A state-trained Welsh speaker will be the acting BBC chairman following the resignation of Richard Sharp.
Professor Dame Elan Closs Stephens was appointed on Friday by Lucy Frazer, the Minister for Culture, to head the BBC’s board for 12 months or until a new permanent chair is found.
The Oxford graduate vowed to “defend the license fee payer across the UK”.
It comes after Mr Sharp, 67, resigned in April after it was found he had breached public appointment rules by failing to disclose his involvement in facilitating an £800,000 loan to Boris Johnson.
Professor Stephens, a mother of two who lives in Aberystwyth, has been a member of the BBC’s governing body since 2010 and served as chairman of Welsh-language broadcaster S4C and a non-executive director for two terms between 1998 and 2006. director.
From public school to Oxford
She is currently Pro Chancellor and Professor Emerita in Communications and Creative Industries at Aberystwyth University, in addition to her role as Electoral Commissioner for Wales and a member of the UK Electoral Commission Board.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said that “Dame Elan is a native Welsh speaker” and was “educated at Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle, a comprehensive school in the quarry valleys of North Wales and won an open scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford”.
