Biography
Her father worked as an architect. After attending school, she began studying politics, English and history at the universities of Cologne and Berlin in 1985. In 1990 she completed her studies with a master's degree in Cologne. While still studying, Will took up journalistic internships. She wrote as a freelancer for the daily newspapers "Kölnische Rundschau" and "Berliner Volksblatt". This was followed in 1990/91 by a traineeship at the radio station "Sender Freies Berlin". Towards the end of 1992, Will switched to the third Berlin television channel "SFB1", for which she moderated the "Sportpalast" and the political talk "Mal Ehrlich". In 1996, Will joined WDR, where Will gained wider popularity through the talk show "Parlazzo" by the end of 1998. In 1999 she was the first woman to take over the moderation of the renowned "Sportschau" on ARD. In this role she became known to a larger television audience, especially on the occasion of the live broadcasts of the Olympic Games in Sydney.
In the spring of 2001, Gabi Bauer finally made the jump to presenter of "Tagesthemen" after Gabi Bauer withdrew from ARD's most important news program for personal reasons. The journalist then proved herself in moderating the "Tagesthemen", in which she alternated with the editorial director Ulrich Wickert until his departure in 2006. From March 2005, the Tagesthemen presenter could also be heard on the radio, where she presented the program "Klassik à la carte" for NDR Kultur. In addition to many show greats, Anne Will also took part in the Live 8 Festival initiated by Sir Bob Geldof on July 2, 2005. In mid-September 2005, Will was awarded the "International B.A.U.M. Special Prize" from the Federal German Working Group for Environmentally Conscious Management (B.A.U.M.). She was also awarded the "German Television Prize" in 2006 in the "Best Moderation Information" category. She moderated her last program "Tagesthemen" on June 24, 2007; she was then replaced by Caren Miosga.
She was then appointed as Sabine Christiansen's successor for her political talk show, which was broadcast for the first time on September 16, 2007 under the name "Anne Will". It is produced by "Will Media GmbH", whose managing directors are Anne Will and Mark Nowak. In the same year, 2007, Anne Will was awarded the "Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Prize". In 2013, Will moderated the television duel for the federal election between Angela Merkel and Peer Steinbrück together with Maybrit Illner, Peter Kloeppel and Stefan Raab on the five channels Das Erste, ZDF, RTL, ProSieben and Phoenix. Meanwhile, her relationship with communication scientist Miriam Meckel became public, with whom she entered into a registered civil partnership in 2016. The couple announced their separation in November 2019.
