Timothy Douglas Davie is a British television executive. He will be the seventeenth Director-General of the BBC from September 2020, when he will succeed Tony Hall in the role. He is currently the chief executive officer of BBC Studios. He served as acting Director-General of the BBC following George Entwistle's resignation in November 2012 until Lord Hall took over the role permanently in April 2013. During his time as acting director-general he oversaw the investigations into BBC management and conduct following revelations the broadcaster had known about sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile and then made false accusations against Alistair McAlpine.
Career
Davie won a scholarship to attend Whitgift School in Croydon, and studied English at Selwyn College, Cambridge, being the first in his family to attend University. He joined Procter & Gamble as a trainee in 1991. Appointed UK Marketing Manager for PepsiCo in 1993, Davie was subsequently promoted to Vice-President, Marketing, Europe and Sub-Sahara Africa, holding several similar appointments, including in the United States, before taking up the Vice-President for Marketing and Franchise post. Davie stood as a councillor for the Conservative Party in Hammersmith in 1993 and 1994 and was deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and FulhamConservative party in the 1990s.
BBC
Davie joined the BBC as Director of Marketing, Communications and Audiences in April 2005, succeeding Andy Duncan. He was Director-General Mark Thompson's first senior external appointment. In June 2008, it was announced that he was replacing Jenny Abramsky, who served at the BBC for 39 years before leaving to chair the Heritage Lottery Fund. Appointed Director of Audio & Music, he sat on the BBC's Executive Board with overall responsibility for all of the BBC's national radio networks and the corporation's music output across all media. This included BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4; as well as the BBC digital radio stations BBC Asian Network, BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC 7; the three BBC Orchestras based in England; and The Proms. During this time he was involved in abandoned plans to close down Radio 6 Music and the Asian Network. In July 2009 he was on The Guardian's list of the 100 most influential people in the media. Davie took over as acting Director-General on 11 November 2012 following the resignation of George Entwistle in the wake of the Newsnight broadcast which did not name any individual but which led to Internet speculation which incorrectly identified Conservative Lord McAlpine in the North Wales child abuse case. He became chief executive officer of BBC Worldwide following the appointment of Tony Hall. BBC Worldwide merged with the TV-making arm of the BBC, BBC Studios, in April 2018 and Davie served as both the Chief Executive of BBC Studios and a Director globally. He was awarded a CBE in 2018, for services to international trade. In 2019 he earned £642,000 and was the BBC's highest paid executive. In January 2020, Tony Hall announced he was resigning from the Director-General's position before the scheduled end of his tenure. In May 2020, Davie appeared amongst the four candidates shortlisted to succeed Hall in the coveted position. On 5 June 2020, it was announced he would lead the corporation as its seventeenth Director-General from September of that year.
