Geraint Talfan Davies

Geraint Talfan Davies OBE DL (born 30 December 1943) is chairman of Welsh National Opera. He is also one of the co-founders of the Institute of Welsh Affairs and was its chairman from 1992 to 2014. He is a former chairman of the Arts Council of Wales. A journalist by training, he moved into broadcasting and was controller of BBC Cymru Wales from 1990 to 2000.

Davies was born in Carmarthen in 1943 to Mary Anne Davies (d. 1971) and Aneirin Talfan Davies (d. 1980), a Welsh broadcaster, literary critic and poet.

Educated at Bishop Gore Grammar School, Swansea and Cardiff High School for Boys, Davies went on to read Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford, graduating in 1966. In 1967 he married Elizabeth Siân Vaughan Yorath, with whom he has three sons.

Davies' career began in 1966 as a graduate trainee with the Western Mail newspaper in Cardiff, where he became its first Welsh Affairs Correspondent. In 1971 he moved to The Journal newspaper in Newcastle upon Tyne, relocating to The Times in London in 1973 where he worked for a year, before returning to the Western Mail in 1974 as Assistant Editor.

In 1978, Davies moved into broadcasting, as the Head of News and Current Affairs with HTV Wales, becoming assistant controller of programmes in 1982.

He returned to Newcastle in 1987, as director of programmes for Tyne Tees Television. 1990 saw his return to Cardiff, at the start of his ten-year stint as controller of BBC Wales, a position that included overall responsibility for the BBC's television and radio operations in Wales, and the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales. Davies retired from the BBC in 2000, at the age of 57. He was succeeded by Menna Richards. His son, Rhodri Talfan Davies, was appointed director of BBC Wales in 2011.

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