (BBC One), Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (BBC Two), Loose Women (ITV), Lorraine (ITV), How To Spend It Well At Christmas (ITV), How To Beat Ageing (Channel 4), Jeremy Vine on 5 (Channel 5), The Disability Paradox (BBC Four), The Steve Wright Show (BBC Radio 2), Saturday Live (BBC Radio 4), Word Of Mouth (BBC Radio 4) and Front Row (BBC Radio 4). She has also been interviewed on BBC News (TV & Radio), ITV News, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News and Sky News.

Samantha's debut book, You're The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, was published by Ebury on behalf of Fearne Cotton's Happy Place book imprint in 2022. Samantha is also a columnist for the Metro and has written for The Huffington Post and PosAbility magazine.

Samantha featured in the highly successful series of adverts for Maltesers for Channel 4 based on real-life experiences of disabled people and has collaborated with brands such as Amazon Prime Video. Her other acting credits include playing the lead role of Alice in the feature-length film, Little Devil, for which she won Best Actress at the 2014 Los Angeles Diversity Film Festival. Little Devil, which also won the Diversity In The Arts Award at the same festival, was co-produced by Samantha and Max Barber for Born This Way Media. In 2021, Born This Way Media was named as one of PACT UK's Future 30 Indies.

Samantha is also an experienced speaker having spoken at events for companies and organisations such as UNICEF, the National Education Union, Viacom, the Houses of Parliament, the British Red Cross, COS Fashion, Retail Week and ASOS.

Samantha is an ambassador for Scope, ADD International and Parallel Global, and a patron of Head2Head Theatre.