On the very day Lady Diana was born in England and Carl Lewis in the United States, in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, Barbara Gantenbein saw the light of day.

Aged eight she already contributed articles to the kids' page of German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau.

Coming from a family of journalists and authors she seemed to be cut out for the same profession. Instead, upon graduating from school, she went to Australia and Malaysia.

On returning to Germany, Barbara Gantenbein went into advertising. While still training on the job as a copy writer, she started her studies at Frankfurt Academy for Marketing & Communications, which she finished in due course best of her year.

Starting as junior copywriter, she rapidly climbed the career ladder working for internationally renowned advertising agencies such as Lürzer, Conrad & Leo Burnett, Scholz & Friends, Lintas and J.W.Thompson.

Flirting with journalism again, she took a time out as publisher of a German-speaking newspaper on the Spanish island of Ibiza. But it wasn’t until years later during a memorable meeting in the Italian city of Milano where for hours clients from seven different countries debated the length of an actress’ skirt in a planned commercial, that she decided she had to change track. Leaving her position as creative group head, she moved into media and started from scratch.

At Hannover-based radio Antenne Niedersachsen she underwent her journalistic training and soon hosted her own daily show, worked as prime time news anchor and entertained her listeners with offbeat radio features.

When the Berlin Wall came down, Germany’s traditional capital was the place to be. So Barbara Gantenbein and her husband moved east. She started to work for 104.6 RTL radio station and proceeded to take a degree in psychology at Berlin Free University.

With German TV station Sat.1 she belonged to the pioneers of German morning shows. For almost 18 years she worked on and off camera for the program, be it as news anchor, desk editor or reporter. She produced well over 800 pieces, about 200 of which she shot and edited singlehanded as a video journalist. Moreover, while creating the car special “Autotipp”, as on camera-presenter she test-drove cars of all makes as well as motorbikes around racecourses from Atlanta to Spanish Jerez de la Frontera and from German Nürburgring to Belgian Spa.

Ever thrill seeking, she got her kicks from sky diving, skiing, show jumping and riding off-road motorbikes through the jungle in her time off.

It wasn’t until her son was born that she finally took things easier and nowadays relaxes with her family on the family’s sailing boat or writes thrillers.

Today, Barbara Gantenbein works as a journalist and author and runs her own Newsbureau, supplying news reports to clients all over the world.