Helen Boaden (born 1 March 1956) is the director of BBC News, part of the world’s biggest broadcast news operation (BBC Journalism). Boaden controls much of the BBC's domestic news output along with current affairs, including programmes such as Newsnight and Panorama.

Boaden attended Colchester County High School for Girls and Cedars Grammar School, Leighton Buzzard before gaining a BA Hons in English Literature at the University of Sussex.

Boaden started as a journalist with the New York radio station WBAI in 1979. On returning to the UK, she took a course in Radio Journalism at the London College of Printing (now the London College of Communication). After Radio Tees and Radio Aire, she joined the BBC in 1983 as a news producer with Radio Leeds. From there, she joined BBC Radio 4 as a reporter on the File on 4 series, then as its editor from 1991. Boaden worked from the BBC in Manchester as a presenter for Woman's Hour and later presented other documentaries for Radio 4, and also for the Brass Tacks political programme on BBC Two.