Rona Fairhead
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Rona Fairhead CBE |
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| Chairman of the BBC Trust | |
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Assumed office 9 October 2014 |
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| Preceded by |
Chris Patten Diane Coyle (Acting) |
| Deputy | Sir Roger Carr |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Rona Alison Haig 28 August 1961 Cumbria, United Kingdom |
| Spouse(s) | Thomas Edwin Fairhead |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | |
Rona Alison Fairhead, CBE (née Haig; born 28 August 1961) is Chairman of the BBC Trust. She is the first woman to hold the post.
Fairhead was born Rona Haig in Cumbria in 1961 and educated at Yarm Grammar School, near , North East England before attending St Catharine's College, Cambridge; she was president of the University's law society before graduating with a double first in law (B.A). She later obtained a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
Fairhead's early business career was spent at Bain & Company and Morgan Stanley in the 1980s before she moved to British Aerospace as an independent consultant in 1991. Later in 1991 she moved to Short Brothers shortly after it was bought by Bombardier Inc. She rose to become vice-president for corporate strategy and public affairs in 1994 and then vice-president, UK aerospace services in 1995.
In 1996, she became director of planning and acquisitions for Imperial Chemical Industries before joining the company's executive management team as executive vice-president for planning and communications in 1997, and continuing as executive vice-president for strategy and control from 1998 to 2001. From 2002 to 2006, Fairhead served as chief financial officer for Pearson PLC.
Fairhead moved to the Financial Times Group (a subsidiary of Pearson) in 2006 as chief executive. She oversaw the sale of several of the group's other titles during her tenure. She has also served as a non-executive director on the boards of several large corporations, including PepsiCo, and is a former Director of HSBC Holdings and former "business ambassador" for UK Trade & Investment. She stepped down from her Financial Times role in 2013 after being overlooked for the position of Chair of the Pearson Group when the post was vacated by the previous incumbent, Marjorie Scardino. Her leaving package was estimated to be worth over £1 million in addition to stock options estimated at over £3 million—a contributing factor to a shareholder revolt at Pearson's annual general meeting in April 2014.
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