Tony Hall

BA PPE 1970
Honorary Fellow
Lord Hall of Birkenhead CBE
Director General of the BBC

Tony Hall—Lord Hall of Birkenhead—is one of the key figures in the UK’s media and arts industry. As Director-General, he is the editorial, operational and creative leader of the BBC. He oversees all the Corporation’s services within the UK and around the world, both public service and commercial.

He joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1973, and after a 20-year career as a senior journalist and editor, he became Chief Executive of BBC News and Current Affairs, responsible for all of BBC News’ output across the UK and the world.

In 2001 he left the Corporation and, for more than a decade, was in charge of the Royal Opera House which incorporates the Royal Opera, one of the world’s leading opera companies, and the Royal Ballet, the UK’s largest ballet company.

He re-joined the BBC in 2013 as its 16th Director-General.

He was previously a non-executive director, and Deputy Chairman, of Channel 4. In 2009 he was asked by the Government and the Mayor of London to join the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and chair the Cultural Olympiad Board.

In 2006 Tony Hall was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Opera and Ballet. He was made a life peer in 2010. He is a Trustee of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, one of the largest independent grant-making foundations in the UK.

In the summer of 2018, Tony was elected as the new President of the European Broadcasting Union, a post he took up in January 2019.

“I saw Keble first on a dark, dreary December day. It felt terrifying. But I owe the place so much. I was the first in my family to go to University and Keble opened my eyes to a whole new world. It was genuinely transformational.”