Ofcom appoints Althea Efunshile to Channel 4 Board

Efunshile was rejected by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley last year in favour of four white men

Ofcom has appointed four new non-executive directors to Channel 4’s Board.

The appointments, which have been approved by the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, Karen Bradley MP, include Althea Efunshile, Uzma Hasan, Fru Hazlitt and Tom Hooper.

Efunshile CBE is chair of the National College Creative Industries, and also a non-executive director of Goldsmiths College and University College London NHS Foundation Trust.

She was the only one of five candidates for Channel 4’s board rejected by Bradley in November 2016, while four white men were approved, which at the time meant just three of Channel 4’s 13 board members were women and all were white.

Hasan is a producer and co-founder of Little House Productions and is currently developing BAFTA nominee Ritesh Batra’s next film.

Hazlitt is currently a non-executive director at Merlin Entertainments and has also held other senior executive positions at ITV, GCap Media and Virgin Radio.

Oscar-winning director, Tom Hooper, has also been appointed to the Board, and had his first professional short broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992.