Ninka Mbaye

Ninka Mbaye is a documentary presenter, journalist and producer specialising in immersive, character-led storytelling.

Born to a French mother and Senegalese father and raised in the UK, she is a bilingual third-culture storyteller working across the UK and both Francophone and Anglophone Africa.

Ninka has spent nearly a decade producing and reporting across international platforms including CNN, The Guardian, Deutsche Welle, Canal+ and TRACE. Her work spans culture, identity and social issues, with a strong focus on human stories shaped by complex environments.

In 2024, Ninka self-funded, presented and produced an immersive documentary in Durban, later acquired by DW Documentaries. The film went on to reach over 400,000 views on YouTube, with accompanying social content surpassing 3 million views.

The project marked a shift in her approach to storytelling, demonstrating the appetite for intimate, access-driven documentaries across global digital audiences.

She has also appeared as a guest presenter on CNN’s Inside Africa, fronting an episode on the global rise of Amapiano, and has developed and presented original formats across both broadcast and digital platforms.

She is currently developing LAYERS, a YouTube-native documentary platform producing a slate of films across the UK and South Africa, with plans to expand internationally. The project explores themes including police brutality, hitman industry, underground economies, the adult industry, disability and parenting, and identity after sobriety.

As a presenter, Ninka is known for her ability to build trust quickly and gain access to deeply personal and often guarded worlds. Her work is intimate, immersive and emotionally driven, bringing audiences closer to people and perspectives rarely seen on screen.

She is particularly interested in presenter-led investigative and access-driven formats exploring social issues, subcultures and global human stories, in the vein of Unreported World.