New Board appointments for Channel 4

29 November 2016

Ofcom today announced the appointment of four new non-executive directors to the Board of Channel 4.

These are:

Simon Bax

Simon Bax is Chairman of media group Archant and Chairman of Wispire, which provides rural broadband services. Simon was previously European Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Pixar Animation Studios, and President of Studio Operations and CFO of Fox Filmed Entertainment. He is also a non-executive director of SVG Capital, Inmarsat and Pulsant.

 

Paul Geddes

Paul Geddes is Chief Executive Officer of Direct Line Insurance Group, having held a variety of CEO and Marketing Director roles in the financial services and retail sectors. Paul is a non-executive director of the Association of British Insurers.

 

Christopher Holmes

Lord (Christopher) Holmes is a Director of a niche innovation and change consultancy. He is also Deputy Chancellor at BPP University. Chris was a Director at Locog and previously practised as a solicitor. Britain’s most successful Paralympic swimmer, Chris is also a non-executive director of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and was a non-executive at UK Sport.

 

Roly Keating

Roly Keating became Chief Executive of the British Library in 2012, following an extensive career at the BBC where his roles included the Controllerships of BBC Two and BBC Four, Head of Programming at UKTV and Director of Archive Content.

 

The appointments were approved by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Karen Bradley MP.

Ofcom is required under the Broadcasting Act 1990 to appoint non-executive members to the Channel 4 Board, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State.

 

Notes to Editors

The new Board members replace Monica Burch, Alicja Lesniak and Richard Rivers, whose terms came to an end in September 2016. Lord (Mark) Price, previously Deputy Chairman of Channel 4, was by replaced existing Board member MT Rainey in April 2016.