Who is Rona Fairhead?

It’s difficult to explain how Rona Fairhead rose to the top of the pile to become the BBC Trust’s new chair, says Raymond Snoddy. Her appointment is certainly capable of making an impact – and also posing a threat to the BBC…

Who is Rona and why on earth has she been chosen to be the first woman to chair the BBC Trust and what will she do when she takes over?

The first question is the easiest to answer. Rona Fairhead is a tough businesswoman who was finance director of Pearson before running the Financial Times Group within the media and educational publishing empire.

She is reminiscent of the breed of capable women such as Dianne Thompson, the out-going chief executive of Camelot, the national lottery operator. They are the sort of women you underestimate at your peril.

By all accounts she did a good job running the FT although, unsurprisingly, Fairhead tended to be overshadowed by her inspirational boss, Dame Marjorie Scardino.

It was a shock when she was passed over for the top job at Pearson in favour of a younger man, John Fallon, when Dame Marjorie retired. She expressed her disappointment in the traditional way – by leaving.

Despite that, Fairhead has extensive business credentials and a law degree to boot.

Some, however, might think that a total lack of experience of broadcasting or formal politics might constitute a disadvantage; but then again, it has never stopped others in the past.

How a name little known outside corporate boardrooms rose to the top of this particular pile is a little more difficult to explain, although it is probably possible to join up some dots.

Dame Marjorie is almost certainly one of the keys. In the desperate hunt for someone plausible, who was prepared to occupy the bed of nails after Lord Coe politely declined, she would certainly have been approached.

Far too sensible to actually accept and while making money as a non-executive director at Twitter, Dame Majorie played the obvious card and may have suggested her protégé to get the head-hunters off her back.

Her name could also have surfaced in political circles. Her husband Tom Fairhead is a former Conservative councillor for Kensington and Chelsea, and according to the Daily Mail the Fairheads are friendly with Chancellor George Osborne and his wife.

The crucial link was probably the fact that she was a non-executive director of The Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heyward just happens to be involved in the Trust selection process. She stood down from the Cabinet role as soon as she became “the preferred” candidate.

Put like that it’s a wonder she didn’t get the job weeks earlier.

And although she is probably a spiritual Tory, at least Rona Fairhead is not an overt political animal, unlike another female candidate for the position, the former journalist Dame Patience Wheatcroft.

There is one final hurdle left before Fairhead mounts the throne – next week’s grilling by MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

It’s not clear whether the Committee could actually block the appointment but they could do serious damage on two obvious counts.

MPs will want to know, as a non-executive director of HSBC, what she knew and what actions she took over the bank’s money-laundering scandal. It led to the bank being fined £1.2 billion for breaches of US law.

More personal and perhaps more telling, Fairhead will face questions about the £1.1 million she received when leaving Pearson, a payment that led to considerable opposition from shareholders. Parallels with the BBC leaving payments made to deputy director general Mark Byford beyond his contractual entitlement will inevitably be drawn.

If she survives the ordeal, which will be merely a gentle introduction to the realities of running the BBC Trust, what sort of a job will she do and what will her in-tray look like?

She has already agreed during the interview process that she is prepared to look anew at the licence fee, and also presumably the future of the body she will chair.

With a new 10-year-Royal Charter up for negotiation it is right to go back to first principles and that includes questioning the licence fee.

But to save a little time it is easy to predict that after an extensive review it will be clear that the licence fee is still the least bad system, if you want to have a properly funded national broadcaster for the entire population.

Effort should then turn to the real issues – making the licence fee fairer and more practical to collect.

Rona Fairhead and the Trust should use their powers of persuasion to campaign for cut-price licence fees – say half – for those on social security, paid for in part by a reduced fee, rather a free licence for the over 75s.

The licence fee also needs to be future proofed by making it a household payment independent of any particular device.

It would also be good to avoid wasting too much time on debating the existence of the Trust and instead concentrate on clearer and better explained definitions of its responsibilities so that in future MPs will be less confused on the issue.

As for areas worthy of review she might make a start by having a look at Lord Hall’s decision to pull the plug on BBC Three as a broadcast channel. An online presence alone will reduce its impact and with it cut a vital link with young audiences of the future.

Many questions also arise from Lord Hall’s decision to open up all BBC production, apart from news to competition and make BBC production a supplier like any other. The long-term consequences could be damaging to both the BBC and British-owned production.

The appointment of Rona Fairhead poses two main dangers. One is that as someone who knows mainly business, she will see the BBC as a business like any other when it is no such thing.

The greater threat is that as a friend of Osborne she will take on his predilection for a considerably smaller BBC and one that needs radical change.

The good news is that many have been appointed by politicians to chair the BBC and do the dirty work of a Government – Stuart Young, an accountant and Duke Hussey, a Murdoch executive on The Times – come to mind.

Both quickly took on the ethos of the task and the place and defended the BBC against interference by politicians.

Rona Fairhead is capable of doing the same.