Gill Pritchard appointed Director of Strategy and Public Value

1 August 2008

Gill Pritchard, Group Director of Strategy and Public Value

Channel 4 has appointed Gill Pritchard as its Group Director of Strategy and Public Value.

Pritchard, who is currently Director of Children's for BBC Worldwide, takes up her post at Channel 4 in September, reporting directly to Chief Executive Andy Duncan. She will join the Group's senior executive management team. 

She replaces Jonathan Thompson who quit Channel 4 in May to join Ofcom as Director of Strategy.

In addition to leading corporate strategy across the Channel 4 Group and working with business heads to develop the Group's commercial strategy, Pritchard will take on an extended brief monitoring Channel 4's delivery of public value.

As part of its Next on 4 strategic blueprint launched in March this year, Channel 4 has undertaken to Ofcom to introduce a new basket of measures to demonstrate more effectively the public value delivered by its activities. Pritchard will be responsible for finalising the development of and implementing this new system of monitoring.

Duncan said: "Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide are both ultimately focused on delivering public ends through commercial means and I believe Gill will bring a lot of relevant experience to this new role. We're delighted to have attracted someone of her dynamism and calibre to the senior executive team at Channel 4."

Pritchard added: "Next on 4 has outlined a very clear strategic blueprint of the ambitious public service role that Channel 4 aims to play in the fully digital media future.

"I'm excited by the ongoing challenge of finalising a strategy for funding Channel 4's public service ambitions, including helping to develop its commercial strategy, at the same time as demonstrating the public value of the Group's programmes and services to help make the case for new forms of public support."

Gill Pritchard has held a number of senior management roles since joining BBC Worldwide in July 2003. Since September 2007 she has been director of the company's Children's division, responsible for overseeing the commercial exploitation of more than 50 key BBC brands including In the Night Garden and Charlie and Lola.

Before taking on her current post she led BBC Worldwide's involvement in its Kangaroo video-on-demand joint venture with ITV and Channel 4 and served as BBC Worldwide's Head of Strategy. She joined BBC Worldwide from Deloitte & Touche, where she spent four years consulting across a range of industries, including a four-month secondment to Channel 4 to help conduct a review of its former commercial arm, 4Ventures.