Alan Yentob
| Alan Yentob | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Alan Yentob 11 March 1947 Stepney, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Television executive, broadcaster |
| Spouse(s) | Philippa Walker |
| Children | 2 |
Alan Yentob (born 11 March 1947) is a British television executive and presenter. He has spent his entire career at the BBC from where he stepped down as Creative Director in December 2015 and served as chairman of the board of trustees for Kids Company from 2003 until the collapse of the charity in 2015.
Alan Yentob was born into an Iraqi Jewish family in Stepney, London. Soon after he was born, his family moved to Manchester where his father ran a textile business, Dewhurst Dent, in which he still owns a 10% share. He grew up in Didsbury, a suburb of Manchester, and returned to London with his family when he was 12 to live in a flat on Park Lane. He was a boarder at the independent The King's School in Ely, Cambridgeshire. He passed his A Levels and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and spent a year at Grenoble University. He went on to study Law at Leeds University, where he got involved in student drama. He graduated with a lower second class degree (2:2) in 1967.
He joined the BBC as a trainee in the BBC World Service in 1968 as its only non-Oxbridge graduate of that year. Nine months later he moved into TV to become an assistant director on arts programmes.
In 1973, he became a producer and director, working on the high-profile documentary series Omnibus, for which, in 1975, he made a film called Cracked Actor about the musician David Bowie. In 1975, he helped initiate another BBC documentary series, Arena, of which he was to remain the editor until 1985. The series still returns for semi-regular editions as of 2014[update].
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