Dawn Airey

Dawn Elizabeth Airey, (born 15 November 1960, Preston in Lancashire) is the Chief executive officer (CEO) of Getty Images since 12 October 2015. She was senior vice president of Yahoo’s business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, responsible for advertising. She was previously a British commercial television executive, chairman and chief executive of Channel 5, the UK television station now owned by Viacom International Media Networks, a division of Viacom Inc.

Airey was educated at Girton College, Cambridge where she read Geography. She had attended a local comprehensive, then a boys' private school (Kelly College) which had a mixed sixth form.

Airey joined Central Independent Television in 1985 as a General Trainee under the wing of then director of programmes, Andy Allen. Promotion followed. In 1989 she became Director of Programme Planning at Central and was appointed to the Central broadcasting board. When the ITV Network Centre was established in 1993, she moved to London to become the first Controller of Children's and Daytime Programmes.

In 1994, she became Controller of Arts and Entertainment at Channel 4, chaired by Michael Grade. It was reported in The Sunday Times that her forthright manner had earned her the soubriquets "Scary Airey" and "Zulu Dawn".

Airey joined Channel 5 in 1996, the year before its launch, as its first director of programmes. It was during her tenure that she famously agreed with an interviewer that some might think the channel's core strengths were "films, football and fucking" but added it was about a lot more. She was subsequently appointed as chief executive of the channel in 2000.

In 2002, it was widely touted that ITV plc was hoping to recruit Airey as its chief executive. However she surprised the television industry by instead accepting a position at the satellite broadcaster, BSkyB. There she was responsible for running all Sky channels, except Sky Sports, and was placed in charge of programming and advertising sales. In 2006 she was made Managing Director of Channels and Services whereupon she gained additional responsibility for all third party channels, joint ventures and networked media.

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